WinMike, Victory S&W...

45er

Howdy WM,

Got locked out on Startingover's thread-- Thanks for your imput about changing the Victory caliber/cylinder from .38-S&W to .38-Spl in regard to barrel size & accuracy.

I'd looked into just that and realize it is a possibly accuracy may suffer. Asking around, here and elsewhere, got the whole gammet of: yes it will; no it won't; and everything in-between.

Still decided to give it a go as already reload for a few Specials, so have the componets/dies at hand. Plus, the revolver is no pristine beauty... a knocked around rough & hard war veteran, then police marked, so for sure not expecting nothin' great-- just want to shoot the darn thing. Affordably*. Surprisingly, the barrel is in quite good shape, and maybe able to tighten accuracy up with over-size cast bullets? We'll see.

That all said, no one has given personal 1st hand experience with such a change out. If have so, would like to hear the results and pointers on their project. As what I call it.

*P.S. Price of .38-S&W-- near collector value, so beyond me to be kerplunkin' away with.

EDIT APR.20: Winmike, about what time it is? Well, what with yours, cussed's, & rufes combined info-overload, time is to further scratch my head as well as now scratch my butt? hah. Seriously, thank you all three for responding.
Time is now to ponder which route to go, yet am still leaning toward the change out-- already have an in-the-box new parkerized 38-Spcl. cylinder; do not wish to purchase dies/brass for .38-S&W; have heard about the swelling and shortened case life splits using Spcl brass in original cyl, etc. Collector value? As said, though functions fine, cosmetically this (import marked) Victory is beat up to uglyness which is one reason why I picked it up for a song some 20-25 years ago, and will still have in possession the original cylinder. I can see it @ $150 as sits, never $300.
The only factor left is finding a 'smithy competent with the cylinder timing who won't charge an arm and a leg before giving the nod to. Thinking of ringing up S&W, see what they have to say about that.

45er

rufe-snow

If you already load for .38 Special, all you have to do is to trim the brass to the correct length for the .38 S & W chamber. Reload with with standard .38 bullets, using the correct .38 S & W data from the reloading manuals. For short range shooting that is normally done with a revolver, the slightly oversized groove diameter of the barrel won't cause that much loss of accuracy.

cussedemgun

45er,

rufe-snow gives GOOD advice!

One step further is to load the shortened S&W length brass with hollow base wad-cutter bullets. The HB wad-cutter will expand under pressure & fill the larger bore for a better gas seal.

The old 'Victory' models have a collector following & part of their appeal is the character that all the bumps, bruses, & stampings reflect. The conversion you plan will cost as much as you will lower it's value. For $150 in work, you will lower a $300 collector to a $150 shooter.

Can you do it, yes.
Do I reccomend it, not only NO, but HE!! NO!

Jim

WinMike

Oh, oh. This might be one of those situations where you asked the time and I tell you how a clock works. Bear with me.

Here's my experience: good buddy has a Victory he's inherited. We're out shooting one day, and Dan's mumbling over in the next booth how his dear departed daddy's Victory makes nice, crappy shotgun patterns, but won't group for beans. He's shooting .38 Special ammo.

"Well, hey," I sez, "lookee here! Your fired brass has expanded to kinda a lovely bottled-neck. The portion of the brass in the chamber has expanded, but the front of the brass has not. Your fired brass now won't fit into any of the three .357/.38 Special revolvers we've brought along."

We realized that .38 Special brass (which is .380" longer than .38 S&W), when fired, was expanding to fit his .38 S&W chambers, but the front open end of the brass, which is long enough to fit into the front of the cylinder where the .361" .38 S&W bullet lives, was expanding only to .361". Ergo, a 2-diameter empty brass, i.e., inadvertent bottle-neck brass.

And, of course, the main portion of the brass that had expanded, now would not fit into a .38 Special/.357 cylinder. That's because unfired .38 S&W brass is .386" diameter, and .38 Special/.357, etc., is .379" in diameter, so, of course, the corresponding revolver cylinders have different diameter bores. (I've always thought it ironic that the milder .38 S&W cartridge was larger in diameter than the more powerful .38 Special/.357 Magnum/.357 Maximum...but maybe that's just me).

You can do the same: go ahead and shoot (mild) .38 Special cartridges in your .38 S&W. The gun is strong enough: as we noted in the other post, it's a typical M&P (later K-frame, later yet, Model 10), and during WWII, Smith and Wesson produced thousands of Victory models, all of which had the same frame, same triggers, hammers and other innards, differing only in cylinder/barrels, some of which were .38 S&W, others were .38 Special.

The only consequence in shooting mild .38 Specials in a Victory .38 S&W is that, in my experience, the .38 Special bullet will rattle down the S&W barrel (if a difference of .003" can be termed as rattling) and consequently will rarely....if ever...go to where you'd really like it to go.

(caveat---warning!: .38 S&W were originally chambered in various top-break revolvers and those firearms do not have the strength of a solid frame M&P. Don't shoot .38 Special cartridges in any top-break .38 S&W revolver!!!)

We tried, as suggested above, cutting down the brass, and loading the softest .38 Special wadcutters we could find (Speer), with no luck (perhaps other posters have had different results).

So what did we do? Since I hand load, we ordered .38 S&W dies (Lee), .38 S&W brass (Star makes 'em), the correct diameter (.359-.361") lead bullets (various), and made our own. We ended up creating "hot" .38 S&W loads (which are still milder than any .38 Special loads). His daddy's Victory model shoots very accurately now, thank you, and he's enjoying it very much.

We've even attempted to replicate the old British 38-200 (38 S&W with a 200 gr. lead bullet...there's an interesting history lesson): we loaded .358" lead 190 gr. rifle bullets, but with not as much success. We'll keep playing around.

Since you already hand load, now you have an excuse to expand your horizons (don't laugh...years ago, a dalliance with Winchester Mdl 71 in.348 Winchester started me down the road to Purgation, and I now load for 23 different calibers [:0]). Otherwise, start looking for loaded .38 S&W ammo....I see it occasionally.

But others advice is correct: don't screw up a perfectly nice WWII Victory by installing a mis-matched cylinder, which still won't resolve the barrel diameter inequity, and still won't shoot worth warm spit.

Now....did you ask me the time????!!!!

rufe-snow

I had one of the uncommon Victory models used by Australia, and so marked, years ago. It had originally been chambered in 38 S & W, then rechambered for .38 Special when imported and sold for the US surplus market. I used it for casual plinking during the time I owned it. Don't recall that it's accuracy was that bad as compared to various other military surplus handguns that that were shot at the same time.

It all depends on the level of accuracy desired, and amount of money the owner of the converted revolver wants to put into it. Getting bullets that are correct size for the barrel would be the most important thing.