reloadable .32 rimfire brass

[NorthCoastBigBore]

When is this gonna be a STICKY? Definitively needs to be.

Yes it does. I've got a lot of good advice out of this thread and I do follow the updates. Can't add to the wealth of knowledge, other than to say that my particular Favorite (or my .32 revolver) doesn't catch the .22 blanks so I had to stick with .27's in my case.

For my part as recommended herein, I empty the powder and use as a primer, mainly because I cannot source brown .27's locally. I do find (from another post in this thread) that using a small charge of 3F BP secured in the base of the base of the Hilti shell ensures consistent ignition, with Trail Boss (Not sure of the load now with the BP primer in there - I'm only using Short Colt brass right now) and a heeled 95 gr boolit. That was a great tip as I did find a lot of inconsistent ignition otherwise.

I drill the center out undersize and then carefully open up the "chamber" in my lathe to fit the Hilti base tightly. No blowby.

My point here is just to say Thanks very much to Chev William, W30 and the other contributors. Your efforts are appreciated.

[Chev. William]

Yes it does. I've got a lot of good advice out of this thread and I do follow the updates. Can't add to the wealth of knowledge, other than to say that my particular Favorite (or my .32 revolver) doesn't catch the .22 blanks so I had to stick with .27's in my case.

For my part as recommended herein, I empty the powder and use as a primer, mainly because I cannot source brown .27's locally. I do find (from another post in this thread) that using a small charge of 3F BP secured in the base of the base of the Hilti shell ensures consistent ignition, with Trail Boss (Not sure of the load now with the BP primer in there - I'm only using Short Colt brass right now) and a heeled 95 gr boolit. That was a great tip as I did find a lot of inconsistent ignition otherwise.

I drill the center out undersize and then carefully open up the "chamber" in my lathe to fit the Hilti base tightly. No blowby.

My point here is just to say Thanks very much to Chev William, W30 and the other contributors. Your efforts are appreciated.

I am Glad you are enjoying our old Firearms again even though the original Cartridge is Obsolete, and your Welcome for the information we have all shared to get Obsolete Cartridge arms 'Shooting' again with the available modern components, however Labeled.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Navy Shooter]

Has anyone tried using the lowest level of PTL as a primer, without removing the powder from them? I'm still cutting mine down and throwing out the powder, but that's a bit of a pain in the neck.

Or perhaps, has anyone found good places to buy the acorn primers?

[Hooker53]

Hey Navy. I just bought two boxes off of EBay. Theirs not many that has them there so after a search, you will see them. I paid, I think 13/15 bucks a box shipped.

[Chev. William]

Has anyone tried using the lowest level of PTL as a primer, without removing the powder from them? I'm still cutting mine down and throwing out the powder, but that's a bit of a pain in the neck.

Or perhaps, has anyone found good places to buy the acorn primers?

I believe there are reports of using PTL Blank intact as primer with Tight Group powder added posted in this Thread earlier.
I do no tbelieve anyone has posted results of using Grade 1 .22 Caliber PTL Blanks Intact as Primers though. I believe the lowest Grade That was reported were Grade 2 PTL blanks.
So if they work, then the Grade 1, with its lower charge weight, should work.

ADDED: See post #450 in this Thread for a compiled listing of reported tests, compiled by w30wcf.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Navy Shooter]

Chev -
Thanks for pointing me to post #450. I don't get online often enough, and didn't see that. From that, it looks like use of #1 or #2 should be plenty safe. I've been using FFG, rather than FFFG, which I expected would mean less pressure.

I've grown very tired of cutting off the PTLs by hand, and then swaging them so they easily fit into the cases. So using uncut PTLs will be a blessing.

I'm firing this in a .38 rimfire, with homemade cases. Case is 0.847 inches long, made from .38 special cases. A .375 cast round ball, same as my Colt Navy. Used a power tool load, cut off, with powder emptied, and Hodgdon's 777.

Range was 50 yards, shot two groups of 3 shots, with a peep sight. First group about 2 1/2 inches, second 2 1/4 inches. Rifle was a Frank Wesson 2 trigger, 28 inch barrel. For the 2 groups, I ran 1 patch through between each shot.

Velocities are interesting. Initially fired 11 shots, cleaning about every third shot, using open sights. Groups weren't very good, but neither are my eyes.

Velocities in fps were:
Max 1386
Min 1181
Avg 1260.09
Std. Dev. 58.06

Then, used peep sight, and used 1 patch before each shot.

Velocities in fps were:
Max 1367
Min 1210
Avg 1260.167
Std. Dev. 54.36

I was very surprised to see the similarity, even though I was cleaning for each shot. Probably indicates other factors were more significant than the cleaning. I also didn't expect velocities this high. However, the round ball weighs less than the conical the .38 rimfire was loaded with, and I'm using hotter powder.

The cases often had to be forced in about the last .040 inch, so I'm thinking that with a round ball, they're slightly too long. I plan to cut about that much off of a few, and try them. If that solves the problem, I'll cut them all shorter. I've got plenty of velocity, so losing a little powder shouldn't hurt.

Thanks again, to everyone who's contributing to this thread.

[Chev. William]

Try measuring the lenght of your PTL blanks and the case length of the .38 cartridge you are using as an adapter, then calculate haw much of the case is left for the Round ball to seat into.

I am thinking there is a slight taper of the Body of the PTL Blank rather than the tip hitting the Ball.

Might save you some unneeded work and powder spills.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Navy Shooter]

Right now, I'm still using the cut-off PTLs, so it can't be the blank tip that's hitting the ball. The ball seems to be seated completely on the powder.

I'm assuming that the ball and case length together are marginal in the chamber, and are hitting where the chamber narrows. Is that reasonable?

[Chev. William]

To check for that:
1. Try chambering a case WITHOUT powder nor Ball in it. If if goes into the Chamber properly without drag the last little bit of movement, then the Case is short enough and is small enough at he mouth for the chamber. Set this case aside for later.
2. Seat a ball in a case without powder and do the same experiment again. is there any difference in feel as the case with ball goes into the chamber? Set this case aside for later also.
3. Now use a cartridge with powder and ball loaded as you normally do them to again perform the same experiment. if you feel drag or are unable to seat the cartridge fully in the Chamber, note that. Set this cartridge aside for the following step(s).
4a. Carefully measure and record the diameter at the mouth of the empty case from the First experiment.
4b. Carefully measure and record the diameter at the mouth of the bulleted case from the Second experiment.
4c. Carefully measure and record the diameter at the mouth of the loaded cartridge of the Third experiment.
4d. Compare the measurements. Is there any change in diameters between the three mouths?
If there is a difference it might be due to the loading process.
If there is a difference it would indicate that the chamber and loaded cartridge have a mild interference.
If there is NO difference it would indicate that the chamber and case are most likely not the problem but the bullet and/or powder column may still be causing the difficultly.
Cross check by measuring the case body in several places from mouth to base to see if there are any differences between the three.

Also you might try lightly putting a SWC bullet in the Chamber to just touch the front, then measure the difference from bullet base to mouth of chamber.

Then gently knock the bullet back out and measure the length of the bullet from base to the point where it is marked by the rifling.

Calculate where the rifling start is from the mouth of the Chamber (the Breech face datum).

Compare this dimension to the length of the loaded cartridge where the ball is large enough to hit the rifling.

I hope these steps will help solve the dilemma you face in this problem.

Best Regards,
Chev. Willam

[Chev. William]

Called PTG today tocheck on my order(s) and was told they have shipped my .32 Long RF/.32 Long Colt CF Finish Chamber reamer, so I should see in in the mail by Saturday. And today I am expecting the 'to be' new owner of my old "Altare 8800" computer Chassis to come by and pick it up.

The Altare, for those who don't know, is a early commercial "S100" bus based computer that used numerous plug-in cards based, usually, upon Intel 8080 MPU processor and peripheral Integrated Circuits and was programmed in "Machine Language" via toggle switches on the front panel. it Followed by a few years the Intel 4004 and 8008 MPU chip sets. and was out slightly before IBM came out with the 8086 based original "Personal Computer", or "PC", that used Microsoft licensed 'IBM DOS" and floppy disks for portable storage.

I will caution the new owner to plug it in to a Variable Transformer and ramp up the Voltage slowly to give the old Capacitors a chance to reform their dielectric film. If it is plugged directly into the the wall power, there is a high probability on turn on there would be several "Bangs" and the filter capacitors would fail catastrophically; letting out all the "Magic Smoke" that allows these old machines to operate at all.

PS: I still have two 8-1/4" Floppy disk drives with power supply in a separate cabinet along with a batch of the 8-1/4" Floppy magnetic disks to go with them, some still with programs on them. Chev. William

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Navy Shooter]

Just did some checking. First, I dropped one of the cases in, no problems. Being somewhat obsessive compulsive, I did that with 9 more cases. No problems, slid in easily.

Then, I put a ball on one of them. It fit in fine, so I decided to try the other cases. They all fit in fine, with the ball staying in the rifle. I took that ball out. Tried another. It didn't go in as well, got stuck partway in. Stayed stuck, even using other cases.

Repeated that process with 10 .375 round balls. 5 of them went in easily, 5 of them got stuck.

I'm assuming the chamber has a slight taper, by design or not, I don't know. But am also assuming that the .375 round balls aren't. They either aren't all .375, or they aren't all round. I try to cast pretty carefully, but I also cast 6 at a time, in one mold. Am wondering if maybe they aren't all identical, since in reality, they can't be. It would be a bummer to have to sort them, or use only the balls from mold pockets 1, 2 and 3, for instance.

However, I think the testing you recommended has helped sort out the problem. I may get some of Hornady's swaged balls, just to check. I'm assuming that they may be more uniform, though they may not necessarily fit.

The rifle, of course, wasn't designed for .375 balls, it was designed for boo-lits (kind of appropriate on Halloween).

...

It was at about this time in my thought process that I had a mild heart attack. Is there any chance that I ordered a .380 round ball mold from Lee, which works really well in my Colt Navy? It gives just a beautiful little lead ring around the cylinder, when I push the ball in. And is there any chance that was why the lead balls looked kind of odd on the end of the cartridge cases? Could .005 really make that much of a difference?

Guess I'll try some .375s, and see how they work.

Thanks much,
Navy

[Chev. William]

ALL Lead balls, either Cast or Swaged, will not be perfectly spherical, just from handling as they are soft.
On the other hand Iron Balls can be made spherical (Ball Bearings) because they are hard enough to not distort from handling.

Also in Casting you end up with a parting line and a sprue print on each ball that detracts from them being truly spherical.

Have you 'slugged' your barrel and measured the results?

Just pointing out some obvious things to look for.

Best Regards,
Chev. Willaiam

[A pause for the COZ]

Hey thanks for bringing this back up. I needed to order some of those brass cases from Dixie. Time to dust off the Stevens.

[Navy Shooter]

ALL Lead balls, either Cast or Swaged, will not be perfectly spherical, just from handling as they are soft.
On the other hand Iron Balls can be made spherical (Ball Bearings) because they are hard enough to not distort from handling.

Chev. William

Hi Chev,

Haven't slugged my barrel yet, but your mention of ball bearings made me think a little more. I happened to have a .375 ball bearing, so I dropped one into my barrel, to see if the cases would easily seat. They did, so again, I'm assuming that .375 lead balls might help. Since some of my cast .380's are working, I may sort them for awhile, which may get rid of some of the 'out of round' parts, etc.

Meanwhile, it's getting colder in Iowa...

[tomsp8]

Found an interesting old article pertaining to old cartridges at the turn of the century. It's actually a sporting goods catalog from Abercrombie & Fitch. Cartridge information, including blackpowder and smokeless data, starts at page 179, and info on the 32 long & short is on page 189. Pretty neat read, regardless.

[tomsp8]

Oops! http://books.google.com/books?id=LeM...page&q&f=false

[Chev. William]

Thanks for the link, now I have some 'new' reading matter to peruse and dream of the prices of the time. As a side note, I picked up a book on the "Los Angeles and Pacific Trollies", a predecessor to part of the Pacific Electric system. Turns out to be a First Printing Edition.
Best regards,
Chev. William

[tomsp8]

Well, I think this long thread might be running it's course, but thought I'd add to it with my latest testing:
Stevens Favorite 1894 32 Long Rimfire......
Basics are all identical: 299153 bullet, tumble lubed with Alox
32 Long Colt cases trimmed to .790, drilled out and recessed to accept
the 22 cal Ramset nail gun blanks, leaving the blank about .010/.015
proud of the case.
1) Nail gun blank cut/trimmed/powder dumped
2.0 Bullseye
Avg Velocity: 975 1.2" 3 shot group at 25 yards
2) Nail gun blank complete as is, no other powder added.
(Ramset #3 Green)
Avg Velocity: 1025 1.0" 3 shot group at 25 yards
A buddy of mine has a youtube channel where he shows basic hunting and survival related things and
made a 10 minute or so video of us shooting it at my sister's cabin last weekend, if anyone might be
interested in checking it out. I'm the goofy one in the orange ball cap....lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeAUew6Sbqs

[Chev. William]

Thank you for posting the load data and results to add to our knowledge base. Your Video came out nice.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

I now have both of my PTG made reamers and the Gauges for them; but I now need to order differrent Pilot Bushings as the ones supplied are for 'modern' .25" and .32" Rifle / Pistol bores and my Barrels are to older, smaller, diameters. Oh Well, the New Year Holiday is almost over soI can ask about them soon.

Chuck,
Here is a possible Suggestion for your use of .27 Cal. PTL Blanks:
Make a .010" Shim Washer to fit the Barrel Tenon so the Barrel is spaced out .010" from the normal position when the Retaining screw is tightened. That should allow your action to close properly.

The Stevens Favorite at one point in its production had a threaded ring nut on the Barrel Tenon to adjust the Head Space so this is a 'replacement' for that adjustment nut.

Best Regards,
Chev. William