WARNING! Long Post!!
We all know that shooters, particularly enthusiasts of the cast boolit, are calm, dispassionate and impartial individuals for the most part, never given to playing favorites or giving way to wild emotional reactions. They can generally be counted on to review the evidence for or against a given argument, and render a carefully considered judgment. (Huh? What’s getting deep? Anyhow, on with the show!)
I would like to present arguments for and against the .32 S&W Long as a defensive man-stopping round, and invite discussion on these points, as well as points that you might wish to bring up that I have overlooked.
The first point is that the .32 S&W Long has a fairly respectable history as a police round, particularly in the form of the flat-nosed .32 Colt New Police. The flat nosed bullet is generally credited with superior stopping power over the round nose bullet.
The next point of course is that the .32 S&W Long was found deficient as a police round, and was replaced by larger, more powerful rounds. While true, this is a rather curious turn of events, as the typical rational person who finds himself wounded with even a .22 finds that obtaining medical attention quickly takes precedent over whatever had occupied his attention prior to the wounding. Unfortunately, events and personal reactions typical of police encounters and shootings are frequently not well described as rational. High levels of adrenalin and excitement can sometimes even preclude the victim being aware of having been shot until blood loss results in incapacity. Larger and more powerful rounds are the usually recommended means to deal with this phenomenon.
But are larger and more powerful rounds the only or even the best approach to the problem of adrenalin and excitement induced lack of reaction to being wounded? There is good reason to think that is not the case. Few arenas can produce higher levels of excitement and adrenalin than military combat. Yet some very ‘anemic’ rounds have been found effective in such situations. The US employed the .30 Carbine with considerable satisfaction in both WWII and later in Viet Nam, where the smaller carbine was much favored by the Vietnamese troops who were of typically smaller stature.
The French have long used such pipsqueaks as the 32 Lebel in their revolvers, and found it sufficiently satisfactory that they reproduced it in the .32 French Long as their favored military auto pistol round. The .32 French is so like the .32 S&W Long that cases for it can be made by nothing more than turning the rim off and making an extractor groove. The French military has a LOT of combat experience!! In fact, very similar rounds were almost standard military issue throughout Europe up to and including WWII. And some of them were notably less powerful than the .32 S&W Long factory loading. I wonder why the combined military expertese of so many nations over so many years, and with so much combat experience could have been so woefully wrong as to think such rounds could be effective man-stoppers? Or could it be that we Americans are just a trifle big-bore crazy?
Once I got to thinking about it, I realized that most of the power of rounds like the 45 ACP (which I dearly love) and even the Dirty Harry 44 Mag invariably waste most of their power on whatever is on the far side of whoever gets hit by them. I couldn’t say how much power is necessary for their unquestionable effectiveness, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s only a small fraction of what they deliver at the muzzle.
“Triggernometry - Home Bullet Penetration Tests” is the title of an article in the free e-zine GunsAmerica Magazine. You can access it here: http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/trig...t-penetration/. The author recommends using penetration in / through jugs of water – specifically two liter pop bottles and milk jugs – as a way to gauge the effectiveness of a given round. In his tests, a standard 45 ACP just did make it through the length of one bottle.
Today, I took a milk jug full of water to the range with me. I laid it on its side, and shot through the bottom at a measured range of 25 yards with a .32 S&W Long handload. The load was 7.0g of H-110 under a hard cast 115g Lyman 311008, sized to 0.313” and seated to crimp in the top lube groove. Primer was CCI small pistol. Fired primers were flattened, but not excessively, and extraction from my S&W M30-1 was easy. It did shoot about 2" high from the fixed sights, and required a 6 o'clock hold, but it grouped well: ~ 2" at 25 yards.
I consider this a top load. It is well over factory load pressures and velocities, and definitely is NOT for older 32 pistols, particularly breaktop revolvers. The load data is for your information only. It is NOT a recomendation. It may well be execssive in your gun, with your components, and in warmer environments, and if you use it, it will be entirely at your own risk.
But the bullet not only penetrated the full length of the water column in the jug, it had sufficient pizzazz left at the far end to generate ruptures in the jug as it exited that were up to an inch and a half long. I don't think it would have any problem fully transiting a torso, and the 45 ACP wouldn't do a whole lot more.
Now I know very well that some men have taken torso hits with 45's and 44 mags and continuted to fight. NOTHING is 100 % reliable / effective. In particular, I know that .32 S&W Long factory loadings will not produce such results. It takes a special handload like the one I described above. But we bullet casters put up special combinations all the time, and we seldom restrict ourselves to factory ballistics. So the question I would like to put up for discussion is this: Do you think that the .32 S&W Long – suitably handloaded – can be a reasonable choice for a CCW gun that may well be required to stop a man full of excitement and adrenalin? If so, I’d be interested in why. If not, I’d be even more interested in why not.