7.62 Nagant revolver with 75 grain cast in 32-20 case? What charge?

[Deavis]

Greetings,

I have a few hundred 32-20 cases reformed using the Lee dies. I scrubbed the head stamps a few thousands removing the nomenclature and they all cycle around the cylinder and I can still get decent primer seating.

Primed with CCI standard SPP.

I have 75 grain #311252 sized .311 (that actually came out at 78 grains). I know this is a little light but it's what I got and I'm just looking for some reasonable accuracy in mouse fart loads.

The gun is a gift to my teen daughter who is a major Russian history buff and the DIY/challenge aspect of loading this bizarre little round appealed to me.

I'm thinking seat flush (my seating stem will do it without modification in the Lee set I got from Midway this week). The crimp from that die looks like it will work, with a gentle rolling over the front of the case and it chambers in the cylinder. I'm a little leery of running it back partially in the sizer as I fear I'd lose the .311. I don't own a .30 carbine die set.

I'm thinking of starting Unique at 2.7 -3.0 and Trail boss at 3.0 - 3.5.

How does that sound?

[kayala]

Can't say about 78gr. I use 2.5 gr of Clays with 98 DEWC (from Graf's) in once fired PPU brass seated below case mouth (it does provide gas seal). I've got about 810 fps average with 53 ES.

[Jniedbalski]

I have loaded this cartarage a lot but only with Nagant brass. You don’t need to roll over the front of the case with the 32/20 cases. There to short for the gas seal anyway. I think the overall leingth of ppu brass was 1.517 and the Russian military brass was 1.500. On the shorter 32/20 cases load the bullet like regular brass bullet sticking out to overall leingth 1.515 or what ever is the longest you can fit in the cylinder. I did this with 32 h&r brass and it worked good

[Deavis]

I just came back from range. Velocity all over the place, guessing it’s due to crimp issues.

I was figuring loading like a wad cutter would reduce case volume and get a better more consistent burn.

Perhaps I will try standard seat depth to the grove and crime there with the same powder charges?

[Drm50]

I had a Nagant several years ago. The ammo I had was not crimped it had "punch" stakes, I think
3 of them. Century Arms is where ammo came from I think. I never bought any, I only had what
came with gun. It kind of looked like ammo for the French, St,E revolver, it was of late manufacture not issue ammo. I have loaded the French ammo for a buddy of mine who had a
Belgian made pocket revolver in Lebel. Never got it to shoot acceptable with anything we tried.

[TDB9901]

Hornady hollow based wad cutter seated to just let cylinder turn gives me the best results of any I've tried in 32/20 brass. Lee 90 swc works OK, just not quite as well as the WC.

[Mohawk Daddy]

My best accuracy load in a Nagant with trimmed 32-20 brass (I cut them down to 1.25") is with the Hornady 90 grain SWC seated down to the shoulder of the boolit in the trimmed brass (or the Lee equivalent) and 2.1 grains of Red Dot. My "defense" load in the same brass is a 71 grain RN with 2.8 grains of Bullseye. That load might be a little stiff with a 78 grain boolit seated deep. I haven't had any luck with light loads of Trail Boss in this chambering; shots scatter all over target. The max load of Trl Bos I tried was 2.8 grains, but never found any love there. YMMV.
If you trim your 32-20 brass back a bit, you won't have to worry about seating boolits flush to get reliable cylinder rotation. With the 32-20 brass I forget about the gas seal feature of this revolver and just load it to shoot.

[Kestrel4k]

Although I haven't slugged my Nagant bbl, I have read that they can be oversize. Too many irons in the fire to handload for mine yet, but I picked up 1000 HBWC's as I was thinking that would better solve any size mismatches.