Today I loaded up a box of .32 S&W ammo to shoot in an antique S&W No.1-1/2 Single Action revolver that was built in 1878. I cast the bullets yesterday using the mold built into the antique Ideal loading tool. Powder charge was 5 grains of Swiss 3Fg black powder (original .32 S&W BP loads held 9 grains but modern solid head cases have less capacity than the old balloon head cases).
The gun is 147 years old but was properly cared for and works just as well as it did when it left Smith & Wesson's factory.
Color me jealous! That is one cool old popper! I've got a (early 20th Century) H&R Young American in 32 S&W. Had a difficult time coming up with brass so used some 32 ACP brass to load up some ammo for it. It's recent enough that it handles original level 32 S&W smokeless loads so that's what I went with. One of these days I need to track down some S&W brass for it because trimming down 32 SWL brass is a LOT like work! :-D I did run off about 18 rounds of such for my b-in-law to have along with his dad's old "Saturday Night Special", but am holding off on doing any more for my more modern one until such a time as brass comes up again. Anyway, that's my second most favorite old time pocket popper after the S&W 22 short like Samuel L. Clemens - better known as Mark Twain - wrote about in ¨Roughing It".
ReplyDeleteThe way I got the brass was buying modern Remington .32 S&W ammo after I got the gun. I shot it in an H&R 733 in .32 Long and saved it to load with BP. Midway had a sale on the ammo for under $20/box at the time so I bought 4 boxes. This was back in 2020.
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