Creating .32 Short/Long Colt rounds with 7.35 Carcano dies

[texassako]

.32 Short and Long Colt reloading bits are not exactly common or cheap. First up is making a heeled bullet. I already have .32 handgun molds, and the picture shows one I wouldn't normally use in .32 Short Colt but was handy. Lee happens to make a rifle FCD die for the 7.35 Carcano, which I also load. The short piece of dowel in the picture is used to hold the bullet base up at the crimp collet as seen in pic 2 when the shell holder actuates the collet. Now I have a .32 pistol bullet with a .301" base. Rotate it a time or 2 while swaging the base down to make sure it doesn't have fins from the collet. The bullet heel happens to be the same size as the 7.35 Carcano bulelts and the M die type expander I have for it. Your fired cases might not need that expansion step but my brass does. Add powder, seat bullet(I used a .32 ACP seat die), and then the FCD comes in handy again for putting a crimp on the case or straightening out the flair using a dowel in the same manner as swaging the bullet base down. I just thought others might find my method useful or at least interesting, and also works for other heeled rounds(such as a .38 Short Colt heeled bullet using a .357 rifle FCD on a 37583 bullet for me).

Picture of FCD die, assembled dummy round, empty case and swaged heeled bullet, and the dowel to hold up the bullet while actuating the FCD:
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Picture of how dowel holds bullet at FCD crimp area for swaging down. Sorry for awful pic.
140823

[Mk42gunner]

Interesting. This technique would allow use of almost any of the lighter .32 caliber boolits to be used in the .32 Colt rounds.

Food for thought.

Robert

[texassako]

Interesting. This technique would allow use of almost any of the lighter .32 caliber boolits to be used in the .32 Colt rounds.

Food for thought.

Robert

Yes, I was originally testing it out with the Ranchdog TL314-75-RF I use in my Tomcat in a .32 rimfire #2 rolling block with a replacement centerfire block, but realized to late I had used them all.

[Guesser]

I shoot 32 Colt in a couple revolvers. I have a good supply of 95 gr. heel style bullets so I decided to try loading some in SC cases. I find that I do not need to size the cases after firing, as the factory loads are low pressure so I just deprime, flare a little, very little, prime, charge, seat a bullet by hand and the Lee 32 Auto seating die forms a perfect crimp to hold the bullet. The loaded rounds drop into the chambers of the Colts I use them in.
As a side note; Winchester has dropped the 32 Short Colt cartridge from it's line up. Production has been spotty for several years, now it is "no more" continuosly!!