Why are rifle cartridges predominantly necked down, but pistol cartridges aren't?

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Somewhere around here I still have a set of loading dies for The .38/.45 Clerke developed by a fellow named Bo Clerke introduced around 1963. The idea was to ream a .38 Super barrel in a 1911 frame and the cartridge was a necked down 45 ACP. With good 45 ACP brass you could get about 4 firings before the case necks split. The idea, like most bottleneck handgun cartridges was case capacity to push a small 357 bullet at high velocities. RCBS made the loading dies and i have no clue if anyone else manufactured the dies. A few manufacturers even made the drop in barrels for the then popular Colt 1911 frames. I think it may have been Walkalong I had some conversation with several years ago about the cartridge. The cartridge fed well from standard 45 ACP 1911 magazines. The intent was a mild to shoot target cartridge.

Ron

I believe the original concept of the 38/45 Clerke was for bullseye competition. A shooter could use the same gun in the 45 ACP event and change the barrel and recoil spring for the more open caliber events. Also, in part, the bottle neck 38/45 Clerke would feed better and eliminate some alibi rounds generated from 1911s modified to shoot 38 Special or 38 AMU.

Obviously, with such a cartridge, hot rodding is not far behind the original development. The 38 Casull took the 38/45 Clerke to the ultimate extreme.

I have two 38/45 Clerke chambered M1911s. One is a service style pistol and the other is a Gold Cup. Fun to shoot.

On to other comments, revolvers and bottle neck cartridges do not get along very well. If I remember correctly, the case tends to set back locking up the cylinder. Manufacturers have periodically try a bottle neck cartridge in a revolver but they do not sell well.

32-20 seems to be an exception to this but there are not many, if any, modern revolvers chambered in 32-20.
 
Another reason for the shortage of bottleneck pistol cartridges is the realization that a pistol was not going to deliver the velocity necessary for "hydrostatic shock" or whatever you want to call the effect that the Swedish game commission found to set in at rifle velocities from 6.5x55 and up.

The traditional answer to greater handgun effectiveness was a bigger bullet. Note that the Swiss, Portuguese, and Finns bought .30 Lugers. The German Navy asked for more and got the 9mm as the largest that would fit the gun. The German Army and others followed suit. The Swiss and Portuguese don't fight many wars. The Finns did and rebarreled their Lugers to 9mm to go along with their Lahtis and Brownings.

The .357 Sig was a marketing effort to sell police departments an automatic comparable to a 4" .357 Magnum revolver.
The 5.7 FN is a specialty carbine round chambered in a pistol for the convenience of using agencies.
Most of the other bottlenecks mentioned here are niche, novelty, and hobby items.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38_Special

"The .38 Special was introduced in 1898 as an improvement over the .38 Long Colt which, as a military service cartridge, was found to have inadequate stopping power against the charges of Filipino Muslim warriors during the Philippine–American War.[9] Upon its introduction, the .38 Special was originally loaded with black powder, but the cartridge's popularity caused manufacturers to offer smokeless powder loadings within a year of its introduction."
Wiki has been known to be wrong..... According to Cartridges of the World, the round was introduced in 1902, not 1898. But other sources state that it was loaded with black.....for less than a year. So I just learned something.
 
There is one Internet Expert who maintains that the .38 is Special the same way the .32 Winchester Special is, made to swing both ways.

There are several early .38 Special loads cited, things like 158 gr bullet and 21.5 gr of black.
Which had to make it better than .38 Gov't/Long Colt at 150 + 18. But not a lot better excepting its inside lubricated groove diameter bullet.
 
The real answer is different approaches to terminal effect. Due to extremely high velocity, small bore rifles damage tissue well outside the width of the expanded bullet. Only when they hit bone is the wound channel narrowed down to the expanded bullet size. This lends itself to small diameter projectiles.

In contrast pistol bullet (with a few exceptions) move very slow in comparison and rely on the crush cavity alone to seriously damage tissue, so a wide diameter is desirable to give a wide wound track.
 
Curiously, I just watched Ian & Karl on the October InRange Q&A answer this very question. If the other way around--why so many bottle neck rifle rounds and so few "straight" ones? (Short answer, no one wants a 7.62x90 cartridge.)

In black powder days, you wanted as large a projo as you could. So, to increase case capacity, the case just got longer.

With smokeless powder, you don't need as large a projo from the improved velocities available.
In a long arm, you want (or can better tolerate) more energy, so you can use a fat case with a smaller projo--which nets you a shorter overall cartridge.
In a small arm, you need to limit just how much "oomph" the round has, and you want to keep the dimensions finite, too. So, you use a projo-diameter case, but one only long enough to hold the desired powder charge.
In handguns, what we have seen are that bottle-neck designs tend to be on arms where extaction is an issue; and bottle necks can improve extraction.
 
Just thank god they aren't. Prepping rifle brass for reloading is one of my least favorite activities. If I had to go through all that to load pistol, I doubt I would be a reloader.
 
.38/40, .44/40 from the 1870s in single action revolvers. The .32/20 has already been mentioned.

Tapered and bottleneck cartridges may extract more easily than straight walled cases. I have never hunted dangerous game, but I’m under the impression that is a consideration when choosing a safari caliber. Or am I mistaken?
 
The 22 Remington Jet in a S&W revolver would keep the cylinder from turning after firing. Brass expands on firing. It pushes the case head against the recoil plate. 20181029_154800.jpg 357 necked down to a 22 bullet. Velocity 2,290 fps. Barrel length , 8 3/8".
 
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Thought experiment. Don't think of a bottle-necked rifle cartridge as a large diameter case necked down to hold a smaller diameter bullet. Think of it as a straight-walled rifle case "bottled out" to get more powder behind the bullet so that you can drive it to higher velocity. That need doesn't exist with most straight-walled pistol cartridges; there is plenty of capacity in the case to drive a handgun bullet to desired velocity without having to expand the case--other than lengthening it somewhat (.44 spl to .44 mag, etc.).

Imagine how long a 30-06 case would have to be to contain the same amount of powder if it were a cylinder like a 30 Carbine.
 
Is that the Greener who made the 12-14 gauge single shot martini shotguns? The only necked down shotgun cartridge I know of. I wanted one of those converted to 12 ga. For quite a while, but never did pick one up.

Op, the trade off is best seen in the Germans move from 7.63 Mauser to 9mm Luger at the turn of the century. Same guns; new, heavier, slower, bullet.

Conversely, that was before body armor. So an armor defeating round wasn’t on radar (there was no radar! ) Today I feel safe carrying a 9mm... that’s pretty standard... but, BUT! A 9mmx19 won’t penetrate armor like my CZ52 7.62x25 Tokarev.... so my obsolete milsurp pistol is actually totally validated as a carry piece that can defeat body armor.

...and back when you could pick up a SPAM can of Tok Ammo for under 4 cents / rd... well, I digress...
 
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