You will definitely have to set back your 38-56 to get it to 38-55 due to the considerably larger chamber in the 38-56. I have a spare 14" twist full-octagon GM 30" long in 38-56 that I might sell if you want to do so. Probably would finish at something between 28" & 29" after cutting and rechambering.

Mick B
ch4d reamer rentals.
Last time I looked, about $30 or so   
beltfed/arnie

The 38-55 looks like it may be the way to go as I won't have to get another barrel, new brass, dies, and breech seater.
Regarding cutting back the barrel so that it can be re chambered a few problems pop up. Firstly the fore end will have to be moved further forward thereby making the octagonal portion of the barrel finish two inches inside the fore end. Secondly the scope blocks for my Lyman STS will have to be re located, thirdly the barrel stub will have to be re threaded and the barrel indexed correctly to align with the top flat of the receiver. Might it not be possible to machine out the existing chamber and install a liner chambered for the 38-55 ?.
This may or may not be possible but if it was would save a lot of extra modifications having to be done, any ideas ?.
Mike.

Mick

Much said on the Internet about 38/55 brass. Fact its makes no difference how long your basic brass is.  Too long trim, too short seat your bullet out a bit more.

Small length difference the bullet does not know how long the brass was when launched. 

Bullets can't read head stamps either.

Boats

He is on the forum as John Taylor.

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Frank

A skilled gunsmith can turn a steel bushing to the outside dimensions of the .38-56, put a pilot hole in the center, and braze or solder it into your chamber and rechamber to .38-55.  He'll also have to cut the extractor groove.  Whether this will be cheaper than just rebarreling I don't know.  I do know that I sweated away five pounds doing one of these jobs, although it turned out well.

Definitely rechamber for the old 2.125 length shell, as this will clean out the vestiges of the 2.10 length .38-56 case mouth.  The shorter case was a miserable abomination foisted on the public when Winchester started making the .375 Winchester round, with that length case.  It was easier to headstamp ".38-55 WIN" on the very occasional runs they did, and use the same setups they otherwise used for the .375, than to draw the shells to the old length.

It is easy to tell when a manufacturer does not care about a shell he is manufacturing because it is obsolete.  I've seen late batches of .25-20 Single Shot and .32-20 (before its revival) shorter than factory specs, and in addition, cases in the box were different in length than others in the same box.

There would be some potential for misalignment of chamber and barrel if done the way you say.  Also, the "long" .38-55 chamber would take out the front of your present chamber and extend the leade 0.025" or so.  This would not be possible with a chambered insert as you contemplate.  You could chamber for the "short" .38-55 and trust to luck that you could seat the bullet out or breech seat for the freebore you would have.

I don't know whether I did my bushing and rechambering job "the right way" but it did work out.  It was a .22-15-60 Stevens single shot barrel with a good bore that somebody had mangled the rear part of the chamber.  I set the barrel up in a lathe, indicating the bore at both ends, and bored a 3/8" cylindrical hole with a flat bottom to a depth sufficient to take out the bad part of the chamber.

I then turned a piece of junk .22 barrel to a sliding fit in the hole and drilled a hole through the center about the bore diameter of the damaged Stevens barrel, and tinned the outside with solder.  I turned a graphite rod to bore diameter and put it into the bore, tinned the hole, and sweated the cylinder into the hole such that it slid in on the graphite rod and the center hole stayed concentric with the bore.  When the solder cooled, I had to break the graphite rod up to get it out.

I turned the end off the insert until the breechblock fit with no slop. I milled the slot to fit the extractor and set it up again and bored the chamber into the insert as close as I could, using the drawing in the back of Kelver's Respectfully Yours, H. M. Pope.  Getting to the end of the insert and making sure there was no positive or negative "step" between the new and old parts of the chamber was a pretty nerve wracking job.  I kept checking it with one of the few empty shells I'd been able to scrounge, full length sized.  They wouldn't quite go in even though the chamber looked even, so I made a reamer of sorts according to the same drawing and after a few turns, the cases I had seated home.  I think it was a little solder at the end of the bushing that was projecting into the chamber.

It was a red letter day when I loaded those cases, fired them and saw that they extracted easily with no marks or difficulty.  I really, really wanted to see how that .22-15 Stevens shot all right. What a gunsmith would charge for that, I have no idea.