.32 Long Colt ,Need Help

[dusty texian]

ndnchf,I thought about your Remington .32 last wk. I brought the Grandchildren to visit the Museum,on the square in old Mason Tx.There on display was a little Remington rolling block. It had an old leather cartridge belt wraped around the buttstock,just in front of the buttplate. In the cartridge loop's are three or four old .32 rimfire long cartridges. They looked to be copper cased? Not sure. But the belt and cartridges looked like they had been on that little rifle for a long time. The little belt looked like it was made for the rifle as it was about 1-1/4" wide ,small buckle and only wraped around the butstock twice .With about eight cartridge loop's .A neat little hunting rig from day's gone by .,,,,,Dusty

[ndnchf]

Hey Dusty - that sounds like a nice little outfit.  Neat to see that it was considered a museum quality rifle.  Was it used by someone famous? I was in the hospital last week and had emergency surgery, so I've not yet had the chance to take the #4 to the range.  But as soon as I'm mended, I look for ward to trying it out.  Thanks for the report.

[dusty texian]

ndnchf,Glad to hear you are on the mend,and Hope you a Speedy recovery!The little rifle had a write-up on it ,but I had four little ones asking question's ages from three to seven. Did not get to read all I wanted .But had a great time. Do you know if the 32 rf  cartridge was loaded in copper case's? They may have been just tarnished brass. Get Well ,,,,,Dusty

[dusty texian]

My good Friend and Neighbor,gave me a .32 S&W cal. Ideal Reloading Hand Tool. He know's I have been working with the .32 Long Colt. (Not the same cartridge) ,Johny is a very experienced GunSmith retired now ,but very sharp.When he speak's I am all ear's. Well I took the tool home and ran a couple of once fire'd in my Marlin 32 LC. case's through it. I made a small stop that fit's between the handles and does not allow the plier's to close all the way . With this in place I can size just the portion of the case neck down for good bullet heel grip. The tool will bring down the case .005 .And give's a very good grip ,upon bullet seating . I have to stop the bullet seating step upon feeling the bullet come against the bullet heel. The tool is not adjustable .Same reason for the stop on the neck sizeing . Work's very good. Now I will make a new decapping pin for the Ideal tool. Then I will be able to reload with just the Ideal tool and a Powder Measure, on the Gallery .   The two cases on the left have been neck size'd down ,the two on the right are as fire'd .Sorry the pic. is not good Quality ,,,,,,,,,,Dusty 

[ndnchf]

Dusty - yes, .32 rimfire was loaded in copper cases.  In fact, just about all the old rimfire cartridges were copper cased.  I have a few originals in various rimfire calibers.  That loading tool sounds like just the ticket - congrats.

[dusty texian]

Here is a pic. of three .32 Long Colt cartridge's loaded in the Ideal HandLoading tool,with three .22 LR. for scale . I have great respect for the .22 LR. as I have dispatched many wild hog with it ,over the yr.s. One in the ear is all that is needed. The .32 LC is a substantial, jump in power over the .22lr.,,,,,,,,,Dusty

[w44wcf]

Dusty,
Glad to hear that your .32 is producing nice groups.     Nice neighbor! Neat idea using the .32 S&W Tong tool to load .32 Colt ammo.  Apparently the crimp portion of the die is small enough to do the resizing. I also have the same tool that I got with a bunch of other stuff at a garage sale 20 or so years ago. I have made 100 gr bullets from the mold to shoot in .30-30 gallery loads but it never occurred to me to try using it to reload .32 Colt.  Thank you for the idea.

All this discussion on the .32 Colt inspired me to work on a new bullet design for the .78" long case.  I sent it to Tom at Accurate Molds and it is now 31-090S in his catalog. I am placing an order for a 3 cavity mold.  Can't wait to give it a test. I'll send some bullets to you to try.



http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=31-090S-D.png

Copper cases ......
I have some .22's, .32 Colts (see pic on 1st page), a few .44 Henry's and a couple of .45-70's that are copper cased.  I do know that some .22's  were loaded in copper cases up until the late 1930's early 1940's  as this box would indicate.



ndnchf,
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

w44wcf

[dusty texian]

Wow, that is a great looking bullet design. It should be very accurate and with the flat nose ,would be a gamegetter, for sure. Looking forward to seeing the result's of testing. w44wcf ,what is the ammount of neck tension  you like betwean ,case -neck and bullet heel? On the 299153 bullet with a heel of .298 and neck-sized case in the Ideal tong tool I am getting an case neck id. of around .290 . Make's for a  nice tight fit . Have not tried the load's prepared in the Ideal Tong tool as of yet. But will on Friday morning. I am going to make a decapping pin for the 32 S&W tool. If you do not have one I will make two and send you one .Does your 92 feed the SC cartridge from the magazine? My 92 does not like feeding them, but feed's the LC very good. I am useing the Winchester case and 299153 .Was there a 299152 for the SC. I may have the # wrong ? Enjoying the .32 ,,,,,,Dusty

[ndnchf]

I finally got a chance to go to the range today and try out my .32 cal Remington Rolling Block #4 converted to centerfire.  It has been probably 20 years since I fired this rifle, so this was like starting all over again.  I had some factory .32 Short Colt and .32 Long Colt and I shot some of each.

Here is the rifle on the bottom, with its brother in .22LR on the top.


I know its hard to see, but that is .32 Long and Short Colt cartridges in between them.

I dont recall the groove diameter of the rifle. I tried some of each cartridge.  The targets were at about 20 yards and I fired from a rest use the barrel sights and my old eyes.  First off I tried the Remington .32 Long Colt ammo. Here are two targets with 5 shots each.


The sights are a little off, but not too bad.  Before firing at the lower target I adjusted the rear sight a little, but not quite far enough.

Next I fired the .32 Short Colt.


I think they both shot pretty good.  Now I want to reload these and see what I can do.  It is a sweet little rifle! 

[dusty texian]

ndnchf, those are some very fine rifles,you have there. Look's like the .32 is a shooter. One ragged hole ,Wow! That is a sweet rifle.I shot my .32 today also.I shot at 25 yd. and 50 yd. The load's in LC. shot at 50 ,and the SC at 25yd. Had good group's with each . I was really happy with the SC load. I did not know how accurate they would be with the long jump to the land's . But they did very well. I need to file down my front bead as it is to large ,and cover's more target than is needed. That is really neat ndnchf, I like seeing a fellow .32 shooter's result's .Out of all the big bang gun's at the range today the little .32 was the one that caught all the attention. They are so mild . I do not think, I would have needed hearing protection if I had been shooting alone . Fun Fun Fun,,,,,,Dusty

[ndnchf]

Glad to hear yours is shooting nicely.  It is a fine little cartridge.  I don't have any .32 Colt dies, but I do have some .32 S&W dies. I'll see what I can do with them.  Next time I take it to the range, I may swap the tang sight off the other #4.  It really helps the sight picture.

[Adirondacker]

  Next time I take it to the range, I may swap the tang sight off the other #4.  It really helps the sight picture.

If you can shoot THAT well with crude factory open sights, maybe you don't need the tang sight!  Just kidding--should make a major difference at 50 yds.

[dusty texian]

ndnchf, I do not have 32 LC die's . I first used 32-20 die's and managed to reload but could not size the neck down. Then I tried the 32S&W reloading tong tool and found that the bullet portion of the die would neck size ( so to speak) just the case neck enough to hold the heel bullet that I am useing very well. Today I shot load's assembled by both the 32-20 dies and the 32 S&W tong tool. Both were accurate. I found that the 32S&W die would seat the heel bullet very straight and easy. Good Luck with the reloading . Keep us posted. I'm with Ya Adirondacker he look's like he's doing mighty fine in the accuracy dept to me,,,,,,Dusty

[ndnchf]

I have some Idean 299153 bullets I got a number of years ago.  I played around with my .32 S&W short seating die and was able to seat it ok and its firm in the .32 SC case.  There seems to be hope yet for reloading thisl little guy.

[Adirondacker]

My pair of fours, .22 above. 32 below; the latter I'm sorely tempted to convert to CF, after seeing above targets.  (Anything missing from upper receiver?)


IMG_2168 by entredeuxguerres, on Flickr

[ndnchf]

That's a nice brace of #4s.  Looks like there is still some color case hardening on the receiver of the lower one.  Is the upper rifle a solid frame?  Those are hard to find.  Finding original tang sights for these is tough.  But they sure are nice.  It can be a tough decision to convert to centerfire.  But I don't think it reduces the value for an average shooter grade rifle, it may even increase it.  Of course, if I had a pristine example I wouldn't alter it.  A brief search of the net shows that a lot of folks have done this conversion. Some have rechambered to .32 S&W as well.  One weak point of these rifles is the take down system.  The joint tends to wear quickly if they are taken apart frequently.  My .32 was thay way.  I ended up soldering the barrel into the breech to take up the slop.  It is still locked in place by the takedown lever, but is now firmly anchored.     

[dusty texian]

ndnchf", the loaded SC look's very good . Are you going to lube them ?And if so with what? Useing the 299153 bullet I have lubed them after loading, with my home made lube .The same lube I use on the big bore bp. cartridges .                                             Adirondacker , you have some fine shooting iron's there. The case color remain's very well on the .32 .My opinion only, (make it a shooter),you will get plenty enjoyment from it. And that's why we do it !,,,,Dusty

[Adirondacker]

  Is the upper rifle a solid frame?

Sharp eyes; yes, the only solid frame I ever ran across, not that I've gone out of my way to search for them.  The .32 retains even more case color than appears in this photo.  Boy's rifles are mighty cute, but I sure find them tough to hold steady.

[ndnchf]

Dusty - That is just a dummy round in the photo I made up to test the fit.  When I load for real, I'll probably just wipe on my homemade BP lube or SPG.  I tried the same bullet in a LC case. but it was too long and would not chamber.  Previously you mentioned cutting down LC cases to .78", what was the reason for this?  To allow them to chamber with the outside luibed bullet?  I may try that and see how it works.  I sluged the bore of my #4 this morning and it came out .308" - .3085".  Smaller than I expected.  The Winchester factory .32 SC I was shooting yesterday measures .316".  So it was squeezing down around .007" - wow.  But it shot well as the target proved.  The 299153s I have (I'm pretty sure it was Jack I got them from) measure about .315", so ithink they will work well. 

The factory Remington .32 LC I shot yesterday has the hollow base bullet (.399" diameter from what I've read).  They shot well too.  So they must be expanding about .009" to work.  So it seems my barrel is about halfway between the two available sizes.

[pony express]

Good shooting, ndnchf, looks like it's definitely better than "minute of squirrel" groups.

Old West Moulds makes a neat crimp die for .38 long and short colt, maybe he makes one for the 32's also? It's a modified Lee factory crimp die, the collet design lets it crimp a case that's basically the same diameter as the bullet.