Skip to content
ARMAG

Search matches names, aliases and the text of every page. An arm found by its service designation is found by its alias, not its title.

.38 Super

Introduced 1929Colt's Manufacturing CompanyCIP standard

Dimensions and pressure

Generated from the schema, like every specification table on this site, so a figure recorded on this entry cannot be missing from the table.

Identity
Designed by
Colt's Manufacturing Company
Introduced
1929
Production
not recorded
Standards body
C.I.P.
Case type
Semi rimmed
Case shape
Straight
Dimensions
Bullet diameter
9.04 mm0.3559 insource

C.I.P. G1, maximum bullet diameter.

Bore diameter
not recorded
Case length
22.86 mm0.9000 insource

C.I.P. L3, maximum case length.

Overall length
32.51 mm1.280 insource

C.I.P. L6, maximum cartridge overall length.

Rim diameter
10.31 mm0.4059 insource

C.I.P. R1.

Neck diameter
9.75 mm0.3839 insource

C.I.P. H2.

Base diameter
9.75 mm0.3839 insource

C.I.P. P1.

Pressure
Maximum pressure
230 MPa33,359 psisource

C.I.P. Pmax 2300 bar; 1 bar = 0.1 MPa exactly.

Pressure standard
C.I.P.

SAAMI and C.I.P. measure pressure differently and their figures are not interchangeable, which is why the body is always named beside the figure.

Loads

Velocity is recorded per barrel length as published. A gun page interpolates between these points and never projects beyond them.

Federal American Eagle 115 gr jacketed hollow point +P

Federal

Bullet mass
7.45 g115.0 grsource

Published as 115 grains.

Cartridge mass
not recorded
Bullet type
JHP
G1 BC
not recorded
G7 BC
not recorded
Sourced velocity by barrel length
BarrelVelocity
127 mm5.000 in344.4 m/s1,130 fps

Chambered in

Computed from every entry that lists this cartridge. Nothing here is hand-maintained.

No entry on the site is chambered in it yet.

Gallery

A .38 Super pistol cartridge standing upright, a round-nose full metal jacket bullet seated in a brass semi-rimmed case.

Image credit

Title
File:.38 Super.jpg
Author
Ken(attribution required)
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Source
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:.38_Super.jpg
A .38 Super cartridge loaded with a round-nose FMJ bullet.

Detail

The .38 Super is a semi-rimmed, straight-walled pistol cartridge Colt introduced in 1929 as a high-pressure development of the older .38 ACP, built to fit the same 1911-pattern frame. Loaded well above the .38 ACP’s operating pressure, it gave a full-size service pistol meaningfully more muzzle energy than the .45 ACP standard of the day without changing the gun’s size or magazine capacity, and it became a fixture of USPSA/IPSC competition, where its straight case and light bullets suit compensated race guns.

Dimensionally it sits between .38 ACP and 9×23mm Winchester: a 22.86 mm case, a 9.04 mm bullet, and a 230 MPa C.I.P. pressure ceiling that is unusually high for a cartridge of this age, a consequence of decades of loads built to run in modern, tightly headspaced 1911s rather than the original 1929 pistols, which headspace on the semi-rimmed rim rather than the case mouth.

This entry carries the C.I.P. dimensional standard in full and one factory load, Federal’s American Eagle 115-grain jacketed hollow point rated at 344.4 m/s from a stated 5-inch test barrel. No free source publishes a rifling twist rate for the cartridge’s C.I.P. chamber specifically for a commercial pistol barrel, and no photograph of a boxed cartridge or a cutaway drawing was found under a usable licence — the hero image is a single loose round.

References

  1. .38 Super · 1368969486 · read 2026-09-01
  2. C.I.P. TDCC datasheet — 38 Super Auto · 2008-09-23 · read 2026-09-01
  3. American Eagle Handgun .38 Super +P, 115 gr JHP (product page) · read 2026-09-01

Last verified 2026-09-01 · review status: agent-populated