Why did .38 S & W fall out of favor?

Sperry

I'm reading up on revolvers, and a number of calibers didn't make the evolutionary grade to prosper.

Was .38S&W a police revolver caliber?
How does it different from .38 Special?

Where does .38 Super fit into the picture? A little over .38 Special?
Is .38 Super an auto-loading cartridge exclusively?

I notice there is still plenty of .32 S&W Long on the market but just a few kinds of .32 S&W.

Did one type of revolver seem so underpowered it became a starters pistol?

beagle

The 38 s & w is larger in diameter, slightly, but shorter. The s & w is a very low pressure round and once the 38 special, then the .357 magnum came out, it pretty much was obsolete. There were some pretty nice pistols made for it by smith and wesson though.

The 38 super, 38 acp, is chambered for some revolvers, but mostly automatics.

The 32 swl is one of my favorite rounds and I handload for it and shoot it often. It is not very loud, or powerful, but I just can't stop using it.

perry shooter

Hello The 38 S&W was orginally a Heeled bullet just like a 22 rimfire and 41 colt this design fell out of favor as it was harder to load. But the bullet was the same size as the outside of the case. The bore diameter was .359/.360 when the ammo companys started loading regular design bullets they could only load what would fit inside the case .357 so then the bullet had to be made from pure soft lead to seal in the bore but you could not shoot Jacketed high velocity bullets as they were too small and would not seal the bore so this doomed the fate of this cartridge.NRA bullseye shooting started useing 3 pistols 22 centerfire and 45 to prevent anyone from having an advanage. CIVILIANS had 22 POLICE had 32 police positives and 38's and MILITARY had the 45. at that time pistol shooting was a BIG olympic sport and was a combo of many types of shooting the 32S&W long met the rules had light reciol and shot well at olympic range 25YARDS so it became popular from that day to now. The weird thing is I have a S&W pistol made in 1877 that shot a very long cased 38 that was the same lenght as the cylinder of the pistol this cartridge had 2 loadings both with the bullet recessed completely inside the case and the case was slightly longer and larger diamenter then even the 357 MAXIMUN Just think if S&W had had a strong design back then we might not have a 38 special or 357 mag that we have today.

Fatstrat

I think the answer can be summed up in knock-down power. In most cases, a handgun is designed as and concidered a weapon to be used against human beings. And people want the most reliable "man stopper they can get.
The .38 S&W was a popular civilian round up to about WW-2. With a few exceptions, the Govt. had already concluded that even the .38SPL wasn't powerfull enough as a battlefield "man stopper". But the public at large was largely ignorant of this. Then came WW-2.
As w/any war, Govt's,industry and many thousands of GI's got the chance to see how various products actually performed in battle. And it was these returning soldiers that opted for more powerfull loads based on thier battlefield experiences. By the mid to late 1950's, the days of .38 S&W was pretty much done with.

Contender Man

As already stated ... primarily a matter of power. However there are still a lot of 38 S&W (38-200) out there and the ammo continues to be commercially loaded.

With respect to the military aspects ... the 38 Special was developed to give a higher power cartridge (which it did), but even that cartridge proved to be of limited benefit in the Philippines and ultimately led to the development and adoption of the 1911 45acp pistol. Yet the 38 special continued as the preferred chambering for the majority of police department (although many departments moved to the 357 w/ 125gr jhp bullets in the 70's) until the "wonder nines" of the early-mid 1980's.

Given today's improved ammunition, especially in the personal defense area ... the 38 Special is still a big seller.

GunHawke

One more item....a lot of PDs adopted the .38 Special for two other reasons than mentioned. 1). any size LE should be able to handle recoil to get off a second shot and, 2). if you hit someone (or missed them!) the hope was the round wouldn't pass on and go find an innocent bystander, like a .357 might do! Isn't liability great!!??

Jim
GunHawke