Some more information about the 38-55.

(I'd say this thread has been officially hijacked and is no longer about 375 Win in a 38-55 Marlin.)

Mentioned previously is the bore diameter on the 38-55s and also blow-by using smaller projectiles.

I have recovered a bullet, a Barnes Original .377" 255gr 38-55 bullet for examination. Under a loupe I can see that there is no indication that the bullet had made contact with the bottom of the groove. The engraving from the lands is minimal and there appears to be a small amount of scuffing before the bullet settled onto a land. The trailing (?) edge of the land striation mark has some curled up and displaced jacket material.

All-in-all I believe the bullet worked well and I have achieved sufficient speed with the bullet from this rifle. Based on the bullet examination and bore diameter listing I do feel there is some level of blow-by and therefore some loss of efficiency.

I have been searching for a bullet in the .378 or .379 range that is a standard copper jacketed hunting bullet but as yet have had no luck. I may try some of the hard alloy cast gas check bullets and begin anew with the load workup although that is not what I'd prefer.


Impact velocity for this bullet at 140 yards was about 1550fps and 1350ft/lbs energy, retained weight is 224.2gr (~88%).

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