S & W 32 Long Info

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Any info appreciated. I have a 32 Long that has been in the family many years. Just wanted to find out about this revolver. It is in excellent original condition and has a SN of 459058. Since the 32 Long ammo seems to be difficult to obtain, what other 32 cal, if any, can be safely fired. Pics later.
 
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My limited experience is that if the caliber is suffixed Police the S&W ammo chambers. With Short/Long (or simply) Colt there is not sufficeint diameter to admit S&W ammo. The lone exception being .38 Colt/.38 S&W Special.

Again, in my limited experience.
 
Why do you think the caliber is 32 Long Colt? Assuming that is an actual S&W and not a copy the caliber should be 32 S&W Long. What do the barrel marking say?

Nice looking revolver by the way. While not available at the big box stores most actual gunshops will have 32 S&W Long ammo or you can purchase it online.
 
I can't imagine S&W in that day making (and marking) one of their guns in a competitor's proprietary caliber. I would love to see close-ups of the barrel roll stamp with "COLT" included! If on the other hand it just says 32 S&W Long, that's probably the most common and easily found of the .32 revolver cartridges. But if our assumption that this is actually a S&W made revolver is incorrect, then all bets are off. From you picture it appears you have a pre-War S&W Regulation Police.

Froggie
 
My guess is that it must state .32 Long on the barrel?? S&W did mark competitor's cartridges on their early HEs. 32-20 is marked 32 Winchester. Lastly, .32 Long Colt is actually smaller than .32 Long S&W, so Colt will fit S&W, but not the other way round.
 
Looking at this a little closer with a big eye, I was wrong on the Colt, it actually is stamped 32 LONG CTG. Sorry for the mistake, eyes are not what they once were!! I think this pistol may be fairly old, as it belonged to a great uncle who was a policeman in Stevenson, AL and I think he passed away before I was born and I am 74. Note removed the Colt feference.
 
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If you said that you had found a partial box of vintage 32 Long Colt with this revolver few of us would have been suprised. Some of the old ammo catalogs used to list 32 Long Colt being interchangable with 32 S&W Long, but not the other way around.
 
Your gun will safely fire 32 S&W short or long, and Colt 32 New Police short or long. They are identical except the old ammo marked Colt had a flat ogive instead of the classic round nose bullet.

You should be able to find 32 S&W Long very easily either on-line or in the local stores. There is plenty available.
I did a beginner's chrono test of some Remington I bought at the local Bass Pro vs. some S&B that I bought on line, if you care to read it.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-re...-30-32-s-w-long-revolver-ammo-question-2.html
 
I shoot a lot of .32 long ammo. It's usually scarce and expensive in LGS around here, so I order mine online from Sportsmans Guide or Ammo to Go.
 
Its become a recent thing that all the lesser calibers are now reloaders calibers. I think .32 by definition these are lesser calibers. There are few if any deals to be had. My advice to anyone who owns one, regardless of it being shot regularly or not is to stock up on their ammo. Just over the last 3+ years centerfire ammo has gone up to the point where you can expect a price around $.50 a shot, heading to $1 a shot.

The smart gun show walker can often see old ammo for sale at private tables. Gun store price on .32s is up to almost $50 a box (of 50). You can do better at discounters. But the gun show prices are still back to what seems like a much more reasonable $20 a box when you can find it.

Common sense seems to indicate you should buy when you find it.

Also in November I was offered and purchased a beautiful Colt .32. I've owned Colt's in .32 before, and in most respects, they're the equal of S&Ws. This one illustrated a big gap in my background. When we tried a .32 S&W Long, it was way too big. What I had was the dreaded .32 Colt chambering. My buddy Joe said he had some at home he'd bring to me. The only box at the show was an old box of almost 50 for $50. So at the next two shows I managed to score 2 boxes for $20 and $25.

Those little suckers have little bullets, .299 in diameter. Its a cute little gun, and I think I'm going to shoot it.
 
Like RBURG said. For less than the cost of a box of factory ammo you can a set of Lee reloading dies. I sometimes cast my own bullets but there is a local retired caster that sells 109gn RNFP .313 bullets for $24/500. I can probably count on both hands the number of 32 long I've lost due to split cases and I've loaded 32 Long longer than many on this board have been alive. By the way, you can get 3000+ loads from a pound of Bullseye.

Plus like many seem to be finding 32s are fun to shoot. Inexpensive to reload and accurate as well. Until recently prices on 32 revolvers were very reasonable, but they seem to be climbing.
 
The only 32 revolver I have is a 1952 Colt Detective Special with a factory hammer shroud in 32 Colt NP. I collect Colts as well as S&W snubbys, and it's a dandy. You barely feel any recoil with that round in a steel D frame gun.

I wouldn't mind getting a Terrier snubby to go with it.
 
32 S&W LONG

My last major project of reloading was something like 20 boxes of 32 S&W long full wadcutters. Accuracy was amazing. :) Was fun as well. :)
 
Any info appreciated. I have a 32 Long that has been in the family many years. Just wanted to find out about this revolver. It is in excellent original condition and has a SN of 459058. Since the 32 Long ammo seems to be difficult to obtain, what other 32 cal, if any, can be safely fired. Pics later.

If the gun is in good shape, you can safely shoot the heck out of it and be rewarded by that wonderful soft report, low recoil and wonderful accuracy (once you find loads your specimen likes)!

Ammo? Besides .32 Long, there's .32 short . . . and even .32ACP that will shoot just fine. Of course, the ACP stuff, not having a revolver-type rim, will have to be (easily) pulled out by your finger tips when you fire 'em. No problem.

I shot mine at a recent, local steel match . . . they let me compete in the .22 revolver class (since the recoil is hotter than .22). I won the match too!

2455460IMG2458ec5tc.jpg


Here's mine, a little older, and the round butt version called the Hand Ejector.
 
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