32 Long Colt necked down to 25 caliber

[corbinace]

I am in possession of a pretty good handful of 32 Long Colt cases that were necked down to 22 caliber.
The unmodified portion of the case is almost identical to the length of a Short Colt.
The neck inside diameter is actually .232”. They may have been fired, although the inside is pretty shiny.
The neck is .200” long.

Any ideas on these?



32 Long Colt, Modified, 32 Short Colt case only and another modified one.

I messed up the heading with a 25 vs 22 typo.

[Alasgun]

My guess is someone making ammo for a defunct European rook rifle. A Google search for “rook rifle calibers” might help.

[Mk42gunner]

Reminds me of the old Honeybee rounds, a similar necked down version of the .32 S&W and .32 S&W Long.

Should be a decent small game round; i.e. a reloadable .22 LR, maybe .22WFR equivalent.

If I were contemplating doing this today, I would use the S&W rounds as the parent case.

Robert

[corbinace]

I have searched Rook Rifles with no help, thank you for the idea.

Yes the S&W Long iteration of this cartridge would be the best today. In fact that is kind of how I got these. Someone had a handful of Long Colts that I needed, and these were part of the package deal.

I have blown a few of these back out to original successfully, but they are just so cool, I kind of hate to do any more.

I know it is silly, but I think I would like to have something like this. Kind of like a miniaturized 25/20.
The case only holds 11 grains of water, so tiny powder charges would work fine for the intended usage.

[rayh]

I'm building a 22 Squirrel which looks very much like this except mine uses the 22 Hornet case. I thought a long time about using the 32 case, the rim dia and thickness would fit a 223 bolt but I ended up building on a CZ hornet. You might research a fellow by the name Dick Saunders from Iowa. A long time ago he made several 17 , 20 and "I think" some 22 wildcats the 32 cases. I'm hoping to duplicate the 22 Mag with mine, you have a great looking case.

[MrWolf]

Those conversions had to have been done quite a few years ago to have used 32 long colts. They are hard to find now as I am always looking for more for my Marlin. As Mk42gunner stated, the S&W would probably be the way to go if doing it now. I looked in Cartridges of the World and tried finding the same neck size but for an older cartridge. Nothing so far. It is pretty interesting and if not for using the 32 long colt I probably wouldn't have looked at the thread. Interesting. Thanks.

[Texas Gun]

I will say I like the idea of that round but only for a lever action

I’d like to see the gun that shoots them

If I was doing semi auto i would use a rimless cartridge

[MostlyLeverGuns]

If you go ALL THE WAY UP to a 32-20, you could just call it a 218 BEE. Marlin 1894 and a couple other bolt guns are out there. Finding brass for most of these tricky, the 22 Hornet and 218 Bee are both excellent cast bullet cartridges.

[2152hq]

Looks very close to the .297/250 Rook,,but not quite there.

There are/were quite a few of the Rook and a few sub caliber training English calibers. Some other European small bores as well.

Maybe this one was made up to be a shootable round in one of those like the 297/250 even if not exactly on-spec

[1Hawkeye]

How about a .297/230 Morris English target & training round?