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.38 caliber

Internal diameter or bore of a gun barrel with a diameter of thirty-eight hundredths of an inch.

The Long Hunt: On the night of December 5, 1877,[1] Bret Maverick was trying to pry a confession of bank robbery and murder out of Rex Clark in a hotel room[2] in Prescott,[31] Arizona Territory. Clark's partner, Whitey Brandon, intervened and shot out the only lamp in the room. One of Brandon's bullets, intended for Bret, hit and killed Clark. Brandon fled, but the commotion resulted in Bret being held by the sheriff for questioning. When Bret told the sheriff he didn't kill Brandon, the sheriff wondered how he knew for sure since so many shots were being fired in the dark. To help him determine if Bret was telling the truth, he suggested that Brandon was shooting with a .38, but the bullet that killed Clark was a .45. Bret admitted that, if that were true, he must have killed Clark, but it was in self-defense. But the sheriff admitted that all the guns involved were, in fact, .45s, so there was no way for a jury to determine whether it was Bret or Brandon that killed Clark. Both would have to be acquitted, so the sheriff decided not to try to capture Brandon or hold Bret.[2]