.32 S&W loads

Hello everyone,

I am currently shooting 1.4 gr N310 with 98 gr Magnus projectiles in my Walther GSP and I was wondering what others were having success with. 

In particular I'm interested in alternative powders as 1.4 gr is a small charge for powder  thrower's to consistently dispense. I can't comment on the Magnus projectiles as I haven't tried anything else so I'm open to others experiences.

Thanks

Huh. My first ever .32S&WL loads were about that - 1.35gr N310 with 98gr cast Magnus LWCs in my Haemmerli 280; now I shoot 1.8ish-gr W231 with those same bullets, and my 280 shoots them just fine...at 25 yards, at least; I have never tried them at 50.

I'm shooting a load suggested to me by Dave Wilson for my Benneli 90. 1.7 Bullseye, .314 H&N greased 100 gr. wadcutter, Lapua case. I use a very light roll crimp. 

Dave made my expanding die. It opens the case enough that the bullet can be seated with my finger. I believe this to be a critical part of loading for the 32. 

Jim

Jim, could you tell me more about the expanding die. 

I have an RCBS deprime/resize, a Lee through powder/bell die and an RCBS seating/roll crimp in Lee Progressive.

Side question: I just took ownership(today) of a Benelli MP95 in .32 long along with a lot of Fiocchi and some Lapua. This is a new round for me, and I assume it to be similar-ish to a .38 WC. I noticed with the some of the Fiocchi, which I believe to be factory and not reloaded already, was seated .049" below the rim, not level as I was expecting. Is this normal, and something to do when reloading in the future?

I use an accurate mold 31-100B that casts.316 and weighs 99 - 100 grains using wheel weights. 
I shoot an Hammerli 280 and was having 2 to 3 fliers out of 5 shots grouped doing load development.
Bore is .314 and I size to .315 and started using a .315 case expander and the fliers went away. Resting on bags at 25 yd's are now just under 1/2 inch outside for 5 shot groups. The old expander I was using to measure.312. It's now in the parts bin..

I believe that 32 S&W die sets are made for loading exposed bullets, not wadcutters. I believe it is important to expand the case deeply enough to completely seat the wadcutter without deforming it. Dave Wilson made me a .315 expander for a Redding die for the .314 H&N bullet. This allows seating the bullet without deforming it in any way. 

I have a good amount of Fiocchi and Lapua ammunition. Yes the bullets are seated below the rim but I've not measured how much. I set my seating die to duplicate the Lapua. 

I quickly found that the factory ammo, while great at 25 yards, wouldn't shoot for beans at 50. 

The H&N hand load, suggested by Dave, has been shooting very well.

Jim  
.

Still testing with my gun, this is a finicky cartridge, but so far.....

Magma Engineering 93gr button nose flat base wadcutter seated below the case with a heavy crimp. 1.5gr Titewad, but going up. Shot a TF target last weekend with 8 rounds in a quarter sized knot.

Has anyone had experience using Winchester 231 ?

I have some W231 and planned to test it later this fall.

I've been re-testing some loads for my Walther GSP.  At the moment the winner seems to be 1.6 grains of Bullseye, CCI 500 primer and a .312" 98 grain Dardus wadcutter bullet.  I'm using R-P cases at the moment, but as long as I don't mix cases the results seem to be the same with other cases.  I just chrono'ed this load at 728 FPS.

I get good results with Lapua 98 grain HBWC's as well, but they're more expensive.  If they turn out to be more accurate I'll load the 500 bullets that I have and save them for the long line.

My Walther has trouble feeding Meister and Magnus wadcutters.  Even the .313" Dardus wadcutters are a little more reluctant to chamber than I'd like.  That may just be my pistol.  If I had a .312" sizer I could probably solve this problem, but it seems easier to just buy bullets that work well in my chamber in the first place.

I individually weigh the charges.  A slow process but I don't have anything that will meter such a small charge, and even if I did I'm sure that the variance would be intolerable.

One often overlooked value of shooting the 32 S&WL is that reloads cost about the same or only slightly more than CCI 22LR standard velocity ammunition, if you order in bulk and shop carefully.  If you were to cast the bullets all you'd need to do is stockpile primers, a pound or two of powder and a five gallon bucket of wheel weights and you could shoot forever without worrying about ammunition shortages.

Hello KelseyECS, 

I did have feeding issues with Magnus wadcutters. With the last batch I seated them a little deeper and I gave them a load coat of casing lube and so far they seem to be working well.

I using the new http://leeprecision.com/auto-drum-powder-measure.html and although it will throw 10 x 1.4g = 14 grains I am not convinced that there isn't a significant variation between powder drops.

Could you tell me what scales you are using?

Paul

I did seat the Magnus bullet so that the entire bearing surface was within the cartridge case.  But just for yuks I'll try to seat it even deeper to see if it makes a difference.  The problem is that the forward portion of the cartridge is too large.  It may be the diameter of the bullet alone or the diameter and hardness of the bullet (softer bullets would be more inclined to be slightly resized upon being seated into the cartridge).

The easy solution is to just buy Dardus .312" bullets, but it would be nice to find a use for the remaining 490 Magnus bullets on my shelf.  I was hoping to run across a .311" sizer at some point (on the presumption that the bullets would 'spring' back a bit to their original dimension and probably come out as .312").

Regarding your other question, I use a Lyman electronic scale and a trickler.  I fiddle with the load until I get a "clean drop" of 1.6 grains (a "clean drop" being the weight of the powder without any trickling, since the scale seems to drift a bit while I'm performing the trickling and therefore isn't necessarily consistent).  When I use my "clean drop" approach I can reweigh the loads after I've finished loading 50 or so and get the same weight.  It is a bit time consuming.

I agree that simply doing ten drops and obtaining an average weight could conceal considerable variance in the weight.  I'm OK with loading 38's and 45's that way, but my opinion is that the 32 demands more consistency.  A 0.2 grain difference is more significant in such a small charge.

If you ever do some load-by-load measurement of what your Lee powder measure is dropping, please post the results.  If I can load 32's in the same way that I load 38's and 45's with adequate consistency it would save me some time at the bench.  (Time which I should use dry firing).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Hello KelseyECS,

Just out of curiosity I logged a ticket with Lee Precision asking if they had done any testing on small loads with the new Auto Drum powder measure.  To my surprise John Lee personally answered my question.

Thank you for the recent purchase of a Auto-Drum powder measure. We 
don't have any load variation tests that we can share with you. I can 
say that I personally tested with very small charges using Bullseye 
powder and the charges were so consistent I quickly stopped recording 
the results. I tested it with the small drum and the large drum fitted 
with reduced charge adapter plug. Each were essentially perfect.


Sincerely,


John Lee, President


I will do a batch of measuring myself on rainy day afternoon, however I suspect that I will be bumping up against the edge of the resolution of my measuring equipment, but I won't know until I try.

Thanks for the information.  I have Lee dies, I'll see if I can find where these are available.

I expect that Bullseye would be by far the most appropriate powder for such powder measures due to the small flake size.

Would you happen to know if N310 has a similar flake size to Bullseye?

I remember N310 as smaller flake--almost more like a grain of black sand.

Rob is correct. It is like a greenish sand. It meters very well as a result.

I'm looking for a 50 yard load using a Hammerli 280, 98 grain Dardus bullet, Federal Gold Metal Match or CCI 500 primers, and Bullseye or Red Dot powder.  I have shot at 25 yards with 1.4 grains of Bullseye and Hornady 100 grain bullets  with good results, but at 50 yards the rounds are inconsistent.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks

Greetings,

I had good results with my Haemmerli 280 with 0.314" cast bullets of 98-100 grains and 1.65 grains of Winchester WST powder.

The key is the bullet diameter. The 280 has a free bore diameter of 0.314"-0.315" that tapers into the barrel groove diameter of 0.3135".

I experienced fouling in the free bore section of the barrel and found that cleaning was needed after each 90 round match.

When the fouling/leading gets bad enough, the bullets actually start going into the 25 yard target sideways. I do not mean "tipping", actually sideways.

With a clean barrel, I have shot several 98 slow fires with the 280 back in the days when I could shoot well.

You will have much better 50 yard results using the hard to find H&N 100 grain HBWC bullets. They shoot well and the barrel stays cleaner longer. Last place I bought the H&N bullet was from Cibles Targets Canada.

I have tried the Hornady 90 grain HBWC bullets; but, never got better than ten ring groups at 50 yards. They do quite well at 25 yards.

Speer make a 98 grain HBWC bullet; but, they actually measure 0.313" and do not perform well as received. I made a swaging die to "bump" the bullet up to 0.3143" which also cleaned up the base and they shoot rather well. If you are a Machinist or have a Machinist Pal, a good Winter project would be to make a swaging kit.

Cheers,

Dave

Has anybody tried the Lapua 83gr. bullet at 50 yards? I know it goes against the norm, since the bullet is designed for rapid fire, but it should be quite a bit shorter than the 98gr. HBWC and might work in the slow twist barrels. 

None of the 32S&W stuff was designed to shoot at 50 so why not try the unconventional?

I've successfully been shooting my GSP 32 at 50 yards for the past 20 plus years.

What I've learn has come from Doc Young... then I've tested different things...

For starters: you need a custom barrel to shoot 1.5 inch groups at 50 yards.

6" barrel length - 1/10 twist - 308 rifle barrel -  I have used Dale Anesi - Doc recommended him.

For loads- .314 H&N 100gr or Lapua 98 gr   -  1.7 accurate #2 ball powder - Federal gold medal primers.   Lapua brass

I use the above for the Long Line... Then for the short line you can use any solid .314 lead wadcutter with standard small pistol primers.

The stock barrel - doesn't have a fast enough twist to reach out to 50 yards.   If you are serious about shooting the 32 at 50 yards.  That is my recommendation.

I'm going to test some .314 H&N Copper Coated HB wadcutters this month.    Has anyone tested these bullets at 50 yards with a custom barrel?

I have also heard good things about Dave Wilson, making custom .32 barrels.  I'm not sure if Dale Anesi is making barrels any longer.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Rgds,

Rick Eickhoff
Master - Distinguished Pistol Shot - P100

I have a couple partial boxes of 32 that was hand loaded by Doc Young. They were included in a large quantity of 32 factory ammo that I obtained from a friend and team mate of Doc. The loads both included Lapua brass, RWS primers, and H&N 100 grain bullets. One box was labeled 1.6 WW 452A and the other was 1.7 Scot 453. I have no idea of the time frame of this ammunition. I fired a couple of each in my Benelli and both loads seemed quite hot. There wasn't enough to chronograph or do accuracy testing. 

With H&N bullets becoming hard to get, what's the alternative for a fifty yard bullet? I'm very satisfied with the Benelli's performance with the H&N, but I've yet to try anything else that works as well at the long line.  

Jim

For those looking for the H&N 32 bullets...

I spoke with Neal earlier this week, he has in stock H&N .32 bullets Copper Coated and Lead.  He is an H&N distributor.

I picked box of 500 of the .314 Copper Coated 100gr  H&N from him this week...I wanted to Test them with my current load configuration and barrel combination.  Neal indicated he has about 4500 of these bullets in stock.  $66 per box of 500.  

I have done business with Neal for 30 years... Excellent guy to deal with... Pricing is honest and very fair.  He also carries a full line of Walther Parts.  Highly recommend doing business with him. 

Neal Stepp - ISS (International Shooters Service)
2319 East Loop 820 N, Fort Worth, TX 76118
(817) 595-2090


Regards,


Rick Eickhoff