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

by Otony, Wednesday, June 03, 2026, 12:14 (1 hours, 7 minutes ago) @ Bob Hatfield

I can see where some of those loads didn’t work out so well, because I’m assuming your Navy had the original barrel on it, which of course would be a larger bore than modern 38/357 revolvers. Those heeled bullets must have been a real pain to deal with!

In my case, the Navy was originally built as a cartridge gun by Uberti, not converted. So it has a bore sized such that I can use common 38/357 cast bullets. Your solution of using the hollow base bullets sounds great, although honestly it is a bit of a surprise that they expanded enough to work.

So much of this stuff is simply (NOT!) a matter of patience, plus educated trial and error. I guess I cheated by buying a Navy that I knew had modern bore dimensions, lol!