Cylinder Throats on my .32-20

My brother has a set of pin gauges to today I measured the cylinder throats on my .32-20 S&W M-1905, 4th Change Military & Police. I hypothesized that if they were too large it would be the cause of the low velocities I'm seeing with it.

Nope, every one of them measured 0.313". Combined with the barrel/cylinder gap of 0.003" to 0.008" it's in spec. The only thing I can think of is the barrel. Some barrels are just slower than others.

To be fair, this gun is for informal plinking and target shooting for me, since centerfire rifles and handguns aren't legal for small game in PA, and I have much better choices for self defense, so the low velocities don't really matter.

Full charge wadcutters in .38 Special

I've previously mentioned the use of "full charge" wadcutters in .38 Special. As with much of the stuff I do, I got the idea from C.E. Harris. Read his article here.

Today I ran 10 such loads over my Garmin Xero C1 Pro chronograph with the following results:

Full specs for my handloads:

• .358 powder coated 148 grain double end wadcutters from Missouri Bullet Company
• 3.5 grains of Alliant Bullseye powder
• Winchester WSP small pistol primer
• Mixed .38 brass

I fired them from a Ruger Police Service Six chambered for .357 Magnum, with a 4" barrel.

Substituting 3.5 grains of Hodgdon Titegroup for the Bullseye should give similar results but be cleaner burning.

Chronographed the .32-20

Today I took the M-1905 Military & Police .32-20 to the range and ran a couple different loads over my Garmin Xero C1 chronograph.

First up were 10 of the rounds I loaded last week with an antique Ideal tong tool. These had a 107 grain RNFP bullet over 3.85 grains of Unique.

Next were 10 rounds from a box of HSM .32-20 cowboy action shooting ammo, which have a 115 grain RNFP bullet that's rated at 850 FPS, though HSM doesn't specify on the box or their website from what barrel length. I suspect it's from a rifle or at least a 7.5" revolver.

When I've chronographed this gun before it's been on the slow side. After I got home and cleaned it I measured the barrel/cylinder gap for each chamber using feeler gauges. They ranged from .003" to .008", so the gaps are in spec.

I need to measure the cylinder throats. I have a feeling they're a bit large and that's why the muzzle velocities I'm seeing are slower than load data suggests.

Free Soldier Softshell Jacket.

A couple months ago I realized I needed a new softshell jacket. However, I didn't want to spend REI-money as this will be mostly used around town, with light field usage. So, after doing some searching on and off Amazon I ordered a Free Soldier brand Soft Shell Hooded Military Tactical Jacket.

It has over 6,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, so for $56 I thought it was worth a try. It's available in a variety of colors. I went with OD green which strikes a nice balance of being low key in either the city or the woods, without being as overtly military as a camo pattern. I prefer green over brown in the woods since it's not deer-colored.

Like most of the tactical soft shells on the market it's a copy of the TAD Gear Stealth Raider Hoodie, but at a much lower price.

My initial impressions were favorable. The sewing seems to be good quality, the zippers all move smoothly, there were no loose threads, and it fits me well with room for layering. I'm 5'5" but with a spare tire and broad shoulders for my height so I got a 2XL.

Jackets should have a hood if you're going to be out in inclement weather for an extended time. They keep you dryer and warmer. Ideally, the hood should fit comfortably over a hat without forcing it down onto your head. The hood on this jacket meets that requirement. The hood can be rolled up and secured with a flap although I normally just leave it unrolled. The front of the hood can be adjusted with shock cords that run down into the front pockets. It's big enough to comfortably fit over a ball cap and the brim is long enough to fully cover the cap's brim. Aside from helping to create a nice microclimate in front of your face, this is also great for those of us who wear glasses.

The FS jacket has six external pockets. There are two front pockets with long zippers. Inside each is a D-ring to dummy cord items to and a pen or penlight pocket. The right front pocket also has an internal vertical cell phone pocket that easily fits my iPhone 16 Pro.

Both arms have bicep pockets with Velcro panels on the outside. There's also a small pocket on the lower left arm.

Finally, there's a poacher's pocket on the back with zips on both sides. This would be good for stashing a beanie, gloves, or scarf but I wouldn't want something too bulky back there.

There are no inside pockets, which is a negative IMO. A Napoleon pocket would also be nice.

The cuffs are adjustable with Velcro and the hem is adjustable with shock cords to keep out the wind. There are pit zips for ventilation. The front zipper is two way and the pull is on the right side, i.e., American style.

Softshells should be wind and water resistant.

My initial test of the jacket's water resistance was to stand outside from about 10 - 15 minutes in a pouring rain while it was 70*F. While a short test it did not wet through. I felt some cold from the rain on my shoulders but after I came back inside and doffed the jacket it was completely dry inside. Based on this it should handle brief showers fine, and snow shouldn't be a problem, either.

Wind resistance is very good. I've taken it on a couple half hour walks in ~40*F weather with wind at 20 MPH, gusting to 35 MPH. It kept out the wind just fine.

I haven't owned it long enough to determine long term durability but the initial impressions are good, and the price was right.

Loading .32-20 WCF Ammunition with an Antique Ideal Tong Tool

Over the weekend I cast some bullets in an antique Ideal reloading tool, so I thought I'd put together a post on how to actually use these things.

From what I can tell it's a No.4 although it differs a little from other No.4s I've seen, in regards to how priming is handled. Anyway, here it is:

With this one tool, you can do the following:

1. Cast bullets and size them
2. Decap spent cases
3. Reprime empty cases
4. Flare the case mouth
5. Seat a new bullet in place

Originally it came in a cardboard box with a powder scoop for the right amount of black powder, and a decapping pin. The scoop and decapping pin are usually missing when you find these tools today. For a decapping pin you can use a Lee Precision case length guide intended for trimming brass.

If you need to decap, place the decapper inside a spent case the put the case into the bullet seating chamber, and close the handles. This will pop out the spent primer. The extractor claw on the right side handle will pull the case out a bit so you can remove it from the tool.

I got 49 usable bullets from this session. You need to get and keep the mold hot which is challenging because of the small bullet and the mass of the tool, which is made from cast iron. The entire tool acts like a heat sink. Despite this, when I weighed the bullets they were pretty consistent at 107 grains plus or minus a grain, using soft lead. Only visibly wrinkled bullets weighed less.

The bullets are of a round nosed, flat pointed design, intended for use in lever action rifles and revolvers. It would make a good small game bullet.

To flare the case mouths, I used the outside of the bullet seating chamber as shown here:

Next up I needed to prime the cases. As you can see there's a position on the end of the mold blocks for this.

I was not happy how the Ideal tool handled the combination of virgin Starline .32-20 brass and Aguila No.1-1/2 primers. I couldn't really get the primers flush or below flush. The pin that drives the primers into the pockets needed to be a couple thousands longer. It may be worn down from use. So, I only did a couple then resorted to using a modern Frankford Arsenal hand priming tool to prime the rest of the brass. Another option would be to finish seating the primers flush using a dowel inserted in the case and tapping the case down onto a metal surface like an anvil. (This is how primers are seated using a Lee Loader.)

With bullets and primed cases in hand, the next step is to charge the cases with powder. I'll be shooting this ammo in a 1920s S&W Model 1905, 4th Change Military & Police revolver. I don't want to clean up black powder fouling so instead, I used Alliant Unique. (One of my better pre-election year purchases was an 8 lb. keg of Unique in the Fall of 2019.) Unique could easily have been used by early Ideal customers since it was introduced in 1900 and has been in production ever since.

To measure the powder I used a Lee 0.5cc dipper. With my technique and this batch of Unique, I get an average charge of 3.85 grains per scoop. I could use a slightly higher charge but since I'll just be paper punching or plinking with this ammo there's no need to hot rod a 100 year old gun.

OK, now it's time to seat the bullets. That large lube groove is there to handle a good amount of grease, e.g., tallow or a beeswax/tallow mix, which you need when shooting black powder. Since I'm shooting smokeless I just lubed the bullets with Lee Liquid Alox.

Charged case with bullet in the seating chamber:

And the extractor claw pulling the complete round of ammo out of the seating chamber:

The cartridge on the left is what they look like after the previous step. Something to keep in mind with this sort of tool is that it does not apply a strong crimp. When loaded of a full charge of black powder the bullet cannot telescope back into the case. That's not true with smokeless which leaves a mostly empty case, so as a final step I ran the assembled rounds through a Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die on my press to fully secure the bullet in the case mouth.

There are some downsides to handloading using this kind of tool:

• It's slow.
• It works only with the bullet cast in the integral mold, since seating depth isn't adjustable. However, the bullets from the mold are well suited to the cartridge.
• The aforementioned lack of crimp.
• Because the entire tool including the handles is made from cast iron, it acts as a heat sink so getting good bullets from the mold can be a challenge.

That said, now I have 49 more rounds of .32-20 ammo, mostly loaded using late 19th Century technology.

BTW, here's what I'll be firing this ammo in, a 1920s vintage S&W Model 1905, 4th Change, Military & Police revolver. I replaced the original service grips with a set of later Magnas plus a Robertson Trading post grip adapter (copy of the Tyler T-Grip) to make it easier to hold onto when shooting double action. The paint on the front sight is to make it easier to see with 57 year old eyes. The M-1905 is the predecessor to the familiar Model 10, most commonly chambered for .38 Special.

 

Removing a Stuck Ball in a Muzzleloader

If you shoot a muzzleloader long enough at some point you'll "dry ball," i.e., load the ball without a powder charge. At that point you'll need to remove it.

Note that the following applies to traditional muzzleloaders, not inlines with easily removable breech plugs.

Some guns allow you to remove the nipple or flash hole liner and dribble in a little bit of fine grained powder, then shoot the ball out. E.g., if you do this in a percussion revolver it's pretty straightforward to remove the cylinder, remove the nipple, dribble in a small amount of powder, reassemble, cap and shoot the ball out.

However, many times you can't easily get enough powder behind the ball to bloop it out.

One option is a CO2 ball discharger. This uses CO2 from a cylinder to shoot out the ball using gas pressure. Many guys like these to unload a gun after hunting if they haven't fired it.

Otherwise, you need to pull the ball, for which you need a stout range rod or ramrod and a ball screw.

I've setup my rifles with Delrin ramrods that have threaded brass tips on both ends. The tips are both glued and cross-pinned to the rod so they don't pull off. (They will eventually come off if you don't cross-pin them.)

When I'm hunting or shooting a woods walk with a muzzleloader, I keep a small leather bag in my shooting pouch that contains a few items to keep my rifle running in the field:

L to R are:

• Nipple wrench
• Ball screw
• Patch pulling worm
• 8-32 male to 10-32 female thread adapter
• Cleaning jag
• Replica US M-1817 tow worm

Note how the ball screw has a brass collar around it. It's just smaller than the bore and serves to keep it centered as you screw it into the ball. 

The corkscrew-type worm is for pulling patches from the bore if one slips off a jag. The M-1817 worm will do that, but can also be used to scrub the bore with tow fiber wrapped around it like a primitive bore brush.

I've made up similar sets for .45, .50, .54, and .58. I may omit the thread adapter and don't usually carry both types of worm. 

You can get most if not all those accessories from Track of the Wolf, Dixie Gun Works, October Country, Crazy Crow Trading Post, Muzzle-loaders.com, The Possible Shop, or even Amazon.

Along with the bag of ramrod tips I also carry an aluminum T-handle from Track of the Wolf in my bag. This screws onto the other end of the rod and gives you something to grab onto.

To pull a ball here's how I do it:

1. If the bore is fouled run a damp patch down it to remove most of the crud, then run an oiled patch down to lube the patched ball on the way out.
   
   
2. Screw the T-handle and ball screw onto the rod.
   
   
3. Optionally, put a small drop of oil or smear some bullet lube onto the tip of the ball screw to make it easier to screw into the lead ball.
   
   
4. Put the ramrod down the barrel and using some pressure, drill into the stuck ball with the ball screw. You'll want to ensure you have good engagement but don't overdo it and strip it out
   
   Note: Once you start drilling the screw into the ball never turn the ramrod counter-clockwise because the ball screw will come off the end of your ramrod.
   
   
5. Give the ramrod a sharp tug to get it started. If necessary, invert the rifle and hold the T-handle between your feet then give the rifle a sharp upwards tug. This usually gets it moving.

If the ball is really stuck, tie the T-handle to a tree or other immovable object and then yank on the rifle.

If the ball screw strips out of the ball you can retry it but at that point you may need to resort to a CO2 discharger or in a worst case scenario, unbreech the barrel. This is known as a bad day.

If you pull the ball from an unused hunting charge you may be able to dump some of the powder immediately, but you may need to break it up with the ball screw and/or worm first, because it'll be compacted in the breech.

Knowing how to pull a ball is an important skill for muzzleloader shooters. Aside from dry balls, you may want to pull a ball after an unsuccessful hunt rather than shooting it out and fouling your gun.

And yes, you can shoot a ball that you've pulled. It's basically a hollowpoint now if you load it with the hole facing up. AAMOF, yesterday I fired a ball I pulled after the Pennsylvania early muzzleloader deer season. I shot it at the Boyertown fun shoot and whacked a gong out at about 70 yards with it.

Found the Real Problem with my .54 Caplock

I shot my Investarm .54 Hawken again today at the Boyertown fun shoot and it turns out that I wasn't having cap problems at all. Rather, it was that the fly in my lock was not working properly and on many of the drops wasn't allowing the hammer to fall past the half cock notch if the trigger was set before firing. I pulled the lock, made sure the fly was moving freely and lubed it with a couple of drops of Ballistol. After I did that I had no more ignition problems.

Tomorrow I'm going to remove the lock and blast it out with brake cleaner, then relube with Shooters Choice FP-10. Unlike Ballistol, FP-10 doesn't gum up and is good down to -40F, which is 50 degrees colder than I ever plan to be out shooting or hunting.

I plan to do that with my other sidelocks as well.

Note:

Sidelocks meant for use on muzzleloading rifles or pistols with set triggers have a part called a "fly." It is a small, pivoting piece that when working correctly, prevents the half cock notch from catching on the sear. A fly is not needed on a lock used with a gun that doesn't have a set trigger, because of how the set trigger kicks the sear when the gun is fired.