Still Extant
The .38-55 was a different story. Winchester still produces a 255-grain factory load and again I pulled factory jacketed bullets to use the cases for handloading. Black Hills also offers lead bullet .38-55 factory loads in their Cowboy line of ammunition.
Personally I prefer lead-alloy bullets for these two cartridges. RCBS offers a mold number 32-170FN that drops 0.323″ bullets of 1-20 tin to lead alloy. They are a gas check design, which I favor for smokeless propellants. Loaded over 15 grains of Accurate 5744 powder, they work perfectly in my .32-40 saddle ring carbine.
RCBS also formerly cataloged a mold number #38-255FN designed for gas checks. It dropped bullets of 1-20 alloy at about 0.379″. Someone talked RCBS into reducing the mold design to #37-255FN with its bullets dropping at about 0.375″, making them useless for vintage Winchester .38-55 barrels. All of Winchester’s .38 caliber rifles except the .38-40 used a nominal barrel groove diameter of 0.379″. Modern .38-55 barrels are usually 0.375″ across their rifling grooves. The RCBS discontinued mold number can easily be duplicated by custom mold makers.
I load my .38-55 cartridges with 19 grains of Accurate 5744. Both my favored .32-40 and .38-55 handloads clock in the 1,300 to 1,350 fps range.
I’ve owned the Model 1894s for all five of its original cartridges (.25-35, .32-40 .30-30, .32 Special, and .38-55). It’s perhaps a window into my soul, the only two that stuck were chambered for .32-40 and .38-55. Duke doesn’t need those new-fangled jacketed bullets for his Winchester lever guns!
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