.32 S&W (short) blackpowder question

[AppalachianCaster]

I recently reviewed old posts regarding this caliber and load data pertaining to black powder and before I begin seating and crimping bullets in the 1st batch of these .32's, just wanted to see if anyone had any advice.

After reviewing the old posts, I read that several members suggested simply filling black powder in the cases to the point just above where the bottom of the bullet will be seated; to slightly compress the powder and ensure that no airspace is present in the reloaded cartridge. After measuring the amount of powder (by weight) after filling to this point, it averaged around 7 grains. I did a little research on this old cartridge as well and discovered that it was commonly loaded with 9 grains of black powder with an 85 grain lead round nose bullet (which is what I am casting and using as well).

My question/topic of discussion is, should I load these with the approximately 7 grains of black powder or should I use the 8.5-9 grains (which basically fills the brass to the top of the neck) and slightly compress the load? Or does it really not make a difference? I would prefer to use the original specs and load with 9 grain but I am a little concerned about loading that much powder in the casing seeing as how this is my first rendezvous with loading black powder cartridges. I'm going to assume that as long as a good crimp is utilized, there probably wouldn't be anything to worry about however, given the extremely small size of the casing, I could be wrong. Anyone have any advice, suggestions for me?

[AppalachianCaster]

I'm a new member to the forums as well! I've been reading posts and referencing this site for quite some time now and finally decided that it was time to finally join and contribute!

[Mk42gunner]

Welcome aboard.

The reason for the discrepancy you are seeing is that the original cases were balloon head thus having more capacity than the modern solid head cases.

Since most uses for the .32 S&W aren't all that critical for power, I would load the smaller amount. At least to try it.

Robert

[Outpost75]

Also, modern blackpowder is less dense and less strong than that of over 100 years ago, unless you use Swiss, which is dense, powerful and cleaner burning, like the very best powder of old. Use whichever blackpowder you have, fill the case so that the charge is compressed not less than ten percent of its volume You do not want any airspace!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

it is unlikely that there is anything wrong with either plan. While any sort of powder will give greater initial pressure if the available space is reduced with compression, this isn't nearly as much the case as it is with smokeless. While many .32 Short revolvers were quite weak, I don't believe many were weak enough for this to cause failure.

I wouldn't compress one of the modern black powder substitutes, though, without clear confirmation from the makers that it is OK for a firearm of this type.

[curator]

The early .32 S&W were baloon head and utilized a "heeled"bullet that was not seated very deeply in the case mouth. Bullet diameter was the same as case diameter except for the small rebated part that fit inside the case. These were literally center-fire versions of the .32 rim fire round. Later S&W revolvers were made with smaller bores and the cartridge was loaded with "inside lubricated" bullets that were seated deeper to keep the lube grooves from being exposed to dirt and grit. I am able to load 8 grains of either Goex 4Fg or Olde Eynsford 3Fg in modern (starline) .32 S&W "short" brass using a compression die. Lyman #311252 (85 grains) cast of ACWW and crimped on the top drive band gets about 650-675 fps in my various Iver Johnson, Forehand & Wadsworth, and S&W "Saturday night specials."

[Mk42gunner]

It was the .32 Short Colt and .32 Long Colt that were loaded with outside lubed heeled bullets and the same size as the rimfire rounds. As far as I know, the .32 S&W was always loaded with inside lubed bullets.

Robert

[StrawHat]

Hey curator,

I thought I was the only one who used 4F in cartridges? Good to know someone else does it.

Kevin

[AppalachianCaster]

Thanks for the info! I believe that I'm going to experiment with a few different powder charges and see if I even notice any difference. Given the extremely small caliber, I highly doubt that I even notice a difference.

In regards to the outside heeled bullets, I recently acquired a small lot of very old manufactured ammunition for the .32 S&W which I was given, with the intent of pulling the ammunition apart and reloading with black powder and my cast 85 gr LRN bullets. Upon removing the old lead, I found some of the cartridges were original black powder loads and some of them had "US" stamped on the rim of the casing and one even had "US" on the primer. I found a few threads on these US stamped bullets and was able to approximately date them back to around circa 1930 (when they switched from the mercuric priming material). Additionally, these bullets were not heeled outside. (Not saying that no .32 S&W's ever were, just that these particular old cartridges weren't)

[AppalachianCaster]

I attempted to load some of these rounds this evening and ran into significant issues with bullet deformation when seating & crimping with an approximate 8.5 grain powder charge. Crimp looked more than sufficient however, given that the cartridges are being "compressed" slightly, I think the alloy I used for my initial batch was too soft (I ran a few hundred boolits off with an alloy that tested between 7 and 8 bhn with my Lee hardness tester. I then tried loading a couple with only an approximate 7 grain black powder charge which left about an 1/8" spacing to the top of the casing and ran into the same problem... I initially tried using a softer alloy due to the content of an old thread where someone recommended using a soft alloy for this particular caliber for various reasons and definitely sold me on the theory. However, in light of my findings earlier, I think I'm going to just load a few with Lyman #2 and see how it goes. Has anyone ran into a similar issue where they wanted to use a softer alloy for various reasons and were backed into a wall like I am now?

[curator]

The use of soft bullets requires a "compression die" to keep from using the bullet to compress the powder charge and getting deformed. A compression die (can be made from a modified case-mouth expansion die) will do the hard lifting then the soft bullet is seated and crimped

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I attempted to load some of these rounds this evening and ran into significant issues with bullet deformation when seating & crimping with an approximate 8.5 grain powder charge. Crimp looked more than sufficient however, given that the cartridges are being "compressed" slightly, I think the alloy I used for my initial batch was too soft (I ran a few hundred boolits off with an alloy that tested between 7 and 8 bhn with my Lee hardness tester. I then tried loading a couple with only an approximate 7 grain black powder charge which left about an 1/8" spacing to the top of the casing and ran into the same problem... I initially tried using a softer alloy due to the content of an old thread where someone recommended using a soft alloy for this particular caliber for various reasons and definitely sold me on the theory. However, in light of my findings earlier, I think I'm going to just load a few with Lyman #2 and see how it goes. Has anyone ran into a similar issue where they wanted to use a softer alloy for various reasons and were backed into a wall like I am now?

In a black powder revolver the main reason for the crimp is to prevent the bullet from edging forward and jamming rotation under recoil. With a .45 you were liable to need an unjammed revolver really badly, but with the .32 Short an uncrimped or very lightly crimped bullet is worth trying.

I'm not sure if a heel bulleted round was ever used in Smith and Wessons, but if it was, it would surely be an uncommon rarity, probably in the bottom-break revolvers which are usually rimfire. There may well have been independent conversions from rimfire to heel-bulleted centrefire, which should have required no chamber work. But I have always assumed that the inside lubricated Smith and Wesson .32 rounds arrived with the first top-break revolvers. A great many users of these revolvers were simply prepared to sacrifice some of the qualities of the baseball bat for the sake of concealability. But for those with ideas of accuracy or reloading, they must be considered an improvement on the heel bullet Colt rounds.

[Wayne Smith]

I think all the bottom break S&W's were rimfire cartridges. The center fire were always inside lube by my information.
If you use Goex black you need to compress. I am doing well to get 37grs in my 44-40 cartridges, no longer balloon headed. Fill the cartridge to the top and compress down to the bottom of the boolit with a compression die (I made out of a seat die for my 44-40) seat the boolit and crimp. You will be good to go.

[JoeH]

I once had the same problem of distorting the bullet when seating it to compress the BP charge. I made a "steel bullet" out of a short piece of 5/16 steel rod. I ground the end to roughly match the round nose bullet before hacksawing it off slightly longer than the lead bullet. I then just backed my seating die off to avoid the crimp shoulder and "seated" my steel bullet to compress the powder. It was small enough in diameter to just finger pluck it back out of the case, set the charged and compressed case into a loading block and go on to compress the remaining powder charged cases. Lastly I just ran my seat die back down to the lock ring and seated my lead bullets in my pre-compressed cases. It worked just fine and cost nothing but a few minutes of my time. I had to fiddle a bit to find the right adjustment of my seating die each time I ran a batch but actually I didn't shoot that gun often and a box of 50 rounds seemed to last for years.

[Wayne Smith]

I shoot my 32 S&W with a sized piece of buckshot and 1-1.2gr bullseye. Fun.