Continued from the last Post...









The J-frame .32 S&W Long (Model 31-1), with a 3" barrel and fixed sights.


S&W also built a few .32 S&W Longs on the K-frame. These tend to be rather rare, and you don't run across them every day. I was fortunate to pick up a 4" M&P in .32 S&W Long a while back, and it has quickly turned into one of my personal favorite revolvers. The bluing on the barrel is worn, but mechanically this gun is in very good shape, and it is one fine shooter! In this revolver, cast bullets sized .313" are a snug fit in the throats, and so that is how I size them.



S&W made a few M&Ps (K-frame) chambered for .32 S&W Long.

I have always wanted a K-32 Target Masterpiece, but given the steep prices they tend to command, I just haven't been able to find one that I could afford. So a number of years ago I decided to have a custom gun built instead (and still ended up saving a bunch of money). I bought a 6" full-lugged Model 16 barrel (from the .32 H&R Magnum production run) and a K-22 cylinder, and had these fit to a K-38 frame. I also commissioned a set of very tight reamers to be made up (.0015" clearance on the chamber dimensions, and .3125" for the throats), and took all these parts over to my good friend Dave Ewer and asked him to build the gun. This gun is mechanically VERY tight, and it shoots superbly! In hindsight, I probably should have gone with about .003" clearance on the chamber dimensions, as occasionally variations in crimp dimensions can cause problems with getting ammo to chamber, but boy does this gun shoot! When hunting, this gun gets cast bullets sized .312", at 900-1000 fps, and it shoots them all day long into little-bitty groups. This is truly a connoisseurs small game handgun.



Applications

The .32 S&W Long makes an excellent target gun. The custom K-frame described above was originally built as a bullseye gun, intended for wadcutters (either home-cast or commercial hardcast, and the Oregon Trail Bullet Company makes a fine 98 grain .313" double-ended wadcutter), loaded over 2.0 grains of Bullseye. Years ago, I shot a number of bullseye matches with this gun for the centerfire stage and it served extremely well. It is extremely accurate, and the trivial level of recoil makes recovery very easy during a rapid fire string. The full-lug barrel makes the gun slightly muzzle heavy, so the sights "hang" on the target very nicely. All in all, a very nice bullseye package.




The .32 S&W Long also makes a good varmint round. For critters like ground squirrels and prairie dogs, I will commonly use the Keith-style SWC’s loaded to around 1000 fps, and it pops burrowing rodents smartly. For jack rabbits, I generally want a little more "thump" and will commonly load the .32 S&W Long with a cast HP like the Lyman/Ideal 31133 (the 109 grain HP version of the 3118), cast soft (BHN of 9 or less, e.g. 25-to-1 alloy) and load it to 1000 fps with 3.0 grains of Red Dot (this load is too hot for the I-frame guns and only gets shot in my K-frame .32s). This load does not produce the explosive expansion that magnum cast HP loads commonly deliver, but it does offer notably better killing power for moderate-sized vermin like jack rabbits, nutria, rock-chucks, and such.


Yes, in some ways the .32 S&W Long is a relic from a by-gone era, a 19th century pocket pistol for self-defense. More effective cartridges have since been developed for that application, but the .32 S&W Long still has a place in a handgunners battery. While the .32 S&W Long lead round-nose factory ammo isn't particularly effective, when the cartridge is loaded with wadcutters at 750 fps or SWC’s at 900-1000 fps, it makes an outstanding small game round for the modern handgun hunter.



Addendum on cast SWC's in the .32 S&W Long
Commonly, when I am working up new loads for the .32 S&W Long, I will do all the shooting and chronographing with the custom Ewer K-32 bullseye gun described above. It is very accurate so I know that I'm getting everything out of the load that it has to offer, and if the chronograph tells me that the loads are a little too warm for the I-framed guns, I don't have to worry about damage to the very strong K-frame. The realization hit me that I had chronographed the wadcutter loads out of the I-framed revolvers, but I had just taken the other loads out and shot stuff with them, without knowing exactly how fast they shot in the various guns. This last weekend, I decided to rectify that oversight.

All cast bullets cast of range scrap (BHN ~ 10)
Sized .312" lubed with 50/50 beeswax/moly grease
Winchester Small Pistol primers
Temperature ~75F


Velocity data for .32 S&W Long loads

3.0 grains of W231 with the Lee 98 grain SWC 2.5 grains of Red Dot with the Mountain Molds 102 grain SWC
Ewer K-32 (6") 974 fps Ewer K-32 (6") 857 fps
3 1/4" Model 1903 820 fps 3 1/4" Model 1903 727 fps
4 1/4" Model 1903 908 fps 4 1/4" Model 1903 782 fps
6" Model 1903 866 fps 6" Model 1903 734 fps

3.0 grains of W231 with the Mountain Molds 102 grain SWC
Ewer K-32 (6") 911 fps
3 1/4" Model 1903 766 fps
4 1/4" Model 1903 836 fps
6" Model 1903 792 fps

The first thing that jumps out of these numbers is that these loads are going notably slower from the old I-framed guns than they are out of the tight custom K-32 bullseye gun. This in and of itself isn't surprising, but the margin of difference between the 6" K-32 and the 6" I-frame took me by surprise (~120 fps). The other thing that jumps out of these numbers is that the 4 1/4" is consistently the fastest of the I-framed guns, and it is consistently ~40 fps faster than the longer barreled 6" Model 1903. As my friend John Taffin has said for years when people ask him about revolver velocities, "Each sixgun is a law unto itself.". John's right.

All of these guns have cylinder throats that run less than .313", so these observations got me to thinking about the cylinder gaps in these various revolvers, so I broke out the feeler gauges and made a few measurements.

Ewer K-32 bullseye gun .0025"
3 1/4" Model 1903 (5th change, 1914) .004"
4 1/4" Model 1903 (2nd change, 1906) .0025"
6" Model 1903 (5th change, 1910) .005"

Sure enough, the slow 6" Model 1903 has the largest gap, and the fast 4 1/4" Model 1903 has the smallest gap.

Next, if we compare the two bullets by examining the data from the two loads using 3.0 grains of Winchester 231, we see that the Lee custom Keith-style SWC is consistently ~60 fps faster than the Mountain Molds Keith-style SWC. The Mountain Molds SWC stays true to the design parameters laid out by Elmer Keith (3 driving bands of equal width, large flat-bottomed grease groove, beveled crimp groove, large meplat), and was designed with a 73% meplat. This is a design that has proven itself for over 3/4 of a century. The Keith-style SWC that we got as a part of the custom group buy from Lee has a meplat of .205", which equates to about 66% (very similar to what Elmer used when he designed his first SWC, the 429421, which leaned heavily on the 429336, the so-called "Heath bullet" designed back before World War I; Elmer would use larger meplats on his later SWC designs, varying between 70% and 75% of bullet diameter). There are two possible explanations for this velocity difference between the Mountain Molds SWC and the Lee SWC -- 1) the weight difference, and 2) the difference in thickness of the base bands. These bullets were cast with range scrap with a BHN of about 10 (similar to WW alloy) and the Lee SWC weighs 98 grains, and the MM SWC weighs 102 grains. Is a 4 grain difference in weight enough to cause a 60 fps difference in velocity? Maybe, maybe not. Changes in base band thickness are known to have an impact on how well the bullet's base can seal the propellant gases. The MM SWC has a base band that is .075" thick, whereas the Lee SWC has a base band that is .110" thick. Which parameter is responsible for the velocity difference? I don't know, but I suspect that it could be the base band difference. In any event, I think it would be appropriate to use this example to modify Taffin's Axiom to, "Every bullet is a law unto itself.". As for the 60 fps difference, I'm not going to get too wound up over it since both of these loads use good flat-pointed bullets and there isn't a grouse in the world that could ever tell the difference between these two loads.

Lastly, if we compare the two loads using the Mountain Molds SWC (over 3.0 grains of 231 and 2.5 grains of Red Dot), we see that the 231 load tends to be about 50 fps faster. In my experience, the Red Dot load is more consistently accurate (from gun to gun). Some guns shoot the 231 load well, others don't, but they all seem to like the Red Dot load, so that's a load that I generally tend to gravitate towards.

The bottom line is that these loads were going a little slower than I thought out of the old I-frame guns, but these flat-pointed bullets still kill rabbits, grouse and squirrels just fine, thank you.

- Glen E. Fryxell