.32 caliber round ball twist barrel

[Andrew Mason]

any of you know where I can find a .32 cal round ball twist barrel?

iv got an idea brewing for an inline muzzle loader .32 cal for shoot round balls at small game.


any recommendations?

Thank you
Andrew Mason

[birddog]

Green mountain bbl works, should be 1 in 60"
Charlie

[Squeeze]

Ive built several. what are you looking for? Mostly a light carry squirrel gun? I would go with 1-28 to 1-38 twist with about ~.007 deep rifling for a .32 patched roundball shooter. the tiny .32 pretty much falls off the scale with typical BP formulas. The biggest problem is keeping the weight down, especially in the barrel.

[Nobade]

I always thought making a .32 cal inline out of an old 22 rimfire rifle would be an interesting project, maybe get it down to 4 - 5 lb.

-Nobade

[daleraby]

Look for a T/C Cherokee in .32. There are options (already referenced above) for getting a barrel to swap into your big-game rifle, but those barrels have to be awfully heavy to fit the barrel channel and still be .32 caliber. A .32 caliber barrel suitable for small game hunting (i.e.: squirrels, rabbits, etc) really doesn't need to be an inch or larger in diameter, so if you get a gun that was designed to be a .32, you will get a 3/4" or maybe 7/8" barrel. Yes, I own a Cherokee, but am too comfortable on my couch to go unlock the gun room (possibly waking up my autistic son) in order to measure the diameter across the flats. Also, when you add up the costs associated with a new barrel, you might find that you'd be further ahead buying a used Cherokee or Senecca AND have a lighter rifle besides. No real reason to have a heavy .32 barrel as with a front-stuffer, you will never be shooting at anyting far enough away for the extra weight/stiffness to show any advantage due to the relatively poor balistics of round balls. I generally shoot squirrels at thirty yards or so. If you sit still enough for long enough, they sometimes come within ten FEET of you. I've even had a second shot at the same squirrel... it sat on a limb (female dog)-ing at me until I reloaded, which was really bad strategy on the squirrel's part. Clever software to automatically * out cuss words!

[Lonegun1894]

I have two .32s, a CVA Squirrel caplock and a kit flinter long rifle with a Long Hammock barrel, both have 1:48" ROT barrels, and both shoot great with RBs.

[Squeeze]

My 48 twist .32 barrels usually require about ~ 22-25 grain charge to hit their accuracy sweet spot. the cherokee, (with its 30 twist barrel, that many, myself included think is the ultimate .32 twist) can hold accuracy with charges from 10 grn to 30 ( I have 3, all perform the same, and may be able to go even lower, but this is what I have tried) 20+ charges in a .32 puts it up around a .22 WMR for performance and will near cut a squirrel in 2 outside a head shot. a 10 grain charge will be around a .22 RF short and cause much less damage. A .32 especially with a roundball is pretty much a 40 yard gun, maybe 50 but thats pushing it for hunting accuracy. with a 108 grain maxi, it could be a varminter to about 70-80 yards. If your looking for an inline squirreler, I would highly recommend an Allen inline action with an oregon tapered barrel. The gun works can make the barrel and set the action. https://thegunworks.com/ I have one scoped, that comes in under 6 pounds. an open sight could easily be made under 5 pound gun. I also had the Knight Mountaineer .32 conversion built. It was shown on several forums, including here I think. Its a great gun also, but retains the larger barrel profile, and as typical small bore retrofits go, ends up a very heavy gun for a squirreler.

On a side note, a Win 209 primer alone will push a patched .32 dryball out at around 310 FPS

[Andrew Mason]

Ive built several. what are you looking for? Mostly a light carry squirrel gun? I would go with 1-28 to 1-38 twist with about ~.007 deep rifling for a .32 patched roundball shooter. the tiny .32 pretty much falls off the scale with typical BP formulas. The biggest problem is keeping the weight down, especially in the barrel.

that's exactly what I am looking for.

a good friend of mine has a Knight inline 50 that is the one piece barrel and action, and we are going to retrofit it and barrel it with the .32 barrel.

[Squeeze]

http://www.stolzergunsmithing.com/otherprojects.htm Ive seen several knight barrel retrofits. Usually the competition shooters and in a fast twist .45. Depending on method used, It will be hard keeping the weight down. After its said and done, I would not sleeve style a barrel in again. That gun is in the ~10 pound range.

[Andrew Mason]

thank you squeeze, that is pretty similar to what I am looking at doing,
I can see how that will make for a heavy rifle.

so, in the interest of making a lighter, faster handling rifle,
how short can the barrel be on a .32 cal round ball gun and still have good accuracy?

[Squeeze]

I really dont know there. probably down to pistol size. I think my shortest is around a 20" CVA varminter. TC was 22 or 24. I think 18-20" barrel should be plenty, your really not going to remove much weight just by shortening a small bore barrel in a big bore size stock channel. It really has to be purpose built. Weight is always the bane of a small bore retrofit.

[daleraby]

thank you squeeze, that is pretty similar to what I am looking at doing,
I can see how that will make for a heavy rifle.

so, in the interest of making a lighter, faster handling rifle,
how short can the barrel be on a .32 cal round ball gun and still have good accuracy?

This depends upon how you define "good accuracy" in terms of group size at a given range. I have a .54 rifle with a 9.5" barrel and a pair of shotgun beads to align for sights. I can reliably hit aluminum pop cans at seven yards with this arrangement. I consider that pretty good accuracy, but it could be better and that is certainly not good enough for squirrel hunting. If you have good sights with enough sight radius and/or some kind of optical sight, you could probably get by with a ten-inch or so barrel and still hit a golf-ball from a rest at twenty or thirty yards. Anybody have a .36 caliber percussion revolver with a shoulder stock? The Colt Army/Navy guns generally have eight inch barrels. So if they can shoot a good enough group for you then you have your answer; "eight inches". The weakest link, though, is nearly always the shooter, not the gun.

[Lonegun1894]

Look at it this way, assuming the diameter stays the same, the shorter the barrel is, the stiffer it is versus a longer one of the same diameter. Where you will get into trouble is if you make it so short that your powder just doesn't have enough room to burn anymore. If this is going to use some kind of optics, and since squirrels and rabbits aren't hard to kill, I would think somewhere between 6-10" would be perfect. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 10" Contender with a buttstock type of contraption, and since this is a ML, no SBR stamp required. But if you're going with iron sights, I would say at least 16-18" or longer, just for the sake of having a sight radius that allows for good precision.

If it was my momney you were spending, I would find a CVA Squirrel or TC Seneca/Cherokee (whichever it was that they made in .32/.36) and have a good, accurate, light-weight small game rifle. Unless you want a project, in which case, I would build a side-lock, but that is letting my preference show. Just remember that it is precision, and not so much power that you need for small game, so it doesn't take a long barrel or much powder at all. And the CVA Squirrel is the lightest I have seen so far. I want to say mine weighs around 4 pounds, but I haven't weighed it in a while, so may have to check that when I get home. I know it feels lighter than my 4.5 pound 12ga slug gun (yeah, I had to try and see how light I could get it, just one of my hair-brained ideas).

[Andrew Mason]

so, a 20'' barrel .32 cal wouldn't be too unreasonable?

I do plan on putting optics on the gun.
just my preference.

[Lonegun1894]

Not unreasonable at all. This is the way I think of the .32 ML with a RB. When loaded with a .310"ish RB and 20grs of FFFg, it is about the equal of the .22 Mag out to 50-75 yards as far as performance on game goes. I would kind of like a .32 ML handgun (NOT a revolver), but it hasn't been a high priority at all since I know the two .32 rifles I have are much more practical.

[Andrew Mason]

Well,
i think what I will do is get a 42" rice barrel and cut it in half,
and I'll build 2 guns out of it.
i will probably get one of those small Allen actions.
i wish they made them in round though.