difference between 38 special and 38 long colt
.38 Long Colt In civilian use, the .38 LC was chambered in a number of Colt revolvers and saw some use among target shooters. Various U.S. police forces also adopted the cartridge. However, the cartridge became nearly extinct after Smith & Wesson's more powerful .38 Special cartridge became widely popular as a civilian and police service cartridge. By 1908, even Colt was chambering their new Police Positive and New Army revolvers in ".38 Colt Special", which was nothing more than the standard .38 Smith & Wesson Special with a different headstamp.[10]
Revolver Early revolvers were caplocks and loaded as a muzzle-loader: the user poured black powder into each chamber, rammed down a bullet on top of it, then placed percussion caps on the nipple at the rear of each chamber, where the hammer would fall on it. This was similar to loading a traditional single-shot muzzle-loading pistol, except that the powder and shot could be loaded directly into the front of the cylinder rather than having to be loaded down the whole length of the barrel. Importantly, this allowed the barrel itself to be rifled, since the user wasn't required to force the tight fitting bullet down the barrel in order to load it (a traditional muzzle-loading pistol had a smoothbore and relatively loose fitting shot, which allowed easy loading, but gave much less accuracy). When firing the next shot, the user would raise his pistol vertically as he cocked the hammer back so as to let the fragments of the burst percussion cap fall out so as to not jam the mechanism. Some of the most popular cap-and-ball revolvers were the Colt Model 1851 "Navy" Model, 1860 "Army" Model, and Colt Pocket Percussion revolvers, all of which saw extensive use in the American Civil War. Although American revolvers were the most common, European arms makers were making numerous revolvers by that time as well, many of which found their way into the hands of the American forces, including the single action Lefaucheux and LeMat revolver and the Beaumont–Adams and Tranter revolvers, which were early double-action weapons, in spite of being muzzle-loaders.[6]