.38 S&W

The .38 S&W is a rimmed, straight-walled revolver cartridge Smith & Wesson introduced in 1877 for its own top-break pocket revolvers. Despite its name, it is a distinct, shorter and wider round from the later, far more widely used .38 Special, and the two are not interchangeable. Colt chambered the same round in its own revolvers under the name .38 Colt New Police.

The British armed forces adopted a loading of this case, known there as the .380 Revolver round, putting it into service from 1922 and using it through the Second World War and the Korean War before retiring it in 1963. American production of the round for the civilian market has continued since its introduction, though it has long since been overshadowed commercially by .38 Special.

All dimensional and pressure figures on this page come from C.I.P.’s published standard and are recorded as verified. Three bullet weights are recorded from Wikipedia’s infobox; no test-barrel length is stated for two of the associated velocities, and the third does not reproduce its own published energy figure under either imperial or metric units, so no velocity or energy is recorded for this cartridge. No photograph of a revolver chambered for it appears on this site.