I have a BUNCH of .38 Short Colt brass….

by Bob Hatfield , Wednesday, June 03, 2026, 06:32 (6 hours, 46 minutes ago) @ Otony

I have a 51 conversion also and tried the 38 short brass with the 140-grain heeled bullet from Bear creek. I used the Old West heel crimping tool. Using bullseye. (cannot remember the load).

It was a disaster with smokeless. Must not have been enough backpressure from the little crimp on the heeled bullet to burn the bullseye.

They exited but went "Plop". Sounded like a silenced 9mm. With as much 3f Swiss as I could get under that bullet it had a good loud bang. It's just they splattered all over the target.

I then used hollow based wadcutters loaded with about 3/16 inch out past the end of a 38 special case with 3.5 grains of bullseye and they were very accurate and chronographed about 750fps.

I now have some 38 long colt cases I will experiment with using that heeled bullet again.