Colt SAA .38-40/.38 WCF

MIKE’S SHOOTIN’ SHACK

- Mike Venturino

One of my all-time favorite cartridges is the .38 WCF, aka .38-40. I’m not completely sure why, as it can be a fragile round to handload. Case walls are thin, easily crumpled, dented or creased when resizing and during bullet seating. Being of bottleneck construction, special carbide-type dies are not available, so lubing for sizing is a necessity. Also, some brands of reloading dies will not set case shoulders back enough to freely fit in tight revolver chambers. (I’ve never experienced this last problem with any .38 WCF rifle or carbine and have owned dozens – Winchester, Marlin, Uberti and Colt.)

An especially annoying reloading problem encountered early on was with semi wadcutter bullets. My RCBS seating-crimping die put them at varying depths in the case. Such did not happen with round nose / flat point bullets. Finally, the bright bulb in my brain turned on, illuminating the problem. The crimping edge in the die was so tight that the SWC’s sharp shoulders caught on it during seating, resulting in uneven overall cartridge lengths. It was no big deal in the end, because my handloads are used in long guns along with revolvers, so RN/FP bullets are my primary choice anyway.

All my .38 WCF revolvers have been Colt SAAs except for one, a Colt New Service. At this writing, I own five SAAs so chambered. Three are 3rd Generation production and two are 1st Generation: one a standard SAA and the other a Bisley. No Colt SAA .38 WCF/.38-40 revolvers were made during 2nd Generation manufacture (1955-1974).