Hello 32 Fan's
I bought my 16-4 from a past forum member, and a very Dear friend of mine who now has passed away sadly his forum site name was IBSandy or his real name being Sandy Jacobbs out of Denver, Colorado in 2001. Sandy and I had many Gun Transaction's in the past and he knew I really wanted a model 16-4 Badly so he found one at his local gun show, bought it and then offered it to me, of which I was real glad of. I gave him what he wanted for it being $600.00 & it was new in box when I got it. Back in that time span the Model 16-4's were Pulling around $800.00-$875.00 in the real gun market if and when you could find one they were Not Plentiful so
if you saw one for sale you had better jump on it as who Know's when another one would Pop up for sale out there.
I experimented much with the .32 H&R Magnum cartridge to the Point where I was getting compressed load's by hand loading for it and had to switch to small Rifle primer's as I was blowing out the standard small Magnum pistol primers. I
can tell you that the Model 16-4 is strong enough to the point where you can not hurt it hand loading for it. 
Once I maxed the load out for the .32 H&R Magnum cartridge, and Oddly enough this round liked to be loaded Hot and showed very accurate result's from doing so with it. I finally settled on one favorite load more for accuracy by simply backing off of the Powder charge some.
I did not grow Bored with it, but given the fact that I am an avid hand Loader preson I had taken the .32 H&R Magnum cartridge as far as it would go loading Lastly compressed Powder load's as I ran out of Case room for any more Powder & by using Starline Nickel finish cartridge cases that held up very well to the Higher pressure's I was placing on them with my compressed load's, it was More Prone to Blowing the Primer's than cracking the cases as I never did have one Starline case crack on me, in my eye's they simply are The Best out there to re-load with. Then Federal Unveiled the Federal .327 Magnum Cartridge. This Peaked my Interest again in my 16-4 as I patiently Awaited for S&W to come out with the round in a K-frame square butt frame of Target form, which never happened, and I still can not see why S&W did not offer this Hot Cartridge in a K-frame form as they surely have the tooling to use the Former 16-4 revolver expanding it to the New then Federal .327 Magnum cartridge, and I feel Deep down if they had there would have been a waiting list for one in Blued Carbin Steel, High Polished Nickel finish, or even in a Stainless steel Version. Instead S&W decided to build it on the smaller J-frame sized guns. Uggg...
Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a J-frame revolver as I have a Model 431 P.D. that I carry daily, I just don't consider the J-frame to be a true Target gun or one I would use to Hunt with. I would even be a player if S&W decided to come out with an N-frame revolver chambered in Federal .327 magnum so long as it had target sight's and a 5" barrel to me that would be the prefect revolver in this caliber.
Being Rather disgruntled that S&W flat refused to bring out a K-frame Target revolver in this caliber I had Heard some local Gossip that Hamilton Bowen was taking the Model 16-4's and turning them into gun's that would fire the new then Federal .327 Magnum Cartridge. I even had contacted some Member's here on the forum that had Bowen convert their model 16-4's asking them how it worked out and how accurate it was in this round ? I got excited about that, and as luck would have it Hamilton Bowen lives just twenty minute's from me so I called him and asked if we could meet and Talk about this Federal .327 Magnum caliber conversion, and he Invited me to his work shop. Once there we recognized each other as we had met at a Local gun show here in Knoxville, so we sat down and started talking about the Federal .327 Magnum cartridge conversion that he was performing in his shop on previous Model 16-4's and only charging $95.00 to do the conversion.
I explained to him that I was a hand loader and liked to shoot Target's but also liked to Hunt with my hand guns. I asked if this conversion would put my Gun in danger of being over stressed or take away for it's durability on the long Haul ? he said that he had built and tested several Model 16-4's and it was of his Opinion that the Model 16-4 was the Best candidate to do these conversion's on. he stressed the Point that the cylinder in a model 16-4 is very thick therefore it could take the much Higher Pressure difference between the .32 H&R Magnum Cartridge which has an average SAMI pressure of 21,000 compared to the Much Hotter round being the Federal .327 Magnum cartridge which had an average SAMI pressure of 45,000 being more than Double of that produced by the .32 H&R Magnum cartridge.
Hamilton went on to say that this caliber conversion could not be done to older J-frame S&W revolver's chambered in .32 H&R Magnum as for one reason those revolver's had too short of a cylinder to accommodate the Longer Federal .327 Magnum Cartridge and he felt that the cylinder's being that they are six shot in those gun's made the wall thickness of the cylinder's to much of a chance of exploding as well as the smaller frame's of those guns. he shared with me that he had ton's of request's to convert J-frame revolver's in this fashion but flat refused to do it. I could see he had done his home work well on the caliber conversion taking a Model 16-4 from it's factory caliber of .32 H&R Magnum to the new Then Federal .327 Magnum cartridge so I felt comfortable with it.
I then asked him about the accuracy of a model 16-4 after he placed his caliber conversion on it ? He said that he had fired Three round's in the model 16-4 conversion's being the .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Magnum as well as The Federal .327 Magnum cartridge and all Three showed to be as accurate as one another, and he explained to me why as he Match's the cylinder Throat's exactly when he was done with his caliber conversion. he went on to say that when S&W made the Model 16-4's they matched the cylinder throat's as well but he felt that he spent more time at it than the factory could and that was where his caliber conversion's shinned on Target being far more superior in their accuracy Potential. Once we were done Talking, I felt comfortable enough to Pull The Trigger on this caliber conversion project {No Pun Intended} so I left him my cylinder & crane assembly which is all that he needed to perfom this conversion
A week later my phone rang and Hamilton told me that he had my conversion completed and that I could come out to his shop to pick it up. In the mean time I had been scouring the Internet for factory Federal loaded round's in the .327 Magnum cartridge to no Avail. I could not locate even one box of factory ammo as guy's were buying it before it hit the shelves and all I kept seeing was back order for the Cartridge. This Put me in a Pickle as I desperately wanted to get started re-loading this Hot cartridge. I was able to talk Bowen into 100 Once fired Federal .327 Magnum cases to re-load with he just tacked the price of them on my shop bill and I paid him and headed home to start the tedious re-loading process.
Once I got home I tried to find some re-loading data for the.327 Magnum cartridge but at that time there was very little out there being published. I did find a nice In depth article that had come out in a Previous Gun Magazine named Shooting Time's and the article was composed by Chuck Hawes. I tried numerous load's from that article but the one that gave me rock solid deadly accurate One hole result's at the 25 Yard line was using a Sierra Sport's master 90 Grain Hollow point Bullet. I loaded 100 round's using the Once fired brass and observed a Few Case crack's when I was done testing the round. I turned to forum member David Ballentine and asked him if he could spare any .327 Magnum Cases for me to re-load and use in my Gun ?
He was ever so kind to send me 150 cases so that allowed me to load plenty of it up for Load testing as well as use hunting. Little did I know then, that member David Ballentine's Kindness of supplying me with the extra Once fired Brass cases that I needed so badly, would allow me the extra shooting practice to hone down on the prefect round to take in the wood's hunting with me, and he would Not take One Penny for the once fired cases not even the shipping charges of them, Now that a Pure Gentleman in my eyes. Less than two week's after Bowen created my S&W Model 16-4 revolver now chambered to fire the Federal .327 magnum cartridge I headed into the wood's with it on the first day of our deer season and Bagged a very large Bob Cat with it @ a True 35 Yard range, making me very pleased with the round's accuracy out farther than I had it sighted in for or had practiced with it prior to hunting.
I now was knew that the Federal .327 Magnum was everything that it's former cousin the .32 H&R Magnum cartridge should have been, being a True Magnum Cartridge. Below is the actual hand load test Target shot by me at the 25 Yard line off a sand Bag rest using the Sierra 90 Grain Sport's Master Bullet's. I had discovered while hand loading the cartridges for the Federal .327 Magnum cartridge, that my S&W Model 16-4 seemed to do better accuracy wise with the Lighter weight bullet's such as the Sierra Sport's Master 90 Grain Hollow point's as well as the Hornady 85 Grain XTP Bullet's. I did shoot some 100 Grain Hornady XTP Bullets as well as the Federal Factory Gold Dot bullet's of 115 Grain weight, but the target result's showed a Much more spread out group than the Lighter weight bullet's that I loaded and stuck with for hunting. As you can see the slug's shown in the Picture were recovered from a soft sand Berm behind the Target stand and they Mushroomed to their Maximum. It is of my Belief that the Federal .327 Magnum cartridge is well suited for all Facet's of hunting and I hope to harvest a Deer with it someday. I can tell you that No Greater satisfaction come's from harvesting game with one of your own hand Load's. Anybody can walk into a Hardware store or sporting Good's store and Buy factory loaded ammunition to hunt or shoot target's with, but when you hand load your own you can Hone in on a Gun's True accuracy Potential by uncovering what your gun shoot's best with as far as Powder and bullet selection much more than shooting factory loaded ammo. Regards, Hammerdown
My Bowen Modified Model 16-4 shown with Load Testing Target being Six shot's & placed @25 Yard's and recovered 90 Grain Sierra Sport's Master hollow point bullets
