Anyone load the .32 Long?

[Classicvette63]

Went and ordered a mould for the .32 Long/ Colt New Police. Anyone load this round? It's not as economical as a .22 but I think they are a hoot to shoot. I have a S&W and a Colt chambered for the .32. Neat little guns and for about $25 each the price was right.

[Rocky Raab]

Hey Classic, I'll take either one off your hands and I'll double your investment!

I loaded a few hundred 32 Longs for a guy once, but that's hardly a lot of experience. As I recall, using jacketed bullets was a waste of time and money. With a soft-cast lead bullet (and you do NOT want a hard bullet with this round!), I think 2.5 of Bullseye or 3.0 of RedDot worked best with an 86-gr SWC.

If you make your own alloy, use nothing harder than 1-16, and 1-20 might be better. If you use scrap, mix one part of wheelweights with four to six parts pure lead.

[Classicvette63]

Rocky, Yeah, I think I made a pretty good buy. The Colt was as best as I can figure a police issue piece due to the 4 digit # stamped on the bottom of the grip. Wish I'd have brought more money to the auction that day. Walked out with the Smith and the Colt, an Iver Johnson .32, a I&J .38S&W, a H&R .38S&W and a J.C. Higgins 12 ga. pump all for $200. Once I got the camo paint off of the Higgins, it was mint. And to think I went there not planning on buying a thing.

I shot some factory .32 longs at a diswasher at the dump. Wouldn't even penetrate. Flattened out to about the size of a quarter. Very accurate though. I'll have to give those loads a try. Thanks

[bfoster]

I started reading your question with the wrong cartridge in mind, more so as I have a New Police chambered in 32 Long Colt...

To answer your question, I do load the 32 Colt New Police, AKA, the 32 S&W Long, mostly with wadcutters.

IMO, the best wadcutter mould currently on the market is SAECO #323, though the discontinued Lyman # 313445 is worth the time it takes invested in repeated eBay searches as well as the money committed to a winning bid.

I agree with Rocky, use a soft bullet- I don't often cast wadcutters with alloys harder than 1:160; just enough tin to get perfectly filled out bullets without having to fuss. Run both the mould and the alloy hotter than usual, particularly in the SAECO mould, those big blocks must be kept warm if you don't want problems. Too hard a bullet will lead to leading problems due to insufficient obturation. I load both of these bullets over 1.7 grains of Bullseye for use in both a Colt OMT and a S&W M16 (K32).

I do cast harder bullets using 1:20, using the discontinued Lyman #31133, a hollow point version of #3118. Driven to ~1100 fps it's a great small game killer. But, I'd not recommend this load for any revolvers chambered for in 32 Colt New Police/32 S&W Long except the Colt OMT and the Smith M16. Such loads are well beyond SAAMI peak pressures. Though recommended by writers from Mattern and Himmelwright through Skelton I won't pass data on since you don't say exactly what you acquired in the way of a .32 revolver. Truly, this level of power is dangerous in weak, and/or small framed revolvers.

Bob

[Rocky Raab]

Very true. That's precisely why those factory loads are so anemic - they have to be safe in ANY gun chambered for that round (for obvious liability reasons) so they're loaded down to what the weakest gun in that caliber can safely stand.

Translation: poof!

Assuming a good quality revolver (I was loading for a Ruger SP101 chambered for 32 H&R Mag) the dinky little 32 Long can be juiced up to 1,000 fps very easily, even with bullets in the 85-grain area.

But such loads are NOT for old, break-top guns or any that show significant wear. Let your professional gunsmith be your guide.

[Mad Reloader]

Speaking of .32 S&W Long, just recently picked up a "fixer-upper" that can handle that cartridge:

It's an 1898 Rast&Gasser Austrian service revolver, cal "8mm Gasser"--which appears to be either a lengthened .32 S&W L, or a shortened .32 H&R Mag, based on my correlating case dimensions.

Raised a LOT of eyebrows at the February Crossroads show, as apparently in my parts those things are LONG since vanished. Mine needs a new firing pin (which I will eventually have my gunsmith install) and some work done on a new loading gate which I have roughed out a replacement from steel stock.

This being a solid-framed gateloader, I think the action strength is there to handle warmer loads of .32 S&W Long...

(Have attached a pic of an 1898, this one being the one I did NOT win the auction of--if you look carefully you can see the frame-mounted firing pin and the INTACT loading gate. Notice the really odd grip shape. To aim properly, you actually have to take that weird "bent-arm" stance firearms instructors keep telling one NOT TO use)

Though for the most part it will get used primarily with .32 S&W smokeless blanks, as I got it for doing World War One re-enacting--but I would like to "range qualify" with it someday!

[Rocky Raab]

Stick with the blanks, MR.

It may be solid, but it may also be made of an alloy with about as much strength as marzipan.

On the grip angle - they were about as good at ergonomics as they were at metallurgy back then. You have to wonder how some of those things ever got past the drawing board, or at least the first prototype. Especially when you consider that guys like Colt and Luger managed to get their designs so nearly perfect!

[Mad Reloader]

Sage advice, Rocky....

(Though compared to some of the hinge-frame "lemon-squeezer" jobbers out there, the 1898 looks a LOT stouter. Nonetheless, full-house .32 S&W Long isn't going anywhere NEAR it!)

Attached is another pic of an earlier, larger-frame & larger calibre Gasser revolver whose ergonomics...you be the judge!

[bfoster]

Mad Reloader,

Ken Howell’s Designing and Forming Custom Cartridges for Rifles and Handguns gives the CIP standards for the 8 mm Gasser case:

Rim diameter, maximum .3811”
Case diameter just ahead of the rim, maximum: .3386”
Case diameter at the mouth, maximum: .3370”
Rim thickness, maximum: .0433”
Case overall length, maximum: 1.0630”

Robert Amadek’s Pistols of World War I gives a cartridge overall length of 1.475”

Should you be unable to resist firing this old timer, I’d advise you to slug the barrel and carefully measure the chamber throats. Nominal bullet diameter is 0.319”, but actual sample ammunition I’ve measured after teardown used much smaller bullets, sometimes as small as 0.312”. Also have a careful look at the forcing cone. To put it kindly, some European revolvers of this vintage, even "good" ones, have very odd geometries there...

Bob

[Rocky Raab]

Something odd there, too, bfoster!

The shown .3811" rim diameter makes it a rebated rim - for a revolver? I suspect a typo: .3911 maybe?

[Mad Reloader]

What I have for case data is as follows:

OD @ neck = 0.3320"
OD @ base = 0.3340"
OD @ rim = 0.3760"
Length = 1.037"

Contrast w/ .32 H&R magnum...

OD @ neck =0.3330"
OD @ base =0.3330"
OD @ rim = 0.3710"
Length = 1.080"

Unfired .32 H&R's will chamber but not go in all the way...

So: Have a source of brass to theoretically rework, no sweat.

(Going to have my gunsmith check it out B4 attempring to fire live rounds...and even then, the HOTTEST the ca. 1915 jobber will EVER shoot as long as I own it will be .32 S&W Long target wadcutters or CAS loaded .32's... )

[Monkeyman]

I don't reload, my pistol club has Fiocchi wadcutters cheap for the UIT boys and their Hamerli match pistols. I only have one gun that shoots .32, it is an arsenal reworked 1916 Nagant revolver (soon to have wood grips if I can find some). I've been after a nice S&W UIT revolver for a while but they seem to have all disappeared to be replaced by Italian automatics that don't even look like guns. My quest continues for a 4" Smith with match sights. A friend of mine has one of those Colt Police Positive revolvers you mention, can't believe men trusted their lives to .32s not so many years ago.

[Mad Reloader]

WOW! Looks like my "genuine Kerensky" 1917 date Nagant--right down to the bakelite grips.

I'd love to find a set of the finely-checkered walnut grips as well, Monkey man!

Seems most of what has come upon our shores here in the Western Hemisphere in recent years has either had the late-war Bakelite panels...or what I like to call the "Karelian Birch" grips with their incredibly coarse checkering...

(Which to me look even WORSE than the bakelites)

The reliance of several nations (Tsarist Russia, the French 2nd Republic, Imperial Japan, Austria-Hungary, among others) on .32 calibre service handguns seems almost absurd to those of us living either Stateside, or in the former British Empire

(where it was .455's or .45 Colt, thank you very much! )

But SOME of the service rounds preceeding the .32 calibres were rather mediocre to poor performers (11mm French Revolver, 9mm Japanese rimmed)

And in the cases of Russia and Austria--a combination of servicemen not really being able to get qualifying scores on a regular enough basis, combined with gripes about the "unneccesary bulk" of the Russian Model S&W's or the Model 1870 Rast & Gasser in 11mm Long (see preceeding picture with red background) ... led to adoption of cartridges one would ordinarily associate with pocket revolvers and the sort of stuff one's GF would have in her nightstand drawer
(I live in AZ. Numerous single women with handguns. IME, usually chambered in something smaller than 9x19 or .357, half the time .22's or .25's -- Though one GF of mine some years back had a .44 Special!)

If I were one of my great-uncles or such from Dad's side of the family back in WW1, methinks I would have gotten one of the "obsolescent" Model 1870 revolvers...

But since I'm re-enacting, much easier to get blanks to fit the oddly-gripped woefully underpowered Model 1898

---> Monkey man: Since you're in Barbados, and not reloading for your 1895 Nagant--one of my associates here in AZ has had fairly good luck with the Aguila brand .32 S&W Long in his revolver of identical make to ours. Food for thought so as not to exhaust supplies of the Fiocchi!

(I have a friend 2 towns over that ran me off a quantity of .32-20 full length resized and loaded to Nagant revolver specs... )

[Monkeyman]

MadReloader, we share a common interest in military firearms, that's what I collect (from two wars). The former communist block has recently been unloading small forgotten arsenals to the highest bidder, usually at base-commander level. Huge stores of captured German equipment are being released to international arms dealers, some re-captured (I was offered a Soviet SVT38 with Nazi proofs that was subsequently re-captured by Ivan and arsenal reworked). I have a few friends in UK who are dealers so they often pick out something special for me if they come accross it. I am awaiting a new shipment of K98 Snipers, MP38s and MP40s to get my paws on a couple of items.

Here's a pair of WW1 treasures for you, a 1917 Webley Mk6 with shoulder stock (made from the actual rare rocking horse of excrement-story fame) and a 1917 DWM Arty Luger with stock/holster. I'm hoping to pick up a snaildrum mag soon for the Luger and anxiously yearn for a Red 9 Mauser.

On a further historic note, as a pistol instructor you learn how to read targets to diagnose shooting errors e.g. hits low/left usually are an indicator of snatching the trigger. I recently learned that the reason for the curved mainspring housing on the 1911A1 was to raise the angle of the muzzle to cure the WW1 problem of low hits. Can you imagine some US Army clerk coming to the conclusion that the reason Doughboys miss low with their automatics is in fact not because Gerry is coming over the top with fixed bayonets and imparted some 'stress' on the shooter, but actually due to the grip shape of the pistol? I've added a pic of my 1911s, the top is a 1917 US Army 1911, the next is a 1943 Ithaca 1911A1.