Loaded Some .32 Smith & Wesson Longs

 Today I loaded up 50 rounds of .32 Smith & Wesson Long. My recipe today was:

• Mixed brass, mostly Fiocchi
• Sellier & Bellot small pistol primers
• 2.7 grains of Alliant Bullseye powder
• 96 grain round nose flat point bullet from Desperado Cowboy Bullets

Actually, since I used a RNFP bullet, I could call them .32 Colt New Police loads. :)

   

I ran into an issue priming the cases, however. I generally use a Lee hand priming tool, but today it decided it didn't like the combination of Fiocchi brass and S&B primers. Fiocchi brass tends to have snug primer pockets. I would up using my antique Ideal tool for .32 S&W to prime the cases. It's slow, but it works.

According to the data I have from Loaddata.com, this should give about 910 FPS from a 4" barrel. I'll probably shoot this batch from my Ruger Single Six Vacquero, chambered in .32 H&R Magnum.

I have plans to head to a friend's place tomorrow to burn it up.

.32 Caliber Range Report

On Saturday I was able to get the Beretta 81 out to the range. I put 50 rounds of Aguila and 20 rounds of Fiocchi .32 ACP through the gun. It showed good accuracy at 7 yards and had no malfunctions. As expected, the Fiocchi ammo, which was made in Hungary, was loaded hotter than the Aguila ammo. Recoil with both loads was mild.

I also put 50 rounds of Remington .32 S&W through my "Cowboy Pimp Gun," a Ruger Single Six Vaquero chambered for .32 H&R Magnum.

Shooting .32 S&W in the Ruger felt like a pop gun. My reason for buying the .32 S&W ammo was to get brass so I can reload it with black powder for my vintage-1878 S&W Number 1 1/2. My plan is to load the black powder ammo with an Ideal No. 2 reloading tool which I won on eBay yesterday.

(Picture borrowed from the auction.)

Another pic from the auction shows some corrosion in the bullet mold cavity but I think it'll clean up OK with some Evaporust. Even if the bullets aren't perfect it's not like I'm going to get gilt edge accuracy from the Number 1 1/2, which has merely vestigial sights.

That said, shooting the .32 S&W in the Ruger was plain fun and I have three more boxes of it.

Out of curiosity I tried 5 rounds of Aguila .32 ACP in the Ruger. The .32 ACP cartridge is semi-rimmed and being a rod-ejector, I don't need to be concerned with the small rims slipping over an ejector star. Pressure of SAAMI-spec .32 ACP is under what the Ruger is rated for, being chambered in .32 H&R Magnum (20,000 PSI vs. 21,000 CUP.)

However, CIP-spec 7.65mm Browning / .32 ACP can be loaded to 23,000 PSI so it's probably not a good idea to run it in most .32 H&R wheelguns. It would be safe to shoot in revolvers chambered for the .327 Federal Mag, which is rated for 45,000 PSI. I suspect that it would be fine in the Ruger, which is rather overbuilt.

Aside from shooting the Beretta and Ruger, I put another 50 rounds through my Glock 19-sized Polymer 80 pistol. I need to do some more tinkering with it, because although it feeds and ejects fine, it's not locking back after the last shot in a magazine. This is with both MagPul and Glock factory mags, and with CCI Blazer Brass 115 grain and 124 grain Winchester 9mm NATO Ball.

One thing I'm noticing is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to see the front sight of small pistols when shooting them indoors under florescent lighting, especially if they aren't square. I may look into getting a Merit Optical Attachment for Pistol Shooting. (I don't have this problem when shooting outdoors and my iris is contracted, which gives better depth of field.)

Yay for middle age.

Cast Some .38-40 Bullets

This afternoon I cast some bullets using the Ideal Number 6 reloading tool for my .38-40 1892 Winchester. I have a small Lyman electric lead pot and filled the mold with a dipper. The alloy is ~20:1 tin:lead, which gives me a soft bullet but the tin helps the molten lead fill out the mold.

They dropped from the mold at ~0.412" and sized down in the Ideal tool to ~0.401".

If you look closely you may see some flashing on some of the bullets. The mold blocks do not meet perfectly. This will be cleaned up during sizing and if necessary, with a fine cut file. If I can keep these on an 8" plate at 50 yards I'll be happy. I'll be ordering a modern mold for sure.

My plan is to shoot these over black powder, so I lubed some up with Crisco and ran them through the sizer on the Ideal tool.

This shows a bullet ready to be sized:

Even with the soft alloy your hands get a real workout. I did about 25 and will do another 25 later. I am going to order a Lee sizing die to use in my reloading press.

Using a tool like this for molding your bullets and loading the cartridges really makes you appreciate modern reloading tools. Even a Lee Hand Press is a major step up.

Using 19th Century Reloading Tools

As mentioned in previous posts, I picked up a couple 19th Century reloading tools to load ammunition for my .44-40 WCF Cimarron Firearms Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle. Tonight I gave them their first use in my hands by priming 50 cases. I primed 25 each in the Ideal Number 6 and the Winchester Model 1882. The cases were new Starlines which I'd previously belled the case mouths on my Lee Classic Turret press.

The first tool I used was the Ideal. Here's a case just after priming.

And here's a similar shot of the Winchester. (The gray color of the tool is due to an overnight soak in Evap-O-Rust, to remove a century-plus of surface rust and crud. Originally it was blued.)

This one shows how a small rod is used to press the primer into its pocket. The Ideal seats primers in the same way.

There wasn't much difference between the tools. The Ideal is a little heavier because it has a built-in bullet mold. Both give you a good feel of how the primer is being seated.

I didn't time myself but it probably took about 20 - 30 minutes to prime 50 cases.

Now I need to cast some bullets using the original molds and load up some more black powder cartridges.

19th Century Reloading Tools

As mentioned in my earlier post, I won an eBay auction for a Winchester Model 1882 reloading tool and matching bullet mold. Winchester made these tools between 1882 and 1914, so they are bonafide antiques.

After getting them I found them to be in good condition, but they had a solid covering of dirt and surface rust, including some minor rust in the mold's cavity. This is what the reloading tool looked like after soaking in Kroil and being scrubbed with some fine steel wool.

Still rather grungy, and I wanted to stop the rust, which otherwise would eventually severely damage the tool. So, I soaked both it and the mold sans wooden handles in Evapo-Rust. This removed what little remained of the original blueing but it got rid of the rust.

I may reblue the reloading tool, but the mold will probably take on a blue color with use. The screw retaining the sprue plate is frozen in place, so I may take the handles off again and soak the whole thing for a week in a penetrant to try to free it.

Today I made another score at a gun show. I found an Ideal Number 4 reloading tool for .44-40, for $80. Like the Winchester set it's missing the decapping pin and powder measure but still has some of the original nickel plating over the steel. I was able to remove the sprue plate screw without much effort.

This design was made from the mid-1880s up until the 1930s. It is the ancestor of the Lyman 310 tong tool, which is still manufactured to this day.

I gave it a wipe down with some WD40, Kroil, and steel wool and got off some of the rust. The mold cavity had a little rust inside but it seems to have wiped out.

Combining the reloading tool and mold into one unit makes sense for a tool that will see use on the frontier. The tool also incorporates a bullet sizer. The large pin sticking out from the inside on the handle is used to push a bullet through a properly-sized hole in the opposite handle.

The bullets cast in both the Winchester and Ideal molds look to be virtually identical. This makes sense, since they both are designed to duplicate the original factory bullet used in .44-40 cartridges. Lyman, which purchased the Ideal Tool Company, sells molds for the same design today, as their #427098.

One thing to note with the original bullet design is that is lacks a good crimping groove. It was designed to be supported on a case full of black powder, to prevent it from being forced back into the case when loaded in a tubular magazine rifle. The bullet doesn't get that support when loaded over less-bulky smokeless powder.

Another thing to note is that neither the Winchester nor the Ideal tool resize spent brass. So, while cartridges loaded in one of these will work in the same gun in which they were fired, they may not fit easily into the chamber of another rifle.

Both of these tools are somewhat limited, in that because the bullet seating/crimping chamber is nonadjustable, you can use them to load ammunition only with bullets cast in their molds. Also, they are cartridge-specific, unlike the Lyman 310 tool or modern reloading presses, in which you can get different dies for different calibers.

On YouTube, Joe Russo posted a good video on how to reload ammunition with the Winchester tool:

And Capandball posted one for the Ideal tool:

These tools are interesting pieces of history that can still be used. I do plan to try reloading with them, and will post follow up reports when I do.