The good news is that several importers are bringing 38-40 Colt/Clone single actions into the country, because of the interest in cowboy action shooting. The bad news is the brass, even the modern brass is still pretty thin. That makes it almost a necessity to have your resizing die polished out to size for the chambers of your gun, so it doesn’t over work the brass. The Uberti S/A I tested in 38-40 had good chambers, not overly large like some of the older Colts I’ve played with. And polishing out the sizing die on my lathe was fairly easy...for those that don’t have the tools or the time, and decent gunsmith or machinist can do the job. It will save a lot of brass...enough if you shoot a lot, to easily pay for the work.

The 38-40 was introduced by Winchester as a rifle cartridge in the 1880s. It was chambered in the 1873 Winchester levergun, and a few years later Colt chambered their Single Action Army for it...so the rifle users had a companion handgun in the same chambering. It has been sworn by and at, for a lot of years. Elmer Keith when he was a young teenager was nearly killed by an elk he shot with a 30-06. The elk wasn’t dead when young Keith went up and poked it, it lashed out and he shot it a number of times with a 38-40 Colt revolver. Between bad shooting and the lousy bullets of the times the 38-40 didn’t live up to Keith’s expectations. But as he states even though the commercial loads were worthless against an animal of that size, his heavy cast bullets over black powder loadings did the job very well.

So lets get the black powder part of this over quickly...not that I don’t like black powder shooting, I do and it is a kick...but I don’t like cleaning up the guns and equipment after the fun is over....personally it’s like skinning a moose in water....smelly, sloppy, wet, and tiring. With a 200 grain cast bullet over 25 grains of Pyrodex, I got 825 fps from a 7.5 inch barrel of the single action and 1322 fps from the 1892 Winchester rifle (circa 1920s). I couldn’t get 40 grains of black powder into the case and still seat a bullet over the load. The best I could do was 36.6 grains...which gave 840 fps from the Uberti S/A and 1340 fps from the rifle. The accuracy from the rifle was excellent, but the handgun with both loads was indifferent.

I was able to duplicate the velocity of the handgun BP loads with Bullseye, which was something the old timers did at the turn of the century...when that new fangled ‘white’ powder came out. 6.5 grains under a 180 cast bullet gave 860 fps and only 13,000 psi....so I can see where it was safe in most BP Colts of the times. Though I wouldn’t trust it in one of the old guns today...those old time guns should be kept in a collection and the modern guns like the Uberti used for shooting. Bullseye is too fast burning of a powder, for the rifle length of the barrel (24 inches). Gaining only 200 plus feet per second. Too stay in the same pressure level, Red Dot is a better handgun powder with this cartridge 6.5 grains will give 832 fps from the Uberti and still be at 13,000 psi. My favorite powder 2400 didn’t do well in the accuracy or the velocity department when kept at around 13000 to 14000 psi...the 180 grain jacketed bullet only got to 1000 fps with 14.5 grains. A jump to the rifle and this load went to 1476 fps and 1 and ½ inch groups at fifty yards and with this rifle that’s exceptional accuracy. It’s a shame because this would be a perfect rifle/handgun cross over load if the handgun liked it. This same bullet with 21 grains of A/2400 out of the strong rifle action will give well over 1800 fps...and that is a good deer load. Out of the strong Uberti this load gave 1370 fps. But it really is too warm for the sixgun and way too warm for the brass. Using AA1680 with 24 grains of powder the rifle broke 1700 fps and the handgun came in at an easy 1266 fps...both guns gave excellent accuracy and I had my cross over load. But I don’t want to talk about brass...not over five reloads when they let go....

But this chambering is going to be primarily a handgun round. So decent handgun rounds are really needed. And I found several powders that work well in the S/A. And they all were in the medium burning levels. For example Blue Dot was a wonder powder...with the 180 cast bullet12 grains gave 1060 fps and very tight groups at 25 yards. Nice roundish oval groups near a 1½ inches. Good case life and comfortable to shoot. 10 grains of Herco was the next with 900 fps plus and under two inch groups.

Again the above loads are around the 13000 to 14000 psi levels. I know for a fact that the U.S. Government had the 45 Colt revolver rounds loaded at the turn of the century to 20,000 psi. And these were used in the Government’s single action Colts that were built for black powder. The load we found in some of the brass loaded in 1906 through 1913 was 8 grains of Bullseye under the famous...or infamous...all according to what you used it on...bullet.

The same load, 8 grains of Bullseye under the 180 grain cast bullet in the Uberti 38-40, gave 1090 fps and excellent accuracy. Still easy on the brass, though you could certainly tell the load had more pressure...it would be my load of choice, for hunting of coyote sized game on down. Maybe with a dead shot on small deer I would take it.