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Old April 24, 2009, 01:11 PM   #9
Chindo18Z
Senior Member
 
Join Date: July 23, 1999
Posts: 498
It won't work for safe & reliable carry, but it can certainly fire and send a bullet down the bore.

I knew a young man who accidently killed himself with a .380 ACP loaded into the chamber of a .357 revolver. He just wanted to see if a cylinder full of .380 would fit. They did.

When he went to not so carefully eject the loaded cartridges, the extractor star evidently rode over one (or all) of the rimless rounds, one of which (unbeknownst to him) remained in its chamber. He most likely simply tipped the revolver skyward, cylinder open, and rapped the ejector rod. This, combined with gravity, caused 5 of 6 rounds to fall out.

A few moments later, for unknown reasons, he was staring directly down the muzzle while cycling the revolver.

Bang. The .380 bullet entered above his eyebrow and exited the opposite side temple. DRT...in a room full of friends just returned from an afternoon of shooting, and now drinking beer and watching a ballgame on the television while cleaning weapons.

A lot of safety takeaways from that one.

In answer to the original question: As long as the shorter .380 rounds are rearmost in the chamber of a .38/.357 revolver, the firing pin can detonate the primer. The bullet is perfectly capable of launching down the roughly same sized bore. Accuracy will suffer.
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Last edited by Chindo18Z; April 24, 2009 at 11:23 PM.
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