Catshooter Keith .32 in Rifle

[Bent Ramrod]

I checked out the Catshooter Keith .32 Group Buy boolit in my Savage 23C. This rifle seems to like the lighter .32 boolits, so I figured it would be the best test bed of the three I have.

The cartridges came out with a partial crimp from the seating die. I did not run them through the Lee or C-H crimp die. the cartridges were loaded singly rather than through the magazine. The boolits had been sized and lubed to .314" for my pistols, but were resized to .311" to better suit the preferences of this rifle.

With W-W cases, CCI small rifle primers and 9.5 gr of 2400, I got a 7/8" group at 50 yards. Lesser loadings expanded the groups to 2", but no more. With SR-4759, I kept getting clusters of two and three under an inch, but away from each other so that the totals were 1-1/2" to 2-3/8," this last with 4 under an inch. I did get another 7/8" group at 10.5 gr. This 7/8" spread of five shots at 50 yards is as good as the rifle does with Ideal 311419, an 80-gr gas check design that it particularly favors.

The odd spreads of clusters in the other groups might be the rifle's comments on my as-yet pretty amateurish technique of casting in a six-cavity mould. I didn't weight the boolits; I'll do that next time for 100 yard evaluations.

[Catshooter]

Nice work Bent. I take it your Savage is a .32-20? I've been wanting one for years. I used to have one in .25-20 and cleverly sold it. I think one in .32 would be the cat's pajamas.


Cat

[Bent Ramrod]

Catshooter,

Yes, it is a .32-20. That 23 series are all good ones. In a perfect world, Savage would reproduce the series (.32-20, .25-20 and maybe the .327 Magnum) in their current Model 40 Hornet rifle.

[Bret4207]

In a perfect world they'd bring back the 23 series but with better steels and an adjustable trigger. Best darn small game rifles ever made, bar none.

[Catshooter]

Oh Bret, wouldn't that just be sweet? I'd love one in either .38 special or 357.


Cat

[Larry Gibson]

Savage has brought it back. It is in singleshot form though and in .22 Hornet. It's the M40.

Larry Gibson

[Catshooter]

Nope Larry, not even close. I wanna 23!


Cat

[Bret4207]

Agree with CS, the thing is no M-23, not by a long shot. Single shot, heavy, lousy lines, not a woods walking small game rifle at all.

[Larry Gibson]

Bret

I didn't notice the "woods walking small game" criteria and will have to admit that it certainly is not that. However the M40 is the most accurate "out of the box" .22H I've ever had (including numerous M23s I've had over the years). As a lay down varmint style squirrel shooter the M40 Savage reigns supreme. However for walking the woods hunting small game I'll have to concede the M23s are hard to beat. My favorite is a M23B in 25-20 but with 22Hornets it's either my Ruger #3 or my TC Carbine. But then again if a 23 C isn't to be had in 32020 then my little Mini MK X in 7.62x39 with the same .32-20 bullets does yeoman service as a "walk about" rifle. Hard to beat the 23 searies though as I do love that little 23B!

Larry Gibson

[Bent Ramrod]

Thought I'd resuscitate this thread as I've been trying the Keith boolit out of a couple rifles at 100 yards. Best groups from the Savage 23C had trouble with vertical stringing until the powder charges reached 6 grains of Blue Dot and 11 grains of SR-4759, respectively. Then they got into the 3" range for five shots, plus or minus a quarter inch.

The Winchester Low Wall liked this boolit much better. From 4 to 7 grains of Blue Dot, I could get four out of five into the 2" to 2-1/2" range; with 4 grains got all of them into 1-7/8".

I typically size the things to 0.314" and crimp all the loads, rifle or pistol, so some experimentation with different sizings and lack of crimp might improve the groups somewhat. Anybody else done anything with this .32 boolit?