32 special O.A.L.

[Burg]

Just reloaded some shells for my 32 special, but they wont chamber. I went by the specs in my book, but still too long. What's the shortest you can make the shells without making too much pressure on the bullet?

[fatnhappy]

Pictures would help. What kind of rifle?

Are you seeing rifling marks on the bullet? What makes you believe they're too long rather than some other issue?

PS you'll probably get more traction with the membership in a more trafficked sub forum like our town

[Red River Rick]

Burg:

2.55" is the maximum OAL for the .32 Win. If your OAL is correct, then you have other issues at hand, as already mentioned.

[Hick]

Burg:

2.55" is the maximum OAL for the .32 Win. If your OAL is correct, then you have other issues at hand, as already mentioned.

? My reloading manual says 2.565" Max OAL, and my Winchester (1949 vintage) happily digests 2.585. In a lever there are two things that limit overall length: (1) the rifling and (2) the cartridge lifter (if they are too long to lift you have a problem). What fatnhappy said-- look for rifling marks on the nose of the bullet. If there are no rifling marks on the bullet there may be some other problem.

There are two things you can try to narrow down the cause. (1) try chambering your empty brass. (2) If the brass is ok, and you happen to have a spare case, cut a slot lengthwise in the case neck so that it barely holds the bullet, and put a bullet into the case with a very long OAl. Then gently chamber the round so that the bullet will be pushed against the rifling. This will push the bullet into the case. take the cartridge out and measure overall length. This will be the true max that your chamber can handle for that particular bullet.

[rockshooter]

what bullet? bullet nose shape can be another issue.
Loren

[Red River Rick]

? My reloading manual says 2.565" Max OAL, and my Winchester (1949 vintage) happily digests 2.585.

Hick:

For clarification.........................

[OverMax]

All of my reloaded brass is trimmed >to their minimum suggested length after resizing.

32 spec > 2.035 just the brass trimmed to this length
Over all cartridge length with bullet seated> 2.565

[boommer]

look at your crimp maybe you bulged it a little . pull the decapping out of your sizeing die, run your round up into the die and lightly bump the round and take the bulge out.

[1hole]

Just reloaded some shells for my 32 special, but they wont chamber.

Do you mean your ammo won't chamber normally or that it won't feed from the magazine into the chamber?

I went by the specs in my book, but still too long.

Book OAL is not a specification. (Only the loads for small capacity but very hot loaded 9mm/10mm type handgun ammo get twitchy about seating depth.) Book OAL only tells us what length the book makers used to develop their loads, thus the printed differences we read in different books rise from the physical differences in bullets and chambers so the book OAL is clearly not a load spec as such. (I've been reloading everything that goes BANG! without incident since 1965 and I haven't looked at a book OAL for anything yet because the ol' guy who taught me knew what he was doing.)

I've loaded for a lot of rifles and measured the chamber lengths of many of them. I haven't yet found a chamber that isn't 20 to 40 thou longer than the SAAMI specified maximum required length so that's rarely a problem. But, crimping too hard can easily crumble/expand case shoulders to the point of difficult chambering, especially in lever rifles.

What's the shortest you can make the shells without making too much pressure on the bullet?

You're looking through the wrong end of the scope; it's chamber pressure we're concerned about, not "bullet pressure" as such.

There are no easy answers. Fact is, NO BOOK, no formula, no chart can tell you what will or will not work safely in YOUR GUN; each of us MUST be our own authority for what's safe in our guns. Thus, all good reloading books effectively tell us to "start low and only go higher if or until we see signs of excess pressure OR until we reach maximum book charges." Doing THAT -- wisely -- handles all pressure problems!

[OverMax]

Tip: Something I wish I would have done earlier in my reloading years.. "When ever possible buy small base dies. Save yourself allot of grief."
Hopefully your reloading round nose or flat pointed?
A few times in my past reloading years I found a few brass so work hardened from use they wouldn't except a FL resizing. In those cases I did one of two practices. Anneal or pitch into junk box.

[1hole]

An alternate view:

In some 55 years of reloading a wide range of common cartridges for many firearms, I've never needed or wanted to use a small base die so, out of my some 25+ die sets, none are small base.

I use most of my cases until the body, neck or mouth splits. I've never experienced a case so "work hardened" that it wouldn't respond to a sizer die in the normal fashion.

[Texas by God]

An alternate view:

In some 55 years of reloading a wide range of common cartridges for many firearms, I've never needed or wanted to use a small base die so, out of my some 25+ die sets, non are small base.

I usually use my cases until the body, neck or mouth splits. I've never experienced a case so "work hardened" that it wouldn't respond to a sizer die in the normal fashion.

I've never heard of a small base die for any of the WCF family. I bought some surplus 7.62 Nato brass that must have been fired from an M60 or such. I had to lube them heavily and it was work to run them through a regular FL die. And they still wouldn't chamber in my M 760 .308 pump rifle. THOUGHT about a small base die at that time- but just scrapped that brass and bought commercial. 308 brass.
Your seating die may be too close to the shellholder at the top of the stroke- bulging the crimp.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[farmbif]

I never saw a small base die for a 30-30 or 32 win spl either.
but regardless I this is op's first post. welcome.
are you new to reloading? casting? anyway
might not be the case in your chambering problem but I remember this most frustrating problem I had with this batch of 270 win reloads that I put together.
they fit perfect in the case check gauge but after seating bullets to book spec OAL they would still check out in the case check gauge but would not chamber in the gun. long story short-- after a whole bunch of checking and rechecking, time and frustration it turned out that I was crushing the cases ever so slightly by having the seat/crimp die turned into the press just a little too much creating a bulge in the case that was not visible.
if its not bullet length causing problem maybe try putting one together with no crimp and bullet seated to book spec length. 2.565" is what my Lyman manual says for 32 win spl