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I also have one of the five inch Lend-Lease revolvers with post war Australian FTR marks. I've sent off to the S&W Historical Society for a letter on this most recent revolver. Here's picture of the Lend-Lease BSR. It is a pretty good shooter with my 38-200 reloads.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Dick
The Australian .38-200 revolver I have is also FTR 1954 if memory serves. Parkerized and in excellent condition. Imported to the USA post 1986. The Canadian revolver is original with lots of finish wear but is still tight and sound.
Nice shooting. Are you using 174 grain cast bullets? These revolvers shoot low with the usual 145 grain American loads.
A normal 9x19 will fire in the 38S&W. Not to be recommended but they work.
The load used was a bullet cast from an old NEI #169a mould. 2.0 grains of Bullseye approximates the .380 Mk 1 service load, 200 grain bullet at 650 fps. At 25 yards slow fire it groups pretty well, if a tad high.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Dick
I quite like the bullet. While designed to duplicate the service slug of the British Empire's 38/200 load, 3.0 grains of Unique gives the same 700 FPS that the old 38 Special 200 grain Super Police loads did. The bullet has more of a secant ogive rather than hemispherical nose of the Lyman 358430. It may be even more likely to yaw. In my opinion, the Brits seemed to have a knack for designing bullets that were nasty or effective, depending on your point of view.
Exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daan Kemp
The old soft lead bullets obturated nicely and travelling slow didn't lead like we do now days. They flattened out some when hitting too...Quote:
Originally Posted by old tanker
I had a chinwag with a British WW2 veteran many years ago at an AGCA show in Birmingham, Alabama. He stopped because I had a couple of Enfield revolvers in my glass case for sale at the time. The discussion turned to the relative unpopularity of the cartridge in the USA. He told me that he witnessed many Germans and Italians being shot by soldiers with Enfield No.2 and S&W .38-200 revolvers from North Africa through Italy and Western Europe and he never saw one get up afterwards. You really have to reload and cast the heavier bullets since the prevalent American loading is still the 145-grain RN bullet load.
Jim, I recently caught that film clip you mentioned with RM Goering surrendering his revolver to US forces. It looked like a big Colt New Service in .45 to me. He didn't look happy handing it over either!
No, very unhappy. I always wondered what happened to that revolver. It was hard to see and even look at if you tried to stop it, thought it was an M&P type frame... I'd still love to handle that revolver.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Dick
The point in that story was always that he was a "Gun guy" which I would think would go undisputed. After all he was an aristocrat and the head Jäger for Germany for decades. He wrote hunting laws that still stand...
Goring's S&W was an M&P (now K frame) 38 Special.
Google goerings guns
It is in the West Point Army Museum
That's what I thought... West point, OK.Quote:
Originally Posted by green
That FTR mark is Australian. We still had some S&W's in Australia and certainly in NZ in the mid to late 60's while I was there. Lots of spares too. All of those that we had were phosphated too. Real mixed bag of Enfields, No2 Brownings - not too common, S&W's plus some No2 Brownings captured from the Indonesians. Said to have been made there but the intelligence people weren't having any of it. They came from Jordan with skimmed off slide marks and Indon markings engraved. But that is another untold story