Hello All,
I am considering cartridge options with the following characteristics:
Able to produce good accuracy (is 1 MOA asking too much?) at 100 yards with < 1,000 FPS or so;
Possibly be able to be loaded a littler hotter to a lot hotter, while retaining good accuracy.
The list I have in my head right now includes:
22 Maynard XL
22 Hornet
25-20SS
25-21 Savage
32-20
32-20 CPA
32-40
33-57
357 Maximum
The first key is the low power accuracy.
TIA
John
Quarterbore........25/20ss, 25/20 wcf, 25/21, 25 Hornet, etc.
.32 S&W Long, 12" or 14" twist .30 caliber barrel.
You can cut the chamber with .30 M1 Carbine reamer run in and stopped short.
Accurate 31-155D cast 1:30, 5.6 grains Alliant #2400, compressed charge gives 1050 fps. in a 20" barrel.
Attachment 171144
The ENEMY is listening.
HE wants to know what YOU know.
Keep it to yourself.
From the list of cartridges named above and breach seating, I have experience with three. The 22 Hornet, The 25 Hornet and the 32-20 CPA. All three have met your accuracy level requirement for me and then some. I would say those and any of the other ones set up correctly should do it at 100y.
Are you planing on; Formal Matches? Fun accuracy range days or just accurate plinking?
As a 200y bench rifle for match shooting, the 32-20 CPA is the best of the three that I have experience with.
Chill Wills
Versatile Round for Breech Seating with Low Power Accuracy
Here's some examples - measure the bullets for the calibers posted you plan to shoot - do the calculations per Hodgdon - then start with minimum charges over the chronograph and let the groups tell you what you want ...
http://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Ya...num=1467044676
Regards
John
Although it appears you have been perusing the CPA-Stevens website, for the benefit of others:
http://singleshotrifles.com/calibers.html#.32
.32-40 – This is the most famous of the old time Schuetzen calibers, and remains a very accurate caliber to this day. Using the large primer, this brass is periodically produced by Winchester. Naturally, this brass is marked “.32-40 WIN” even though it is a Ballard & Marlin invention. You can buy .32-40 cases from a number of suppliers at present, but the supply is probably limited. If no brass is available, then the .32 Special case can be used. This case ends up short about .04” or so, but seems to work OK. I use it for gallery loads with bullets shot from the case. A number of powders give good results, and the traditional load of about 13.5 grains of 4227 is a good place to start. Best accuracy with this caliber is about 1350 fps, which happens to be an unfortunate area ballistically, as it will go subsonic before 200 yards. Another powder often used is 4759, which seems to work best with an over powder wad. I would suggest 4227 or another powder in preference, as no wad is required. I have used Alliant ---- and AA #9 with good results. Both of these, and other powders, must be adjusted to give the best result in a range of temperatures so that charges need not be adjusted. This case requires the same extractor as .38-55, .30-30, .219 Zipper and other brass based on these cases, making barrel changes simpler. Bullets are usually breechseated .06” ahead of he case, which puts the bullet completely into the rifling. Our rifles are taper throated from .322 to .314 in about 7/8” length, and a matching bullet can be easily seated perfectly and without distortion. Seated this way in the taper throated chamber, the bullet will have rifling marks its full length except for the base band. In our rifles and factory Stevens, seating can be done most effectively and rapidly with a plugged case, making a mechanical seater both unnecessary and undesirable. Using black powder without a smokeless priming charge, you will have enough fouling to impede breech seating and to cause deterioration of accuracy. For black powder, the .38-55 is less affected than the .32-40. If full feature Pope muzzleloading barrels were available, then the .32-40 would be a good choice; but they are not, and have not been around for close to 75 years.
Could not either .32 H&R Magnum or .327 Federal Magnum cases be Shortened to work better as replacements for .32-40 Brass if it is not available? I admit the .327 Fed. Mag. is probably longer than needed and would require more to be trimmed off to bring it to the correct Length.
Chev. William
.38-55 brass is probably the simplest to form for .32-40. You just run the short length 2.080" stuff through a .32-40 sizer die and you are ready to go. .38-55 Starline brass is easy to come by.
Chris.
I have 2 25-20SS rifles, one no. 2 RRB and one Stevens 44. I have never shot the Stevens but the Remington has taken all from squirrel to whitetail and lots in between. Jamison has the brass but pricey. It last a loooong time though. The SS was among the first center fire cartridge and was a great schuetzen cartridge. Lots of info over on assr forum.
I don't understand why this fine cartridge ever faded into obsolescence.
Life is so much better with dogs!
That is essentially what I did with the .32 S&W Long, but I was looking only for a subsonic, low noise, 100 yard rifle. The .32 H&R Magnum would have more powder capacity, but with 150-160-grain bullets probably would not match .32-40 ballistics. I think the .327 Federal with 31-155D anbd a compressed caseful of RL7 or 4198 would be very close to .32-40 performance, but I have not tried it.Originally Posted by Chev. William
Many years ago I had a single-shot falling block chambered for the .30 US Carbine round, having a 12" twist barrel of 4-groove, government form which shot very well with a compressed caseful of 4198 and common .30-30 bullets, either jacketed or cast.
The rifle was later rechambered to .30-30 and was highly satisfactory, but if you wanted to shoot breech-seated bullets and a caseful of powder, using a .30 carbine reamer, running it in partially and stopping it short, using either .32 H&R Magnum or .327 brass in a target quality 12" twist barrel would be close to ideal.
The ENEMY is listening.
HE wants to know what YOU know.
Keep it to yourself.
32-40 brass is longer by far than either of the other cartridges. It also has completely different chamber dimensions. If I understood your point Chev. William, those cases would be totally incompatible with a 32-40 chamber.
Hate is a poison which one consumes expecting another to die.
I rebarreled a old Hopkins Allen falling block shotgun with a 50 cal. muzzleloader barrel and chambered it with a short strait walled chamber of only 1.2". I had some 8x50 Lebel brass that has a neck dia. of .535 and when trimmed to 1.2" worked well with .512 dia. cast bullets and light smokeless loads of about 15 grs. of Unique. I shot it like that for about 6 months and it shot into cloverleaf groups at 50 yards.
I got a idea to make some 50-70 barrels for H&R handi rifles using Huntsman muzzleloader barrels and a friend and I converted 6 of them to 50-70 and while I had the reamer I ended up reaming the H&A gun to 50-70 also.
It shot great as a 50-70 also but no better than when I was shooting it as a breech seater and wish I would have left it as it was because it was kind of cool shooting it that way.
I don't see why most any caliber wouldn't work well as long as it had a small / moderate powder capacity and you had a good fitting leade into the bore and a good fitting cast bullet.
Jedman
Last edited by Jedman; 07-02-2016 at 01:56 PM.
Well not quite the simplest, as there is more forming to do. With some brands doing it part-way and then annealing might be advisable. But I think it is the best. The standard length of .32-40 is 2.13in. and there will be some lengthening of the 2.085in. .38-55 as it is sized down. It isn't quite the sort of cartridge where a case slightly under length is harmful, but you have a greater chance of getting that right than you do with the shorter .32WS or .30-30.
It's true that the .32H&R and .327 are very different from the .32-40 in length and diameters. I think some kind of typo was involved.
I am sure all of the rounds mentioned by the OP are capable of giving the desired performance, if chamber and cases are to the right and well matched dimensions. The deciding factor is probably the availability of modern mass produced brass, dies and chamber reamers. Two out of three are a one-time expenditure, but with the brass, as many have painfully learned lately, we have to look to what is likely in the future too.
OP, if you haven't already you need to contact Mr. Weber to have a breach seating tool made up. I love mine he made for my highwall. Works for both scope and vernier tang sight. Also, you will probably want to throat your rifle to make it all come together for you. Lastly I find that a tapered bullet seems to shoot the best breach seated, if that helps you in selecting a mould.
Hate is a poison which one consumes expecting another to die.
I am assuming the reamer is to allow the use a .3o8 barrel? Would this require a custom chamber reamer?
I've formed .38-55 for my .32-40's in exactly the way I've described, bu with Winchester .38-55 brass rather than Starline. No annealing was required. The shorter cases will lengthen as you size them down to .32-40. I can't imagine it being any simpler than simply running brass through a sizer.Chris.
How does this approach compare to using a plugged cartridge, which is the method of choice for CPA?
Several things that need to be known are action and case diameter the barrels stub can accept and handle, pressure levels you want to operate at, desired velocites, uses for this set-up range target hunting serious competition, Amount of brass prep fiddilling around you want to go thru. Is this to be a smokless powder or black powder load. For out to 200 yds I would look at a 45 colt case ( probably 45 grns 2f powder to case mouth with a little compression) and a 250 grn bullet cast soft, 20-1 or softer lead. Grease grooved or pure and paper patched. This would probably produce around 1200 fps mabe 1300 fps and be a neat little target rifle plinker, and could take deer out to 100-150 yds pretty effectively. When breech seating there is little bullet in the case allowing for a truly full case of powder, meaning a smaller case will give more performance due to the increased case capacity. A charge of powder compressed and chrage brought up and a wad seated to seal mouth. Bullet inserted into rifling to depth that allows the case to chamber with wad just touching the bullets base can be quite accurate.
Yes, a .308 barrel.
The .30 carbine SAAMI chamber has a .338 diameter at the case mouth with .3135 major diameter to the forcing cone entrance with 2 degrees, 29 minutes Basic forcing cone angle, which works just fine for breech seated bullets as-is. A custom reamer with rifle type throat cut especially for the .32 H&R Magnum or .32 S&W Long is helpful, but not absolutely necessary, if you run in a .30 Carbine reamer and stop it short at the correct length for the brass used, and fire-form cases to be used for separate loading.
My .32 S&W Long is a .308" groove diameter and I load .312 bullets with excellent accuracy.
The ENEMY is listening.
HE wants to know what YOU know.
Keep it to yourself.
I personally would choose the .32-40, as it meets all the parameters, and can achieve great accuracy if the barrel and shooter are capable of it.
Posting Permissions
| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
Reply With Quote
Chill Wills