.32wcf learn me about it!

[troy_mclure]

a guy i know might be interested in selling me his grandpas old('20's) spanish copy of a colt police positive.

its chambered in .32wcf. i kinda like old guns and cartridges.

i know the gun aint great, but it should be a fun plinker.

on to the ammo. .32wcf. all i know about it is from Wikipedia.

how is it to cast and reload for? what about cost to shoot?

how is brass availability? brass life?

share your knowledge O' learned ones!

:popcorn:

[JeffinNZ]

.32-20!!!! Great little round. Heaps of info here.

[shooter93]

Great little round and a number of good molds available for it. A couple different ones were run here as group buys too. Brass is available from Starline and lasts well. It has a thin neck so like 38-40 and 44-40 a bit of care in reloading is necessary but no real problems. Uses small powder charges and around 100 grains of lead. Great small game/turkey/plinking round.

[Harter66]

Well troy ,
Ya had me going for a min. I grabbed my data and................wait police positive?ah......................that's a pistol..............no way my 32 Rem info will even come close. I was totally hearing/seeing/ 32 Winchester Special as in 30wcf necked up to 32.

I've heard it's brass is fragile ,being quite thin in the neck area .

[frankenfab]

"learn me about it!"

The pet peeve or grammar police will be here any minute!:kidding:

[Cherokee]

32WCF - 32-20 Great fun cartridge. Easy to reload, cast for and cheap to shoot. Brass is available, primarily from Starline and last a long time unless the cylinders are way oversize. Dies readily available. I have several rifles and pistols and have loaded 32-20 for many years. Yes, it's thin in the neck, easy to crumple, so just be careful, as you should be when loading anyway.

[Harry O]

Try this:

http://www.sixshootercommunity.com/harro/102-reloading-the-32-20-for-beginners.html

[Guesser]

I cast, load and shoot four Colt revolvers in 32 W.C.F. I cast Ideal 3118 and load over 2.4 gr. of Trail Boss for the older, more fragile of my Colts, your Spanish Copy falls into that class. For dies, I recommend Lyman with the "M" die or possibly a set of dies designed as "cowboy" dies. Small pistol primers are great. Fun, accurate and rewarding!!!!!!!!

[JeffinNZ]

http://www.lasc.us/FryxellPreachersGun.htm

[tonyjones]

NOE has an active group buy for 3118 right now.

Tony

[troy_mclure]

well i dont want to buy the mould till i know i can get the gun. lol

[MT Gianni]

I would check the gun out well. There has been some poor copies of Spanish Steel in the past. OTOH, some of their guns are just fine.

[nicholst55]

I've got an old Colt Army Special in .32-20 that I rebuilt from trotline sinker-grade to a shootable specimen; it's a fun old gun to plink with. I can't wait until I return to the States and can devote some more time to it.

[Wayne Smith]

I have Gil Sengel's 2002 Handloader article on my hard drive where he re-created the original loads for the 32WCF in todays powers. If you get the gun and want it PM me your e-mail addy.

[troy_mclure]

cool, thanks!

[gnoahhh]

The .32-20 is one of the all time great little pistol cartridges. I would scare up a better gun than one of those old Spanish copies though. Every one I came across was a clunker, and the one my dad fooled with got so far out of time after a couple hundred rounds that it spit lead out the side like crazy. The local smith wouldn't touch it so he horse traded it.

If you like the blues, google Robert Johnson's ".32-20 Blues" and give it a listen. It's a song about keeping a straying girlfriend in line, including using a .32-20, but she has a .38 Special (but he thinks that load's too hot).

Have you "learned" enough yet?;)

[troy_mclure]

bah, the deal has fell thru. the guy doesnt want to sell. thinks the gun is worth at least $175. it isnt, not even to me.

but the more i learn about this cartridge the more i want it. lol

i might look for a cheap colt or s&w. anybody seen any deals? ;-)

[JIMinPHX]

My grandfather had a Colt pocket positive back when he was a LEO. It was .32 Long cal, but would also take .32 short cartridges, if you were out of the longs. K-mart carried the .32 short ammo as late as the '70's. That was the last time that I checked.

If that gun is a knockoff of a Police Positive, then you might want to double check that it's actually .32-20WCF & not .32 Long cal or some other similar cartridge. A bunch of Spanish guns were made in .32 calibers other than the venerable .32-20.

The .32 long that my grandfather's gun was chambered for also goes by the names .32 S&W long and .32 Colt New Police.

The genuine old Colts go for big money at the gun shows around here. The Spanish knockoffs usually struggle to get above $100.

[troy_mclure]

well he decided to sell it to me, i cant get up there till mid june so ill be stocking up on components first.

[troy_mclure]

anybody know where to get cheap brass? lol

[Wayne Smith]

Troy, for the 32WCF buy Starline. It is head and shoulders above the rest in quality. All of the other brands that I have used are very thin, Starline uses a thicker brass and it lasts longer with fewer losses.

[Cherokee]

Starline is your friend, although I got good service from the large batch of Remington that I bought many years ago. Now I would buy Starline.

[troy_mclure]

well starline is out of stock, ive found some once fired rem, ww, and starline. enough to set me up for a while.

[troy_mclure]

soooooo, black powder or smokeless?

[tonyjones]

Troy,

The .30 Soupcan (311316 I think) is another good bullet for the .32 revolver cartridges. There just happens to be a group buy going.

Tony

[beagle]

I'll second that on the spanish copy. I've shot one some many years ago and it did all right but they were made way back and the spanish metal of those days may not have been what it should be.

For darn sure, don't try and hot rod it any faster than factory specs. If you want to go that route, hunt down a Ruger Buckeye and have at it. It will take it./beagle


I would check the gun out well. There has been some poor copies of Spanish Steel in the past. OTOH, some of their guns are just fine.

[troy_mclure]

i was looking at the buckeyes, $700 is more than im looking to spend! lol

[JIMinPHX]

Somewhere I think I have the Spanish proofhouse codes for the different years of manufacture. If you want me to look them up so that you can date the gun, let me know.

[troy_mclure]

he was told it was '23, or '25 by his grandfather several years ago. thanks tho.

[leftiye]

Starline is back in stock. I just recieved notice that they have shipped my backordered 32-20 brass!!!!! Yippeee!

[canyon-ghost]

:coffee: Okay, you've been warned about us Contender nuts so, I'll talk to ya about my favorite handgun. The thing about Contenders handling higher pressures is true but, I just load lead bullets and shoot lead. It doesn't have to be macho to hit something at 100 yards.
http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx228/3rdshooter/contenders/32-20WCF800x6002.jpg
There's my homework. Done from sandbags with a scope. It has a fair amount of recoil so, you'd want to work up from 1/2 grain lower (in fact, that would make a good final load, I'd bet. 6.8 to 7.0 grains of 2400 would probably be about right. But you'll want to do your own load work and might chose a different powder. The Contender has a .308 bore in 32-20.

I do have an NEF in 32 mag and just switch to a .314 sizing die for it. The sizing dies in my lubersizer are the only difference because both molds pour a full .32 caliber bullet anyway.

The RCBS 98 grain is a good mold, I thought it might be too light but, it isn't. It works good even in the 32 magnum, I can switch back and forth and not lose anything .

Since these loads were done at a full 100 meters, you can imagine how I reacted to that kind of amazing accuracy. I may have to save up for "one of them there Buckeyes" now! I load some on the side for a 32-20 levergun too, not mine though. Most of my loads come almost directly from Lyman manuals and get fine-tuned at the shooting range. I still have no idea what to do with long summers. 8-)
http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx228/3rdshooter/32-20withnewpress004.jpg
Ron

[Dean D.]

Troy, for the 32WCF buy Starline. It is head and shoulders above the rest in quality. All of the other brands that I have used are very thin, Starline uses a thicker brass and it lasts longer with fewer losses.

+100 You'll never regret using Starline brass in the 32WCF.

The 32-20 (32WCF) is my all time favorite cartridge for shooting. Low recoil and incredibly accurate. I have a Win. model 92, Colt SAA and S&W M&P chambered in this cartridge. Economical and fun, what more could you ask for??? ;)

[canyon-ghost]

Starline is an American business that does it right, living in Missouri. I like those folks, the people that live in Missouri seem to be some of the finest folks in the USA.

Master Class shooters introduced me to Starline Brass and they weren't wrong.

I love Starline brass!! +100 on that, 10-4 Bud!

Ron

[C1PNR]

Yep, the 311 316 by Ideal/Lyman is a great boolit for the 30 wcf. It is a GC design, and in the revolver you may not want or need that extra expense, especially if you are not pushing it very hard.

The 311 008 is similar, but a plain base design that you might find more to your needs.

I do happen to use the GC design in my Colt Army Special, but I also use one heck of a lot of them in my '92 as well.

[9.3X62AL]

From Ken Waters and his "Pet Loads" column and compendium, try 5.0 grains of SR-4756 to start in the 32-20 revolvers, and (depending on make/model) work toward 5.5 grains in a Police Positive Special or to 6.0 grains in a S&W M&P--Colt SAA--or Colt Army Special using the 115-120 grain boolits. The 6.0 grain loads are quite sharp in report, so GOOD hearing protection is a must.

One kink on the 32-20 WCF I'll be trying soon......I'm going to purchase a small lot of 32-20 brass and process it through a 30 Carbine steel sizer--trim it a bit--and fire-form it to the 30 Carbine Blackhawk's chambers. Just because. The 32-20 From Hell, and likely to be louder than Purgatory's Own Percussion Ensemble.

[Cherokee]

"I'm going to purchase a small lot of 32-20 brass and process it through a 30 Carbine steel sizer--trim it a bit--and fire-form it to the 30 Carbine Blackhawk's chambers."

You might want to see if the rim will clear the cylinder window before you do many, put one in the cylinder and try to turn it. If it turns, good. None of mine (I have several OM's) will clear the loading gate because the cylinder to recoil shield clearence is too tight. I have heard the new models have more clearence so it might work.

[9.3X62AL]

Ah HA. I will check that before processing a bunch of brass for no good purpose. Many thanks, Cherokee!

[leftiye]

The 32-20 necks are quite thin. This means that there will be a lot of slop in the chamber neck area. I don't know if this is actually a fatal issue, but it has kept me from rechambering .30 carbine and .32 magnum chambers to 32-20 (- so far....). This in the search to an alternative to forking out megabucks for a mega Buckeye special. I thimk this is gonna end up with me making a model 19 S&W in 32-20 caliber. The 32-20 is long enough that a .32 mag could be rechambered, but the single six cylinders are too short for 32-20.