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I have 6 guns that are either .38 Spcl, or .357 Mag. and .38 S&W will not chamber in any of them. It is too fat to fit in the cylinder of any of them.
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Is it possible Remington is deliberately making R38SW undersized so it will chamber in more guns?
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Interesting. I have a couple dozen revolvers (and one semi-auto) in .38 Special and/or .357 Mag. I also have an old S&W Terrier in .38 S&W, so happened to have an unopened box of Remington .38 S&W 146 gr LRN cartridges on the shelf. I just took one of the factory-new .38 S&Ws and it fit into every one of the revolver chambers I tried it in (and I tried most, but not all of them) - in most cases it dropped right in, in some guns (my Colt Python and 357) it needed a little push, but it fit easily.
So, I hunted up my micrometer and I find that the Remington .38 S&W cartridges are .3808 at the neck and .3818 at the base, vs.the specified .3855 and .3865 for the cartridge. Looks like Remington may indeed be making them a bit undersized.
That said, I'm a great believer in shooting only the caliber a gun is chambered for, no matter what may fit, so I wouldn't dream of firing any of the .38 S&Ws in any of the .38 Specials and .357s - but I suspect nothing too onerous would result.