I've previously mentioned when my dad was young he went hunting a few times with my grandfather and a couple uncles. Dad wasn't much of a hunter, often went into the woods with an empty rifle, but enjoyed being in the woods and spending time with family. Even today he isn't a good shot and claims he might be able to hit the broad side of a barn from the inside. When he was on his walks through the woods, he carried a Winchester 1894 saddle ring carbine chambered in .32 Win Spl. When my grandfather passed almost 18 years ago that old rifle was given to an uncle who carried it after dad.
A local auction house hosts a gun auction just about every month, this past Saturday was this months rod and gun. In the catalog was a very nice shape Winchester 1894 saddle ring carbine in .32 Win Spl, this one still had the ring and post in the side whereas the one Dad carried had lost it before he got it, made in 1923. Well, after looking in the bank to see how much I could spend I decided that rifle was going to come home with me. There was a little interest in the old girl, but she's mine now, the other main bidder was a re-seller.
Sunday early evening I showed Dad my purchase, you could see the memories come back while he looked it over, worked the action, and shouldered it. That right there made the whole search worth it.

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Thats awesome. I have two older 94s. One in .30-30 and another in .32. I particularly like the 32 and think it's a great old cartridge. Winchester now chambers rifles in it again!! It's coming back, which I think is a great thing. Enjoy that old rifle, I love the pre-1964 made 94's.

That is awesome indeed.

Sweet,awesome lever rifle.

__________________
Life is short,live it fully.

Now to get some ammo and put some lead down range, I bought it for the family connection, but I fully intend to shoot her too.

That is a nice one . I have a 1912 in ex cond 30 WCF . I shot my first deer with a 32 spl 94 man they carry nice . I mostly use an older 760 Rem Carbine 30-06 .

Very little ballistic difference between the .32 Win Special and the .30-30, except that finding .30-30 factory ammo is much easier.

THESE SPECIAL MOMENTS ARE WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT.....

BEST WISHES TO YOU AND YOUR DAD.......

__________________
'Nam 1968-69.DAV,VFW,NRA Inst.

Forgot to post the update, I found two boxes of .32 ws. Now I just have to get to the range and see how she shoots. That will hopefully be this week.

What a great story. My first centerfire rifle was a 1948 flat band Win. 94 carbine in .32 Special and I just had it out of the safe yesterday. In “Cartidges Of The World” every bizarre cartridge imaginible is in the many editions of that book and guess what’s the one caliber describes as “If there is such a thing as the most useless cartridge....”? Yes, you guessed it. The .32 Special! Well, it sure hung around a long time in it’s older slightly smaller brother, the 30-30’s shadow.

I think the sole reason for the .32 is that Winchester rifled it to do better with black powder, back when some people still didn't trust smokeless.

Jack O'Connor noted that when the rifling becomes worn, a .32 loses accuracy more than a .30-30 in similar condition.

If more people read as much about guns as they should, there'd be zero interest in buying a .32 Winchester Special rifle.

Enjoy that 1894.
I’m curious about the lever’s side movement, slop, in the
Winchester 94 compared to the Winchester 92.
Different lockup but am not familiar with their lever guns.
Thanks

The Model 94 uses a lever link to get the extra bolt movement to accommodate the longer cartridges used in the Model 94. That toggle does introduce some side to side movement in the lever. However, the amount of movement varies.

For example, all my pre-64 Model 94s demonstrate about 1/8" of side to side movement measured from one extreme to the other at the end of the lever when the action is fully open.

In comparison, my newer Model 94s all exhibit about 5/16" of side to side movement under the same conditions - in other words two and a half times more movement.

The pre-64 Model 94s are however "stiffer" due to the tighter tolerances. On the other hand, my pre-64s in .30-30 are all capable of 1.5 MOA accuracy with quality ammo, where my post 63s all shoot about 3 MOA. So there's a trade off between the looser, easier cycling, but less accurate post 63s and the tighter, stiffer, and more accurate pre 64s.

The Model 92 however wins hands down when it comes to a slick and fast cycling action. The shorter bolt throw, with no lever link gives them a much smoother and faster action.

Lever slop side to side really has no impact on anything when comparing the Model 92 to the Model 94.

Winchester and Savage rifled their 30-30 barrels with 1 turn in 12 inches. Everyone else since has used 1 turn in 10 inches.

Winchester did indeed use 1 turn in 16 inch rifling in the .32 Winchester Special to accommodate the older school cast bullet hand loader types around the turn of the century.

There are two benefits to the slower twist rate. Black powder fouling tends to be less of a problem (and becomes a problem less quickly) with a slower twist rate, and cast rifle bullets tend to skid less entering the bore when the rifling twist is slower.

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If you ever shoot the same cast bullet loads in a Big Bore 94 in .375 Win and an older Model 94 in .38-55, you may notice the increased leading caused by the 1-12 twist in the .375 Win versus the slower 1-18" twist in the older Models 94s in .38-55.

Winchester split the difference with a 1-15" twist in their post-63 .38-55s to balance the ability to accurately shoot much longer, heavier bullets, with nice cast bullet manners.

Thanks for the confirmation about the lever slop.

The 94/44Mag rifle will be a mountain gun and as I’ve read it was designed to work in adverse conditions.... or what we South Florida fishhunters call Snow&Ice!

I will give my son a Lee Handloader when I give his boy the 94. Hey Pops can you load some for me..... the call of the wild!
PAYBACK

I think the often repeated phrase that Win used the slow twist ( 1-16) in the 32Spl was to make the older BP/lead bullet shooters happy is just that. An often repeated phrase.

Yes I know there is a small blip in a Win printed reloading guide of the era that mentions loading BP in the cartridge. But loading BP in any cartridge is and was done,,and still is.
Some people just like to, some back then just didn't trust nor like smokeless. It was a big change, I get that.
I can't accept that Winchester purposely designed the rate of twist to keep the shrinking market of BP shooters happy in that one & only cartridge while making the rest of the High Velocity Smokeless Cartridges with an appropriate fast rate spec.

If that was the thinking, then why was the 30-30 intro'd with the appropriate faster twist 6 yrs before the 32spl. Didn't care to make the BP shooters happy and use a slower twist in the 'new' 30 cal cart too?
The 25-35 came out with the 30-30 and it too has an appropriate fast twist (1-8). Why no BP style twist in that. They had it in the 25WCF.

The 2 were touted as High Velocity Smokeless Cartridges.
Can't have HV unless you are using Smokeless.

Enter the 32Special in 1901. Again adv as a new HV Smokeless Cartridge.
Win already had the 32-40 chambering in the 94 using that 1-16 rate of twist,,same bore dia. but the cartridge worked at a much lower chamber pressure as it was a BP round.
It would be offered in Smokeless equivilent loads, but that is still the low psi & fps rating.
32-40 stayed in the 94 offering till WW2 I believe.


I think what happened is that someone/people at W decided to be 'cost effective' and simply use the bbl mfg set up already in place for the 32-40 bbl and use it to bore and rifle the 32Spc bbls.
Same 1-16 and .320/321 d.
Saves a great amt of $$ and time in production and in a rifle/carbine that shows itself out at the 125/150yrd marker on a deer target, who's really going to argue accuracy.

The cartridge lives up to it's HV rating with 2400fps obtainable with some loads in a rifle length bbl. Common carbine length 20" is about 2100fps IIRC.
It's older 32-40 cousin with the same bore, same bullet dia, same weight lead bullet, same rifling twist,, pushes it along about 1600fps+.

The 32-40 was orig a pure target rifle cartridge when born (Ballard).
It morphed into a hunting round and a decent one till deer started wearing Kevlar and had to be picked off at ranges exceeding 800 yrds.
The 32Spec will certainly do the job it was designed for.
But it was designed as a pure HV Smokeless Powder Cartridge.
The last of the HV 3 to join the group in the 94 chamberings.

Not the best choice of rifling spec? Probably, but it wouldn't be the last time that would happen in the industry.