I've never quite understood the whole "you know, in a pinch..." angle. What kind of pinch would this be? End-of-days scenario where it's a pure free for all and when you go looting the Cabela's you take all the .40cal ammo because someone else already stole the 10mm?

I hear a similar selling point for .327 Federal Magnum revolvers also. "Well you can use .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Mag and .32 ACP as well! This is a FIVE caliber revolver!"

Ummm, okay. And there's a future for ya as a used car salesman too. As .32 S&W and .32 S&W Long are such short-printed ammo offerings that they retail price is typically catastrophic, and .32 H&R isn't far behind. And .32 ACP might fire, might misfire, and is a tremendous annoyance to extract and eject and BEYOND an annoyance if you hit the ejector and manage to get case rims under the ejector.

.38 Special in a .357 Magnum makes sense as .38 ammo and brass is common and widely available. All the short .32's are niche calibers that are typically scarce on ammo shelves.

But it still gets trotted out in .327 Federal discussions as if every .327 Federal gets shipped with a magic bonus.

If you are a handloader and you have 2,000 piece of .32 H&R brass, then yes, it is quite handy in your .327 Federal revolver. For the masses... a .327 Federal's true bonus for all those shorter .32's is that it is a safe tool for pulling down loaded ammo and recouping the brass. It sure beats a kinetic puller.