Duplicating the 32 rimfire

[NoZombies]

That's a great post, NoZombies. Thanks. BTW, buy original ammo whenever the opportunity arises. Don't even bother with the Navy Arms stuff. I tried some, and it shot roughly 'minute of washtub', while some original Winchester ammo would group in cloverleafs at the same distance. Was your ammo .32 Shorts, or .32 Longs?

Hey Molly, I've never tried the Navy arms stuff, but my understanding is that it was made someplace south of the border on the worn out equipment that came from C-I-L, but that may just be internet rumor.

The ammo I shot was the .32 Long RF. I don't know when it was made, but I assume sometime in the 70's.

I didn't shoot for groups, as I didn't have a target or any kind of rest with me, but since I had the chrony, I figured I'd try it out and see what it did.

[Molly]

Hi guys,

I wasn't feeling too bad this morning, so I got to go squirrel hunting for a while. I had a great morning in the woods. Saw a nice whitetail, but the brush was too heavy to be able to tell if it was a buck or a doe.

I saw two squirrels playing in a huge hickory, but too far to get a decent shot, so I just waited. I would get a glimpse of them in the trees, but they never stopped for a moment, so I could draw a bead on them. They finally worked their way over to me, and one of them stopped on a long, bare horizontal branch. Serious mistake! I noted where he fell, and sat still, waiting for the other one to show himself. He showed up about ten minutes later, and hit the ground dead. I sat for a while to see if there were any more in the neighborhood, but then decided to go pick them up. The second squirrel was closest, so I got it first. The first squirrel was only a little further, but when I got there, he wasn't to be seen. I thought that was funny, because usually, a squirrel burrowing under the leaves will make quite a racket, while this one had never moved after it hit the ground as far as I could tell.

Well, I got ready to kick some leaves around by leaning my rifle up against a tree, but when I did, I spotted a movement a few yards away. It was the first squirrel, and it was still alive, though unable to move much because I'd pretty well paralyzed it with a .22 through the spine. I apologized for leaving it to suffer while retrieving my rifle, and put a coup de grace through the head. Or so I thought. That tough little bugger was still alive and feisty. I put a second shot through the head. Super-squirrel actually shook his head and hissed at me! I had to step on his chest and collapse the rib cage before he was willing to die.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve shot a lot of squirrels, and the head shot is my favorite. It almost always puts them down like flipping a light switch. But I couldn’t help but note the absolutely dismal performance of my .22 this morning: No spine, and two head shots from about three feet, but super-squirrel was still in there fighting! Even Rocky Balboa wasn’t that tough! Contrast that with the usual performance of the .32 RF, which (up until now at least) has consisted of ‘Snap!’ from the rifle, and ‘Thump!’ as the squirrel hits the ground. I’m sure glad John Taylor is making me a squirrel rifle in .32 Long that I can rely on.

But you know, my admiration and respect for the common squirrel grows every year. Not only do they spend all their time swinging through trees and building muscle, but I once tried to clean a mess of them with a knife that wasn’t sharp enough. It didn’t take long to get tired of that, but I had a sudden inspiration: “I’ll go get the tin snips from the shop! It’ll cut steel, so I KNOW it’ll cut squirrel!” Believe it or not, the dang squirrel hide was so tough it actually turned the tin snips, and it couldn’t cut them!

[Mk42gunner]

Squirrels are tough. I remember shooting one out of a big sycamore with my 20 gauge when I was a kid that wasn't quite dead. My dog Molly, (no relation I'm sure) got to it before I did. It reached around and bit her on the nose, I think it made her mad because she made sure it was thoroughly dead before giving it to me.

I was gimping around more than usual yesterday, when I spied a tender young squirrel in one of the walnut trees in the yard. I grabbed the No 2 with a .32 Short Colt and went to get breakfast. I am embarrassed to admit that I missed the first shot, I guess I lost the front sight with the sun shining on it, or something. The neat thing was that with the slow velocity, the bullet didn't spook him. I held low and got him the next shot, slightly above a line between the eye and ear.

That was the first time I can remember hitting one in the head that didn't kill it right then. I think it was a combination of a slightly misplaced shot and a round nosed bullet slipping through. Next time I wil have some flat nosed boolits.

Robert

[Molly]

>Squirrels are tough. I remember shooting one out of a big sycamore with my 20 gauge when I was a kid that wasn't quite dead. My dog Molly, (no relation I'm sure) got to it before I did. It reached around and bit her on the nose, I think it made her mad because she made sure it was thoroughly dead before giving it to me.

I can see that as plainly as in a movie! And while I seriously doubt any genetic connection between your Molly and myself, I have to admit that I've been referred to as a SOB on occasion. (VBG)

>I was gimping around more than usual yesterday, when I spied a tender young squirrel in one of the walnut trees in the yard. I grabbed the No 2 with a .32 Short Colt and went to get breakfast. I am embarrassed to admit that I missed the first shot, I guess I lost the front sight with the sun shining on it, or something. The neat thing was that with the slow velocity, the bullet didn't spook him. I held low and got him the next shot, slightly above a line between the eye and ear.

Well, that tells me two things. 1.) That you are just human enough to make a mistake, and 2.) That you're man enough to admit it.

>That was the first time I can remember hitting one in the head that didn't kill it right then. I think it was a combination of a slightly misplaced shot and a round nosed bullet slipping through. Next time I wil have some flat nosed boolits.

Yeah, they really ARE tough little boogers. If I were that tough, I could do one armed chin-ups or push-ups until the cows come home. If they were much bigger, I don't believe I'd want to risk annoying one of them.

Molly

[NoZombies]

I remember as a kid, I only had an air rifle to hunt squirrels with. I was getting about 520 FPS on a 7.9 grain pellet, if crossman's numbers can be trusted, providing for a grand total of 4.7 ft lbs of energy.

I probably killed more of those tree-rats with that air rifle than I have with everything else combined in my life. Admittedly, I had a lot more time for hunting in the back yard in those days, and since my folks were city dwellers, the longest shot possible was no more than 20 yards or so.

I think ever since then, I've been on a quest to find the perfect squirrel rifle.

Eventually my parents moved to their place in the woods, and the search began in earnest.

I started with a .22, and found that I had a longer range than the air rifle, but a little too commonly, the bullets would whiz right through, often resulting in a wounded squirrel running around, and me chasing it through the woods scaring away other potential game . If I used a .22 magnum, or the hot-loaded hollow points, it would damage most of the edible meat, not to mention the unpleasant increase in noise. As a result, I discovered I had to make head shots, using standard velocity ammo, or it wasn't worth the effort. Being a decent shot, (and having better eyes at that point in my life) I could probably make those head shots reliably out to about 40 yards free standing, and maybe 60-75 with a rest for the rifle. But I did miss, and I hated having to pass up a perfectly good shot just because I didn't think I could make the head shot.

The other issue I had with the .22's was the poor bullet design for small game. Either you had hollow points that would destroy all the good stuff (for shots to the vitals) or you had a round nose that wasn't good for much except the head shots. I didn't have the money to buy the more expensive ammo, and there wasn't much loaded for the .22 LR designed to preserve meat and still kill cleanly, so I started "rolling my own" as it where. I would pull the bullets from the cheap ammo, file the point flat, and then "reseat" the bullet, using the wire cutter section of a pair of needle nose pliers to "crimp" the bullet in place. I discovered that my "reloaded" .22's had reduced velocity compared to the factory ammo, and the flat nose bullets did a better job of anchoring squirrels, especially at the lower velocities. I tried just filing the bullets without pulling them, but I discovered that I got more noise than I wanted, though they were better at stopping squirrels.

I soon discovered that for me, the "sweet spot" was just sub-sonic with a flat nosed bullet. The combination was good when it worked, but not very consistent, velocities ranged from just barely leaving the bore, to "really fast." (Sorry for the lack of solid Data... I was 12 or 13, and that was a pretty good assessment from my standpoint at the time.)

It was when I was in my late teens that I discovered the existence of the obsolete .25 and .32 rimfire calibers. I cursed my youth, declaring that I had been born a few generations too late for my own good, and sought out original boys rifles in larger calibers with decent bores. Decent usually meant "Sure, it looks like a sewer culvert... but, see, there's a little rifling right there.... see it?" I then started scouring gun-shows and old gun shops for the appropriate ammo.

Conveniently my discovery of the larger caliber rimfires also came at a time in life where I experienced an increase in personal cash-flow. Eventually I found an old Stevens favorite in .25 RF, along with about 200 rounds of original .25 RF short ammo. It was the bee's knees for squirrel hunting compared to the .22 LR I'd been using. The .25 short was probably about the same velocity, but it would put a squirrel on the ground right then, without doing much meat damage. and the noise was about the same as the standard velocity .22's. I attribute the improvement in it's effectiveness to the increased bullet weight, and vastly improved bullet design.

Sadly, I sold the rifle some years ago, as it looked like I would never be able to find more ammo for it. It never even occurred to me that I could convert it to CF and form brass and load for it. Alas, we live and we learn.

Since then, I've discovered the .32 S&W long cartridge, and have been very slowly working on getting a rifle built to shoot the cartridge. I recently found a Hopkins and Allen in .32 RF that's got the most perfect bore I've seen on any old RF rifle, and I'm shooting up my supply of .32 RF ammo before I complete the conversion process.

My goal for the gun is to shoot a 90-100 grain bullet of round flat nose, or SWC design, to about 1000 FPS. From what I can tell, this will slightly better the original .32 long RF balistics, and provide 200 or more Ft Lbs of energy at the muzzle. If I find that it's producing too much meat damage, I can always reduce the load. I doubt I'll ever feel the need for more power, especially with the requisite increase in noise.

My eyes aren't as good as they where when I was a teenager, and making head shots becomes increasingly difficult, so having a rifle that won't require them for humane killing and meat preservation is well timed.

I guess the move to 200 Ft/lbs of energy from the 4.7 that I started with is quite a transition, but the path from one to the other has been a long one. All I can hope for is that I can consistently get as clean a kills now as I did when I was 9 years old and shooting a crossman in my parents back-yard, and at a longer range.

[Molly]

Hi Nozombies,

>I remember as a kid, I only had an air rifle to hunt squirrels with. I was getting about 520 FPS on a 7.9 grain pellet, if crossman's numbers can be trusted, providing for a grand total of 4.7 ft lbs of energy.

I was a bit luckier than you: I had a 5 mm Sheridan air rifle, and it was deadly on them at close range.

>... I think ever since then, I've been on a quest to find the perfect squirrel rifle. Eventually my parents moved to their place in the woods, and the search began in earnest.

Me too. My parents weren't so obliging, but I mostly lived in easy walking distance from nice woods.

>... It was when I was in my late teens that I discovered the existence of the obsolete .25 and .32 rimfire calibers. ... Eventually I found an old Stevens favorite in .25 RF, along with about 200 rounds of original .25 RF short ammo. It was the bee's knees for squirrel hunting compared to the .22 LR I'd been using. ... I attribute the improvement in it's effectiveness to the increased bullet weight, and vastly improved bullet design.

>Since then, I've discovered the .32 S&W long cartridge, and have been very slowly working on getting a rifle built to shoot the cartridge. ... My goal for the gun is to shoot a 90-100 grain bullet of round flat nose, or SWC design, to about 1000 FPS. ... I doubt I'll ever feel the need for more power, especially with the requisite increase in noise.

I've posted my experience with the .32 RF earlier, but you might be interested that when I get my .32 Long rifle back from John Taylor, I plan to run a ladder study with several cast bullets, jacking up the powder charge gradually. I expect that when my velocities hit the sonic barrier, they'll announce the fact with a suddenly sharp report. I plan to back off at that point, and then go for accuracy with a quiet load. Then I'll load a different cast bullet, and do it again and again until I find the load and bullet that gives me the best subsonic accuracy. I figure that will be just about the best possible squirrel load.

>My eyes aren't as good as they where when I was a teenager, and making head shots becomes increasingly difficult, so having a rifle that won't require them for humane killing and meat preservation is well timed.

Ya know, they've got these newfangled devices called peep sights and scopes that will help aging eyes quite a bit. I speak from experience. (VBG)

[35remington]

I squirrel hunt quite a lot, and I never did find the "excessive damage" from hollowpoints that those here claim to have had when shooting the .22 long rifle. The velocity and expansion ain't that great.

The various subsonic hollowpoints of good design (e.g. Eley, Winchester, and CCI) kill extremely well from the long rifle on fox squirrel, body shots included (I rarely if ever head shoot them) and are even quieter than the larger caliber rounds mentioned here. MV's are around 1050 fps or so. There is no need to have to rely exclusively on the head shot.

I have shot quite a few squirrels with low end 32-20 loads and many, many more with a 25-20 and the RCBS cowboy 85 FN. I do agree a larger caliber flatpoint gets it done quite effectively, but when speaking of tree squirrel hunting there is really no pressing "need" for anything more than the long rifle hollowpoints mentioned. Quiet and kill quite well.

What you want, however, may be an entirely different thing.

[Molly]

The various subsonic hollowpoints of good design (e.g. Eley, Winchester, and CCI) kill extremely well from the long rifle on fox squirrel, body shots included (I rarely if ever head shoot them) and are even quieter than the larger caliber rounds mentioned here. MV's are around 1050 fps or so. There is no need to have to rely exclusively on the head shot.

I have shot quite a few squirrels with low end 32-20 loads and many, many more with a 25-20 and the RCBS cowboy 85 FN. I do agree a larger caliber flatpoint gets it done quite effectively, but when speaking of tree squirrel hunting there is really no pressing "need" for anything more than the long rifle hollowpoints mentioned. Quiet and kill quite well.

What you want, however, may be an entirely different thing.

Most of my experiences agree with you. There's o question that the typical grey squirrel that takes a solid hit from most any 22 is usually dead right there.

However, I assure you that there are some prominent exceptions, one of which I posted right here. In this case, a squirrel took a body hit high enough above the shoulders that it took out its spine, and then it took two headshots from point blank range, and was still going. And this WAS with Winchester subsonic hollow points. I have seen other examples, and know of similar experiences that didn't happen to me personally. A prominent member of the Cast Boolits membership recently wrote to tell me of a squirrel that he hit with a 22 that turned out to be not only alive, but highly resentful when he picked it up, and it expressed that resentment in most memorable terms, all over his hand. Teeth that can handle hard walnut shells hardly notice finger bones. There was also a story going about when I was a kid about some fellow who picked up a not-so-dead squirrel who promptly slit his wrist for him. Urban legend? I dunno, but I've seen enough that I wouldn't be too quick to label it false.

Individual responses to injury (whether animal or human) vary wildly from one to another, depending on the level of excitement, adrenalin and overall physical condition among other factors. An injury that seems to kill almost instantly in one case only seems to spur another to even greater effort. I've read of an individual in who was bayoneted so badly in hand to hand fighting in the Civil War that his entrails spilled out on the ground, but his reaction was to cut them away with a Bowie knife and continue fighting!

The .22, while generally reliable on squirrel, simply isn't to be relied on every time. I don't like to see such a magnificent animal suffer unnecessarily, and I'm particularly averse to being responsible for that suffering. So I'm switching to the .32 caliber for my squirrel hunting. Overkill? Maybe. At least most of the time. But I like the idea of seeing myself as a sportsman.

[35remington]

Forgive me for the slight hijack, but I've an opportunity to express my views here, and as a very avid small game hunter I'm taking it!

Given about 300 shot over the years with the CCI subsonic, you'll have a hard time convincing me it's not as reliable as anything else out there. And I've shot a mighty lot of squirrel. This from a guy who's shot a great many with 32 rimfire ballistics and 32-20 ballistics (Lee C113F and Lyman flatnose plainbase) and the RCBS 85 in the 25-20 at ~1100 fps to 1400 fps.

Human error will account for most of the rest. I stand by my statement that anything else really isn't needed, and it isn't. Desired is something else entirely. A low velocity bullet of larger caliber may fail to penetrate on a head shot as well, especially the round nosed type. Just because it hasn't happened to you does not mean it won't......and the very, very great majority of shots on tree squirrels are taken with the long rifle, which means there's more chance for the occasional anomaly to occur that somehow gets widely disseminated as proof of its "inadequacy". Given a large number of shots taken with a larger caliber, failures to kill will also occur. Mostly due to shot placement (as was your shot, hitting the spine but missing the vitals) but some may go unexplained when the critter is not recovered.

The .22's is reliable as anything else on fox squirrel with proper ammo choice, which is tougher and larger than the grey.

Perhaps this will illustrate why. This is a recovered CCI subsonic, and it's extraordinarily rare to recover a .22 long rifle bullet from a squirrel. This particular one was facing me on a longish shot for squirrel, almost 60 yards, as it lay on a limb near the ground. The bullet hit just inside the left front shoulder, and when examining it after the shot I noticed a small lump near the base of the tail. I thought "I know just what that is" and removed it with the tip of my knife. The faint pink of blood can still be seen in the cavity. and a small hunk of meat is still present on the base (not readily visible).



The CCI expands pretty much as I'd suspected, holding the sides of the expanded bullet at right angles to the cavity due to its teardrop inner shape, increasing its diameter quite a bit. I find these more effective than the Remington subsonic which often fail to expand. Don't get me wrong; the Remington work on every fairly placed shot, but these CCI work even when placed a little far back. As well as my 25-20? Well, given the extra penetration of the 25-20 from any angle, I'd try shots with that caliber I might not try with a long rifle.......but given how this CCI worked I just might have been shortchanging the long rifle a little. Still doesn't mean an 85 grain, 25 caliber flatpoint bullet is "needed" for them.

I certainly don't want to sidetrack this very enjoyable thread, but lately I've been reading a few articles in the blast and stab monthlies on how the .270 is "light" for big mule deer (which is utterly ridiculous) and sorta feel the long rifle has been shortchanged in the same way. And my feelings aren't for lack of experience with it, nor with calibers (32-20, 25-20) that are loaded to duplicate the .25 and 32 rimfires of old.

Do larger calibers with more ft/lbs have more killing power? Very likely, depending upon their speed and shape.

But to imply the long rifle, with proper bullets, is "light" for a pound and a half grey (by saying it's not adequate every time) or a two pound fox squirrel contrasts greatly with my experience. Yeah, they're tough critters for their size, but no one should get the impression that the long rifle regularly bounces off tree squirrel skulls. The preference of many for headshooting them with long rifles would have died out years ago if the long rifle was regularly underpenetrative or ineffective.

And those guys that buy gussied up Kimbers or Coopers in .22 long rifle just for squirrel hunting must not have known the cartridge was lacking before they shelled out 600 to 1K for one of them!

[Molly]

... Human error will account for most of the rest. I stand by my statement that anything else really isn't needed, and it isn't. ......and the very, very great majority of shots on tree squirrels are taken with the long rifle, which means there's more chance for the occasional anomaly to occur that somehow gets widely disseminated as proof of its "inadequacy". Given a large number of shots taken with a larger caliber, failures to kill will also occur. Mostly due to shot placement (as was your shot, hitting the spine but missing the vitals)

The .22's is reliable as anything else on fox squirrel with proper ammo choice, which is tougher and larger than the grey.

Almost the first thing my post above said was that I agreed with you. I said "There's no question that the typical grey squirrel that takes a solid hit from most any 22 is usually dead right there. "

I think we may be re-enacting the classic dispute over terminology that befell Elmer Keith. Elmer got a real reputation as a liar in some quarters when he would make statements like a given cartridge wasn't reliable on such and such an animal. People simply didn't read what he had to say. He never said that the animal in question couldn't be killed with that round. He said that it couldn't be RELIED on to drop the animal in question. He even went to some trouble to distinguish between the two statements, but to little avail. He once reported having killed a doe with a .22 revolver. Elmer KNEW that a doe could be killed with a .22, because he'd done it. But he'd never say that the 22 was reliable on a doe. (Actually, he said it was a fools stunt!)

Getting back to the immediate discussion, I never said that squirrels couldn't be killed quite effectively with a 22. I've sure killed a bunch just that way. What I DID say was that I didn't consider the .22 reliable on them. And before you give a knee-jerk disagreement, let me say that you are also right that when the .22 fails, the usual reason is shooter error. (Although the darn squirrel will sometimes jump just as the rifle fires ...)

But shooter error WILL occur because we are all human and subject to an occasional error. What I'm trying to say is that the .22 doesn't have a performance margin to compensate for my errors that I'm comfortable with. I feel that a scratch hit from the larger caliber is much more likely to put down a squirrel than the same hit from a .22. I've shot a lot of squirrels just as you have. Maybe you're a much better shot than I am, and you hardly ever just wound one and had it still struggling when you get to it, or even have it escape to suffer. I won't say that happens very frequently to me, but I sure despise it when it does. And every one I've encountered has been with a .22.

Hmmm. Not true: I've also had it happen with shotguns, but with a shotgun, hit location is sheer chance. There's bound to be some percentage of shots that result in no lethal hits. But that doesn't petain well to the 22/32 comparison.

Now I've shot a heck of a lot more squirrels with a .22 than with a .32, and simple chance would suggest that this would produce more scratch hits than the .32. But I'd say that perhaps one in five or six hits with a .22 is less promptly effective than I'd like.

Despite the much greater use of the .22, I've also shot a fair number of squirrels with a .32RF. At a guess, I'd say something in the neighborhood of 150 squirrels. I'm no better shot with the .32, and no luckier either. But to date, I don't recall shooting a single squirrel with the .32 that wasn't dead on the spot. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, but I can say with assurance that - in my experience - the percentage of scratch hits is far lower with the .32 than with the .22. Head shots, shoulder shots and lung shots, the .32 still beats the .22 hands down - in my experience.

[35remington]

Since squirrels tip the scales at a whopping 1 1/2 to two pounds, we're teetering dangerously toward declaring the .22 long rifle "unreliable" on everything in this thread, since game animals don't get much smaller than this! Certainly the long rifle is reliable on animals it has been used to bag for over 100 years or it wouldn't have supplanted the larger caliber rimfires on small game of the rabbit and squirrel variety. I'm not going to promote it as a larger critter round as I believe it's overmatched there, but it is effective on small game of the type we most often hunt and for the tree squirrels we're discussing.

Yes, I hardly ever wound one (but it does happen to me, even with a 32-20 OR long rifle), but that is part of my ammo choice as well as shooting ability, and I always used crossed sticks of a long length to allow higher (but safe) angle shooting. I won't shoot less effective ammo either, and the .22 long rifle ammo does vary. Pointy target velocity ammo is slower to kill on body shots. But that's the wrong choice for the job.

Now, let's not split the hair that says the long rifle will kill, but isn't reliable on tree squirrel because I'm certainly not going to agree with you there, nor will many others that use the .22. That's implying that we're lucky to kill the critters as quickly as we do, and it's not luck. In the vast majority situations it's quite adequate and reliable. I dare say the long rifle produces less wounded game when used within its limitations than many other cartridges, used on whatever it is they're considered appropriate for. (I'll bet the 30-06 wounds far more deer than the 22 wounds squirrels, and nobody considers the '06 "unreliable" on deer). This is consonant with its shootability and accuracy in most rifles, and for squirrel the tissue damage produced is quite enough to do the job.

Had you my experience with the long rifle, you'd say the same things as I'm saying. And I suppose given your circumstances, maybe I'd say the same as you. But I don't experience those things, so here I am debating the point. And I've shot the .32's and .25's and wonderful cartridges they are. But necessary for squirrel they're not.....not for me. And, apparently, others as well.

The .22 long rifle most certainly is reliable on tree squirrel, and let's define that....it kills cleanly the vast majority of the time, in my hands and apparently in most guys who hunt these animals, or they still wouldn't be using .22's. And they continue to do so.

Let me also point out that in stumping for the .32 you're likely giving up accuracy that is more on the side of the long rifle chambered arm. So maybe you're making a higher percentage of poor hits for accuracy reasons and marveling at the incapacitation that is still evident. I know I do with my .25-20, as hits in the middle can still bring them down quickly, but a poor hit is just that and isn't to be relied on. FWIW, the CCI's do much better than I'd expect with the few poor hits I've had. As good as a 25-20? No, but then I don't expect a 25-20 to kill certainly with a poor hit either, and I blame the shooter and not the cartridge.

Given a small vital area, and I mean small in the sense that the vital organs aren't very big, a .22 long rifle, especially in expanding form, produces plenty of damage to kill tree squirrels reliably and quickly in the vast majority of instances. Had I been arguing about shooting raccoons and such, I certainly wouldn't be stating things the same way because I have shot raccoons with .22's, and they often don't take immediate notice of a hit. Simply a function of not enough damage being produced.

My 25-20 is certainly more effectively there. But in questioning the .22 long rifle ("not sufficiently reliable") on squirrels I get the feeling that we're overstating things more than a little bit for the vast majority of hunters that take to the field.

I've expressed my viewpoint and enough said. No need to derail a good thread; just my attempt to restore a little evenhandedness. Please take this as the informed, friendly debate I'm intending this to be.

[Molly]

... I've expressed my viewpoint and enough said. No need to derail a good thread; just my attempt to restore a little evenhandedness. Please take this as the informed, friendly debate I'm intending this to be.

Not a problem. I read disagreement in your notes, not rancor. We've both presented our positions for everyone to consider, and we really don't disagree very much. I don't see why we can't put the small area we DO disagree about down to individual preferences and let it go at that. Deal?
Molly

[35remington]

Yep, deal. It's individual preference as you stated; my opinion is a long time in coming.

I agree about the larger calibers as far as effectiveness, but I still think the long rifle is reliable. My situation is that sometimes a quiet gun is what I need and I've a plain jane but effective .22 and a good trigger. I got one of the first year production Marlin 880SQ's with the true match chamber and put a Rifle Basix trigger on it that runs 18 ounces. It's a rifle I could afford at the time and it's turned out pretty well.

Assuming I shoot conditioning shots through it before the hunt I make a higher percentage of good shots with this than centerfire rifles of low speed out to 60 yards. I have to humbly admit that with the plainbase bullets that I cast, and at the low speeds suitable for squirrel shooting, I cannot produce the accuracy of a match chambered .22 long rifle shooting subsonic ammunition. I don't feel too bad about it, and it makes a pretty decent, sure killing squirrel rifle.

[NoZombies]

Not to further fuel a fire, but rather to clarify a few things;

I own more .22's than any other caliber, I shoot more .22 ammo than anything else, and I recognize that the .22 is a sufficient cartridge against squirrels and other small game. If you read my original post, I mentioned that my quest was to find the "perfect" squirrel rifle. For me, that meant something that had more power, but without more meat damage or noise.

When I was a young teenager hunting squirrels, I was limited to the ammo available to me at the local hardware store or wally world. That meant I essentially had my choice of winchester RN ammo, remington .22 short, or CCI minimags, with an occasional variation. So that's what I was working with trying to find a better round. That was what started me down the path of experimentation that lead to me pulling, modifying and reseating the bullets from the ammo I had.

I don't disagree with the statement that a .22 is sufficient for small game hunting. But In my mind, there's a difference between sufficient and ideal.

As far as the .22lr's supplanting of the larger rimfire calibers, I think that cost became as much of a factor as anything else. After all, the .22 was *sufficient*, and after WWI the prices of the larger RF calibers where generally at least double that of the .22.

I know what my budget was like when I was a teenager, and I can only imagine that for most teenagers, and especially during the depression, the cost of a few small game animals lost due to the less powerful cartridge would be overlooked, since the ammo was less expensive. More rounds could be shot for the same money, so the "cost per squirrel" was still lower, even with some more lost animals or needed follow up shots.

I started hunting squirrels with an air rifle, and it too, was sufficient. A great number of small game animals are put on the table by air rifles every day. I'm sure that I could do it again if needed, just as I'm sure that I could press any number of my .22 rifles into action for the same purpose. And I still do.

This thread, and my quest, isn't about belittling the .22, but rather about duplicating the .32 RF cartridges.

I apologize that comments about the .22 offended, I meant in no way to disparage the round.

[35remington]

Interesting. I consider the long rifle with a good subsonic HP just about ideal for squirrels, given accuracy, killing effect, sufficient range and minimal meat damage, which prompted the response. No surprise there given the War and Peace I wrote in the last several posts.

And no doubt cost was the major player as to why the .22's survived and the larger calibers did not, but if it was that inadequate for squirrel and rabbit at least some reasonable larger caliber alternative would have survived along with it.

[NoZombies]

Just an update for anyone interested, There are two new heeled bullets in the catalog over at http://accuratemolds.com/ that may or may not work if you're loading the .32 colt cartridges.

I don't have either one in my hands, but the 31-090-C looks like it might be a good choice. The heel is more or less to the same dimension as the original ideal mold designed for the .32 colt.

Check out a drawing here: Mold 31-090-C Sadly, not all the dimensions made it to the drawing, but it is designed for the .32 colt, with a diameter of .314-.315

[Mk42gunner]

The design looks good to me, unfortunately I just found out how much my daughter's car insurance will be; slightly more than twice what mine is for the same vehicle.

Oh well there is always the letter to Santa...


Robert

[sailor]

Hi Molly- after reading all this I have to relate my favorite pistol is a Stevens single shot break-open. It had a dead .22 barrel, so I pulled it off and made a new one from a left over piece of .30 cal. I cut off 10" and sigle pointed the chamber, not having a .32 S&W reamer, and dovetailed a block to make the hinge, and another at the back to grab the wedge. The bore was raised .10 or so as I recall, to use the existing firing pin. Wonderful to shoot, although with the 10" barrel it is not so quiet, but great fun to shoot. Two years ago I put a scope on it, because I can't see as well as I used to either. But there are lots of those Stevens out there with pitted bores, and this is a way to put them back into use without ruining the collector value. The original barrels drop right back into the frame when it it time for them to move on.
I have also re-chambered four Favorites from .25 Stevens to .25 short Hornet. As long as the bore is good this works well.
I love bringing the old ones back to useful life!
George

[Molly]

Hi Molly- after reading all this I have to relate my favorite pistol is a Stevens single shot break-open. ... I have also re-chambered four Favorites from .25 Stevens to .25 short Hornet. As long as the bore is good this works well. I love bringing the old ones back to useful life! George

Hi Sailor!
That sounds like a really neat trick! I'll have to give it some thought. Tell me more. What kind of accuracy are you getting from the scoped version?

[Molly]

Hi guys,

I promised to let you know when I got my .32 rifle in from John Taylor, and I got it today. It's a real beauty, especially in the work that John did.

I'm refinishing the stock, as the original varnish had a few small scratches. The walnut stain is drying as I write. Looks great. When it's dry, I'll give it a coat of semi-gloss polyurethane clear. [Come on! DRY, darn it!! (I'm dying to take it out and shoot it!)]

Sadly, when I took the stock off, there was some VERY minor rusting inside the mechanism. Not John's fault, just entropy going downhill. I think the last Savage-Stevens M. 94C was probably made sometime around 1940 or 1945, and this little jewel looks like factory new except for that and the few varnish scratches. And the rust cleaned off so completely you would have to know where it was to be able to see where it was.

Also, I've got it slathered inside and out with Alox 165, which is the stuff Rem, Win, etc put on new guns to protect them during shipping and storage, sometimes for years. (There are advantages to having been a research chemist!) It'll keep it mint for longer than I'm going to care about it.

I put a 4 to 12 x scope on it. Looks ferocious! The 4x will be for hunting, and the 10 or 12 x will be used for load development.