I watched the video and a couple of questions jumped out. First the claim of holding 62 grains of powder. the 38-55 will hold 55 grains of powder when filled to the top and that was the origional length. Second even if you could stuff 62 grains of powder in the case where is the room for a 360 gr bullet. The SPG manual lists 41 grains of FFG with a 250 grain bullet and that is with a 2.120 case. Even with FFFG they could only stuff 46 grains in. 
The 38-56 a much larger case made from 45-70 brass is listed as holding 55 grains of FFG with a 310 grain bullet thats still a long way from 62 grains. If the rest of the gun is as good as the powder capacity claims I'll save my penneys for a Ballard High Wall.

40 Rod

don't you think listing a case capacity by how many grains of powder it can hold is a bit foolish?  Over the years, I've seen bp densities vary easly by 1--15% and I've never messed with some of the densest like the old Elephant (which was very slow by all accounts).  Various flavors of Goex have been very dense and very light.  So, any .38-55 cases might hold 62 grs of Elephant and yet none of them might hold even 55 gr of some other powders.  

In the end, does it really matter all that much?  If you feel powder challenged (for silhouette for example), then a .38-50 Rem will clean up the .38-55 and get the job done.

Brent

For one thing, Mr Trenk's story about when the case length was changed and why disagrees with everything I have heard from a variety of sources.  His time line was off by about 75 years and the reason had nothing to do with the explanation provided by everyone else.  Other than that, I had to wonder about the reasoning behind using a single set trigger when it would have been easy to make the full change to DST, and watching Mr Pedersoli fumble with the Lightning rifle he was handling.  Yes, I think they are more in sales than actual performance.  JMHO, but that was my impression.

Froggie

Case size and how much powder they will hold is interesting. I am wondering if they are available and if anyone has had their hands on one.  Al

Paul, 

     It would appear, from looking at the actual cases involved, that the .38-55 cases remained "full length" until about the 1960s or 1970s.  Without fanfare, the only American maker that continued or perhaps resumed making them in the 1980's and later, Olin/Winchester, began selling a shorter version of the case, apparently based on the brass drawing used for the .30-30, which was of course developed in the late nineteenth century from the then-common .38-55 and .32-40.  I don't have any of this in writing where I can lay my hands on it, but it is in the realm of "common knowledge" in the shooting fraternity, which like much information of this sort, may be incorrect.    that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Froggie

PS  Case volume is a function not only of outside dimensions but inside as well.  Balloon vs solid head cases, thick vs thin webbed cases, etc will have significantly different capacities.  GF

I was under the impression that the shortening of the .38-55 was first done by Winchester, and the reason was to match the length of the .375 Win. that came out in the late 1970's. Supposedly it made production much cheaper to use the same specs for both the .375 and the .38-55 cases.
Least that's the tale I was told!