Doing some reading and I'm kinda wishing this cartridge never went away. I get it, after .357 it was superfluous, but the factory loading went on for a couple decades after the .357 and it's kinda sad it went away. It's still much more potent than .38 Special +P, and not far off of .357.
.38 High Speed will tear the crap out of a Colt Police Positive, and to a lesser degree, the S&W M&P. But the post war M&P's can handle it just fine, and any of the medium to larger frame Colts could handle it quite well. For a pre-WWII LE carry gun, the Colt Official Police with High Speed loads was a pretty slick setup.
For the stouter .38 Specials like the SAA, Colt's New Service, and S&W's Heavy Duty, the .38 High Speed made for a decent load in the field, and could easily do anything a .357 magnum could do.
Looking at old 1930's ammunition catalogs, there were a surprising number of loads available for the High Spee. LSWCHP's, Semi-Wadcutter, Round nose, FMJ, Metal Piercing, and even some light bullet speed demons in the 110-125gr range. It was a legit cartridge at one point.
For handloaders, the High Speed is still an option. But it would be cool to see a return to the original 158gr loading at 1150fps from the factory as a defensive load. The only revolvers it's not safe in are crap revolvers to begin with and probably marginal for even +P.
wasn’t that a 38/44? I have a load in my K frames and Ruger SP101 (38 spl only) that duplicates that.
38/44 was the name of S&W's revolver, and how S&W referred to the load. Colt called it the .38 Colt Special High Speed. Remington loaded both Colt and S&W "heavy duty/high speed", both were basically the same loads, but in different boxes. Peters called it the "high velocity" load. Winchester-Western called it the Super-X, although it was kinda half way between +P and HV.
S&W introduced the cartridge along with their revolver for the new cartridge. Colt chambered the New Service and they were good to go, but as it turns out their medium frame revolvers (E/I frame) were more than enough to handle the heavy loads (they could handle full magnum loads quite honestly). The cartridge was much more popular in the large frame guns as recoil was a bit stiff. The border patrol almost immediately adopted the new cartridge in the Colt New Service over their .45 ACP new service revolvers because the officers shot the .38's better...and they had more flexibility, people who couldn't handle the heavier loads could just use standard pressure .38 Special.
