.32 in .308

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1911A1

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I bought an adapter that holds a .32 sw pistol cartridge in a .308 rifle casing. The Alaska company sells adapters for many caliber combinations.
Before firing this .32 in my .308 I checked a Hornady reloading manual for bullet size. the .308 bullet is actually .308 but the .32 is .311

What do you think?
a) it's OK- its your rifle.
b) No! .003 is to much
c) let us know how it went
 
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CORRECTED: I bought an adapter that holds a .32 acp pistol cartridge (NOT 32 SW) in a .308 rifle casing. The Alaska company sells adapters for many caliber combinations.
Before firing this .32 in my .308 I checked a Hornady reloading manual for bullet size. the .308 bullet is actually .308 but the .32 is .311

What do you think?
a) it's OK- its your rifle.
b) No! .003 is to much
c) let us know how it went
 
It is fine. In fact I have loaded .30-06 and .308 with cast lead 78 gr. bullets as well as 71 gr. fmj's for short range plinking.
 
It will work fine.

I have one of those adaptors, but mine is .32 ACP in .30-06. A Lee 93 grain cast bullet sized to .311 pushed by 1.7 grains of 231 gives around 800 feet per second.......and makes less noise than many pellet guns.

The 26" barrel of the 1917 Enfield helps.

I tried a .311 FMJ bullet for .32 ACP with the same load and found that the long barrel caused enough friction to keep the bullet from exiting. A little tap with a cleaning rod fixed it, but it is simpler to stick with the cast (slick) bullet for this particular application.

It is surprising how fun this little setup is.
 
I pull down 7.62X25 pistol ammo and reload .30-30 with it. I get a sized and primed .30-30 case, pull the bullet on the 7.62X25, dump the small powder charge in the .30-30, seat the bullet to the correct OAL, and use a Lee factory crimp die to hold it in place. This bullet is .311 and the .30-30 bore is .308. Makes a great low power load for my .30-30's.
 
LC '92 said:
I pull down 7.62X25 pistol ammo and reload .30-30 with it. I get a sized and primed .30-30 case, pull the bullet on the 7.62X25, dump the small powder charge in the .30-30, seat the bullet to the correct OAL, and use a Lee factory crimp die to hold it in place. This bullet is .311 and the .30-30 bore is .308. Makes a great low power load for my .30-30's.
Click to expand...

An "easy-does-it" and money-saving guy after my own heart!!:D

I have thought of doing the exact same thing for 7.7x58mm Japanese.....all that inexpensive 7.62x25mm ammo available all over the place is just asking to be tinkered with.

Do you get reliable/consistent ignition with that small amount of powder in the .30-30 case?
 
I frequently reload the .312" 100 gr. SWC (a bullet originally intended for the .32 H&R Magnum) in all my .308" bore rifles, to include .30-30, .308 Winchester, .300 Savage and .30-06. A bit of lead is shaved when they are seated and sometimes they look crooked in the neck but accuracy is excellent out to 50 yards and they will stay on a man at 100 yards or more. I use reduced charges of Winchester 231 and get velocity up to 1600 FPS. And I do not get any significant leading.

Dave Sinko
 
LC '92 said:
I pull down 7.62X25 pistol ammo and reload .30-30 with it. I get a sized and primed .30-30 case, pull the bullet on the 7.62X25, dump the small powder charge in the .30-30, seat the bullet to the correct OAL, and use a Lee factory crimp die to hold it in place. This bullet is .311 and the .30-30 bore is .308. Makes a great low power load for my .30-30's.
Click to expand...

+1 to a great idea, but I would also worry about ignition. Maybe a small tuff of dacron might be needed? Let us know, LC '92.
 
I have one of the .32 ACP for .30-06 adaptors as well. I've used it numerous times in my Springfield 1903. Very quiet and pretty darn accurate at short ranges and have taken several pesky critters raiding the chicken coop like possums, 'coons, and neighber's cat.
 
Those adapters have been around for at least 30 years. With the availability of Trail Boss powder you can produce low velocity loads with reliable ignition using the standard case. In 30-30 the Hodgdon manual shows the 160 gr. lead bullet from 997 to1195 fps using Trail Boss.
 
Interesting reading here. I have always heard that the bullets for 7.62X39 shouldn't be used for reloading .308 due to the extra .03 in the 7.62X39. Apparently, y'all are in consensus that it's alright. The original argument that I've heard always made sense to me. .03 seems quite oversized. Maybe not.
 
Those adaptors using 32acp in 30-06 have been around since before WW2. They were also made for other 30cal rounds like 30-40 Krag, 300 Savage and 303 Savage (also a .308 round).
The pressures are low enough and the bearing surface of the 32acp bullet is small enough that no harm is done.

32acp metal jackets are very thin also so they conform to the slightly smaller bore of the .308.

Cast bullet shooters generally shoot bullets a full 2 or 3 .000" oversize in any given caliber for best accuracy. Those are long, full length bearing surface bullets & hard cast. Much more resistance than the short 32acp bullets in the same bore.
 
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