I sort of cheated, or "My" .32 rifle thread

[NoZombies]

Well, there's been a lot of talk and interest on the board about rifles chambered for .32 caliber pistol cartridges. A lot of folks can't quite understand the concept, and don't get why anyone would want such a thing. I think that the reality is, some folks are interested in these, and some folks think we're crazy for being interested in these.

Ed Harris has been interested in these little guns for quite a while now, and has encouraged and enabled a lot of other folks as well. I was interested in such things before I'd ever heard of Ed, but reading his work on the subject, and seeing his passion has been inspiring.

I started out with a couple of Remington #4's that I wanted to convert, they where loose and rough, but I really liked the idea. But then I ended up with a Hopkins and Allen, that, other than some finish loss on the barrel, and some heavy handed fitting of the butt-plate, is in great condition for a boys rifle.

I ended up selling the Remingtons in favor of the H&A, it's .32 RF and I really want it to be a .32 S&W long. I weighed my options, considering everything from extending the link and running a reamer, to sending it off to John Taylor to let him do all the work.

I ended up epoxying scope bases to the barrel by accident, I was trying to build up the scope bases to fit better so I could drill and tap, but the "release" I used ended up acting as a solvent and made the bond better instead! The bases are on solid, so I'll use them as they are for the time being.

I still haven't decided how to proceed with the conversion, but I'm leaning towards the trip to Taylor machine, especially since my shop is packed into storage boxes at the moment, and I'm living in a small apt. 400 miles away. Not to mention all the good things that I hear about John's work.

In the interim, I have another project to work on. One of the members of the board here sold me his former project that had been the product of the collaboration of himself and a gunsmith friend of his. His gunsmith friend got out of the business before the project had been wrung out, so it sat dormant.

Then I came to the rescue, offering to give the project a good home, and a healthy diet of cast boolits. The rifle arrived in better shape than I had even hoped for, and I went to work immediately.

The rifle is a Remington 581. The gun was originally in .22 lr caliber, but the 58X series is an extremely overbuilt action with 6 locking lugs on the rear of the bolt, very reminiscent of the rem. 788. There are some pretty crazy conversions on these actions, I've seen .17 Mach4 and 300 whisper, 221 FB etc. I think all of those might be a bit excessive, but for something mild like the .32 long or magnum, it should be no problem.

The previous owner's gunsmith had fitted a 7.65 argentine mauser barrel, and chambered it for .32 S&W long wadcutters. As it came to me, the barrel is held in place with set screws. I intend to thread the action and set back and thread the barrel, rechamber it for standard RN and SWC ammo. That work will happen whenever I can get my shop set back up.

After fixing a few small problems with the gun upon it's arrival, I proceeded to take it out shooting. The results where abysmal. The gun shot 7" groups at 25 yards. After consulting the brain trust here at Cast Boolits, my suspicions where confirmed that the bedding might be to blame.

I removed the barrel from the action, and screwed the action down into the stock, and discovered that when I then lay the barrel in the forend channel, they didn't even start to line up. Many hours of work later, and the action is bedded higher in the stock, and as solidly as possible, and the barrel is free floated for it's length.

I haven't had the chance to shoot it again yet, but I'm hoping for an improvement. Obviously, the gun still needs a lot of work to be right, but at least it's shootable now, and hopefully with the new bedding work, it will be a little more accurate!

Things I still need to do to the 581 conversion:
Set back, thread and rechamber the barrel
Install an ejector
Design and build a single shot follower
Blue the barrel

For now, a little bit of 32 caliber gun porn

[Jack Stanley]

Nice photos ...... not fair since I sold a nice 581 years ago but nice photos anyway .

Somebody once said , so many guns , so little time .

Jack

[NoZombies]

Jack, Don't you sometimes kick yourself for stuff you've sold or traded away that a little while later you would have appreciated just that much more?

[Jack Stanley]

I still have bruises from the times I've kicked myself . That 581 in particular , I bought it new in the late seventies because it was a left hand model and so was I . I don't remember what I traded it for so it couldn't have been that good a trade .

It was years later I got kimber eighty-two left hand and if I still had the Remington it would make a great thirty-two long wouldn't it ?

Jack

[Mk42gunner]

I've got a 581 that has been shortened on both ends to fit a youngster; I go back and forth on changing it to centerfire. Wish I still had the 580 I sold when I was a kid.

I keep thinking about making a copy of a Page-Lewis swinging block rifle, but don't really need another .22. It should work with very few modifications for a .32S&W Long. I think one of the improved Model 6 Remingtons would be even easier to make, but they don't have a neat underlever.

Decisions, decisions....

Robert

[Hickory]

Who did the conversion?
Will a 514 Remington work?

[NoZombies]

Who did the conversion?

Sadly, I dunno, it came to me already converted, and the guy who I got it from told me that the smith is no longer in the business.

John Taylor at Taylor machine can do the work of converting one of these however.

There are several other smiths who do these conversions as well.

Will a 514 Remington work?

I can't say it *WONT* work, but I can say I wouldn't trust it. the 514 uses the bolt handle as the locking lug for the bolt, which works fine with the .22 LR round, but would be a little weak for anything having much more bolt thrust.

The reason the Remington 540,541,580,581,582,591 and 592 work so well for the conversions is that they are essentially miniature 788 actions. They have 6 rear locking lugs, and stout (though small diameter) receivers. there's some speculation that the 58Xand 59X series of rifles where originally designed for centerfire calibers and got relegated to rimfires to prevent loosing sales on the more expensive actions. I don't know myself, but I can see why the speculation is made, even if it's unfounded.

There are, no doubt, other .22 bolt action rifles that will work with CF conversions, the Springfield 1922 comes to mind, it was the original hornet rifle. Norinco made some rifles back in the 80's that would probably work too, the JW-15 and JW-27 come to mind. I believe both had a locking lug opposite the bolt handle to provide extra support. I have never seen a JW model converted though, so it's just speculation on my part at this point. No doubt there are others as well.

Hope that helps!

[NoZombies]

I've got a 581 that has been shortened on both ends to fit a youngster; I go back and forth on changing it to centerfire. Wish I still had the 580 I sold when I was a kid.

I keep thinking about making a copy of a Page-Lewis swinging block rifle, but don't really need another .22. It should work with very few modifications for a .32S&W Long. I think one of the improved Model 6 Remingtons would be even easier to make, but they don't have a neat underlever.

Decisions, decisions....

Robert

I think you should make the Page-Lewis. And post a lot of pics of the process!

[Mk42gunner]

It depends on if I can find the stepped .30-06 barrel that I took off the donor action for my .35 Whelen. I was thinking about making the sidewalls of the action out of thicker stock; to better match the size of the barrel, and add just a little heft.

I also need to scale up the drawing in Frank de Haas' book Single Shot Rifles and Actions. I calculated it at 1.38" to 1" some time last year. I think I can use a mainspring from a 1911 for the mainspring. Something to try anyway.

If I ever get started I will certainly take pictures.

Robert

[NoZombies]

Well there ya go, I'd like to see the scaled up drawings as well.

[Te Hopo]

I love the concept of this rifle, a handy lil carbine for sure.
I'm really keen to see more.

Norinco made some rifles back in the 80's that would probably work too, the JW-15 and JW-27 come to mind. I believe both had a locking lug opposite the bolt handle to provide extra support. I have never seen a JW model converted though, so it's just speculation on my part at this point. No doubt there are others as well.

Hope that helps!

I have 3 of the Norincos and can confirm that yea, they lock on both the bolt handle and also directly opposite.
They are a copy of the BRNO No.1 and come in .22lr (JW-15) and .22WMR (JW-23).

[Hickory]

I think one of these little rifles chambered in an 5.7x28 might be interesting.
Maybe a 514 that locks up on the bolt could handle this cartridge.

[NoZombies]

I think one of these little rifles chambered in an 5.7x28 might be interesting.
Maybe a 514 that locks up on the bolt could handle this cartridge.

If you mean a 541, then it's a completely different animal than the 514. The 541 is based on the same action as the 580-582 and 591-592 series, the 514 is a simple rimfire action, designed for nothing more than rimfire pressures.

Some people rechamber .22lr guns to .22 magnum, and then wonder if they might be able to go bigger, but the thing to understand here is BOLT THRUST.

The .22 LR and .22 magnum operate at the same maximum SAAMI chamber pressures. This means that the bolt thrust difference between the two is less than 50 lbs. The 5.7 FN round operates at a much higher pressure, and has a much larger case-head. What all that means, is that the .22 rimfire calibers have roughly 1/3 the bolt thrust of the 5.7 FN round!

Using very rough, very simple estimates for bolt thrust (not perfectly accurate, but good enough for illustrative purposes) the .22lr has 5328 lbs of bolt thrust, and the 5.7 FN has 14899 lbs of bolt thrust. (case head -rim diameter x max saami pressure)

I wouldn't trust the single locking lug on a non heat treated 514 action to hold the pressure. I like my eyes, and my life, too much to mess with something like that. Again, I can't say that it wont work, but I'm pretty sure it wont work for long.

I don't mean to be a downer, I just don't want to see anyone get hurt!

As far as the concept, There are several 580's and 591's I know about in either 5.7 or a wildcat based on the 5.7 brass. I've seriously thought about building a .22 caliber wildcat based on the .32 S&W long, with a nice long neck to shoot cast out of at moderate velocities....

[NoZombies]

I love the concept of this rifle, a handy lil carbine for sure.
I'm really keen to see more.

I have 3 of the Norincos and can confirm that yea, they lock on both the bolt handle and also directly opposite.
They are a copy of the BRNO No.1 and come in .22lr (JW-15) and .22WMR (JW-23).

They're both pretty handy, I need to put a smaller and lighter scope on the 581 though, I'll probably do that after I get it to shoot better.

I'm keen to see more as well... I'm hoping to take it shooting this week and check on the fixes I've made.

I like the little Norincos. I think the JW15 and JW23 where the same action, and the JW27 was a little different, but the bolt was the same, I think the JW27 had a 2 piece stock, but my memory might be a bit off.

[NoZombies]

I suspect that the work I did on bedding the action and free floating the barrel did the most good. There's still a bit to be done there, but for now, I feel as though the gun is usable.

I've discovered that the rifle really is a 3 shot group gun. Every time I tried to fire a 5 shot string the last 2 shots would be a bit erratic. I'm sure if I was more patient and waited in between shots, they would all probably stay closer together. But the range I was at today was charging by the hour, so I felt a little rushed to try my different loads.

All shooting was done at an indoor range at 25 yards. the targets aren't a 1" grid. I have no idea why, but I won't be using them anymore. I like a 1" grid so I can judge things better.

These aren't the average groups, but the others weren't too far off as long as I only fired 3 shots.

The first group was shot with factory 32 acp FMJ ammo through the 32 long chamber. It measures .475 edge to edge. .475" -.308" (bore) = .167" (woohoo!)

The second group was shot with .32 long loaded with 1.9 grains of tight-group behind a hornady swaged SWC (No ability to cast lately) and it measures .725" edge to edge. .725" - .308" = .417"

I'm pretty happy with the results, and after getting my scope adjusted, I was shooting 1" stick on targets every time. Now to go squirrel hunting...

[Mk42gunner]

Looks like you still have some verticle strining going on. Maybe try a pressure point at the end of the forearm with a piece of business card????

Definitely an improvment over the first groups you posted with this rifle, though.

Robert

[NoZombies]

I'm pretty sure the stringing was caused by shooter error, but I'll try the business card fix and see if it helps. I think before that though, I'll open up the forend a little bit more to make sure it really is free floating in there. sometimes, depending on temperature and humidity it gets a lot tighter when running a slip of paper under the barrel. So I'll try to give it more space.

I've still got plenty to do on the rifle besides that, but no tools to do it (well, not here anyways)

[klcarroll]

.......Using very rough, very simple estimates for bolt thrust (not perfectly accurate, but good enough for illustrative purposes) the .22lr has 5328 lbs of bolt thrust, and the 5.7 FN has 14899 lbs of bolt thrust. (case head -rim diameter x max saami pressure)........

Uhmmmmm……………, Errrr…………….

It should be pointed out here that the math concerning the applied thrust to the bolt is incorrect:

The cartridge head does indeed constitute a “piston” in the engineering sense, and the thrust produced by a piston is a result of the pressure applied, multiplied by the AREA of the piston, not it’s DIAMETER.

Using the formula "Pi x Radius squared" to determine the area of a .272” diameter .22LR case head, and the SAAMI max pressure rating of 24,000 for that cartridge, we come up with a bolt thrust of 1394.5 pounds, ……not 5328.


Kent

[NoZombies]

Yup, my formula could use some work.

Shouldn't bolt thrust be determined by the inside diameter of the case at the web, rather than the rim diameter?

[klcarroll]

..........Shouldn't bolt thrust be determined by the inside diameter of the case at the web, rather than the rim diameter?

Not always. The "piston area" is defined by the maximun area that can be acted upon by the internal gas pressure.

In the case of a straight walled cartridge, the total piston area would be defined by the OUTSIDE diameter of the case body. (The area defined by the case wall thickness contributes as soon as the bullet move out of the case.)

In the case of a tapered or bottle-neck cartridge, the maximum inside diameter (...which would probably be very close to the web I.D. you mentioned) defines the piston area. (....At least for all practical purposes.)

In the case of rimfire cases, the rim area is used because the rim is hollow (...it used to contain the priming), ....and it is actually inflated by the chamber pressure during the firing event.


Kent