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Home of the Old Ammo Guy's Virtual
Cartridge Trading Table Picture Page December 2010 The early .38 Special high velocity loads......
I was recently contacted by someone who shoots this stuff rather than collecting it, who had a question about a headstamp he had found. He was in the process of preparing a batch of .38 Special cartridge cases for reloading when he noticed among the mix of military and commercial cases two with the headstamp shown here. The headstamp identifies the case as having been a high velocity .38 Special load, most likely made in the mid-1930s by Winchester for the United States Cartridge Company, an arrangement that had existed since 1926 when Winchester acquired that company's assets and patents from the National Lead Company. This is a rather unusual headstamp to find in a group of shooting cases bearing primarily late 1980s and early 1990s Winchester/Olin (WCC) headstamps, with a few SPEER +Ps thrown in. While I had seen a picture of this headstamp before in Charles Suydam's U. S. Cartridges and Their Handguns, I had never encountered one in real life and was therefore lacking one in my collection. Unfortunately, that is still the case, but I decided to share the elusive little bugger anyway with the kind permission of a second gentleman who snapped a picture after being shown the cases by the shooter/reloader and also contacted me about it.
PETERS 38 SPL HV REM-UMC 38 SPL HS REM-UMC 38-44 SPL W.R.A. SUPER 38 SPL. The Peters is loaded .
A Box of Brenneke cartridges......
.Wilhelm Brenneke established the Brenneke Gewehr & Geschossfabrik (Gun and Bullet Factory) in Leipzig, Austria in 1895, where he designed rifles and bullets. His factories were destroyed in 1945, after which he relocated to West Berlin. Upon Brenneke's death in 1951, his daughter took over, eventually moving the company to Hannover, West Germany. The company is still in the ammunition business today as Brenneke GMBH with addresses in Hannover and Langenhagen. Brenneke Gewehr & Geschossfabrik did not actually produce ammunition; instead, it is believed that Roth, RWS and DWM produced the cases for and possibly loaded the Brenneke headstamped ammunition. .
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I recently picked up this partial box of 7 x 64 Brenneke cartridges shown above. The label translates to: Wilh. Brenneke, Gun and Bullet Factory, Leipzig 20 Original Brenneke High speed cartridges Cal. 7x64 7mm Special Cartridge patented for Brenneke Universal Repeating Rifle Max(imum) Charge 3.9 gr(am) Bl-P.9 - 115 g(ram) Projectile Weight with 11.5 g(ram) Brenneke Torpedo bullet Normal charge For Big game . . . Wilhelm Brenneke was responsible for developing a number of different bullet
designs, including a couple that were referred to as 'torpedo' bullets.
These were spitzer style bullets, one with a blunt pointed base that was
referred to as the Torpedo Universal Geschoss (TUG) and the other with a
boat tail base that was referred to as the Torpedo Ideal Geschoss (TIG).
Those in this box are the TIG bullet; I pulled one and have included a
picture The cartridges are headstamped 'BRENNEKE * LEIPZIG 7.2 X 64.'. According to European Sporting Cartridges by W.B. Dixon, the designation of the caliber as '7.2 x 64' rather than '7 x 64' indicates that the cases were likely made in Austria (by Roth perhaps), as the cartridge was referred to as 7.2 x 64 in that country.
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For those with an interest in such things, I have included a photo of the powder charge, which weighed 57.5 grains, 2.5 grains less than the maximum charge of 60 grains shown on the label. The powder charge completely fills the case to the base of the bullet on the loaded cartridge. The bullet weighs 176.4 grains.
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Beginning in the early 1930s, ammunition companies began squeezing
everything they could into the .38 Special case in an effort to produce more
potent loads. Examples of the early high velocity .38 Specials from my
own collection include, from the left:
with a standard lead bullet, while the Remington-UMC examples have metal
capped lead bullets, an example of which is shown in the picture on the
right. When seated, the lower edge of the cap is just above the case mouth,
so that a little if the lead remains visible, making them rather easy to
spot. The .38-44 Special was developed by Elmer Keith, and intended for use
in the large frame Smith & Wesson 38/44 Hand Ejector and 38/44 Outdoorsman
revolvers, both of which were introduced in the early 1930s. These revolvers
used the heavy frame of Smith & Wesson's .44 Hand Ejector revolver, which
could handle high velocity .38 loads. The Winchester has a copper plated (KopperKlad),
flat nose bullet.
here.
Note the deep crimping cannelure, the two very fine cannelures further
forward on the steel bullet jacket, and the 'Br.' marked on the base.
