I read recently in an older book that 32 s&w long and other calibers could be fired in the 32-20 rifle. i cannot get any 32-20 ammo where i live and brass is not availible either, BUT, there is a box of 32 s&w long sitting on the retailers shelf. the rifle i have is an original 32cal colt lighting pump action. has anyone tried this with success? can the brass be reloaded to 32-20?

I don't know whether the .32 S& W Long can be shot in the .32-20 or not. Thing is, I wouldn't want to do that even if it could be.

The .32 S&W Long is a considerbly shorter round than the .32-20, and I wouldn't want stuff flying around in the chamber where it wasn't properly supported by either the case body or the case neck.

As to whether the brass can be loaded as .32-20 after firing, I would think the ".32 S&W Long" case would end up with a much shorter neck (or possibly no neck) after being fireformed to the .32-20 slightly bottlenecked and much longer chamber. So, yes, it might be possible to seat the bullet way out of the brass and get a working round, but it wouldn't be a correctly fitting working round, so again I wouldn't do it myself.

I'm not even sure the .32 S&W Long case is big enough around to keep from splitting when fired, or especially when re-fired.

There's no way I would do it without consulting a good book on SAAMI cartridge dimensions for the two cartridges and determining how shy of filling the chamber the S&W cartridge would be.


Edited to add: Why don't you check around to see if you can find some .25-20 ammo or brass? The .25-20 brass can make good, proper .32-20 brass just by expanding the neck a bit. It may even be possible to fire-form .25-20 loaded ammo to proper .32-20 dimensions by shooting it in your rifle. The bullet would rattle down your bore, but at least it wouldn't be dangerous to the rifle or the shooter.

quote:

I read recently in an older book that 32 s&w long and other calibers could be fired in the 32-20 rifle.

I doubt very seriously if this is true.

There's a lot of difference in the two cartridges!

I reload for my 32-20's and was curious after reading your post if brass was not available found a couple of vendors with brass... here is one
http://www.a2zoutdoors.com/winchester_brass.htm
if you are interested I have a good article in a pdf file on reloading for the various types of 32-20's out there that I would be happy to send you
best of luck

This would be potentially very unsafe. The body diameter of the .32-20 is 0.018" larger than that of the .32 S&W Long. If the latter was a higher pressure load it would probably split when fired, sending gas and powder out the back of the barrel. Follow the advice of the others above, get the right brass for your rifle.


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thx zephyr
i'm in canada and getting anything gun related to this side of the border can be a real pain. the wholesalers i normally deal with do not have 32-20 brass in stock, but i'll keep bugging them. the book i read was "cartridges of the world" 6th edition.

Are the restrictions such that you can not go on line or pick up a phone and order brass from the USA???
Can I buy it and mail it to you??

Smoke-eater PM me and I'll send you this pdf file that I have it's good reading for 32-20 users

Smoke:
You could also neck up some 25-20 brass, if you can find it. The first time will be kinda fire forming, as the 25 has a longer neck than the 32, but it'll work ok. I load for the 32 and 25/20, also the 218 Bee, they are all on the same carttridge case. I didn't mention necking up 218 Bee, as that may require a lot more work, and the cases may come out too short.

Jerry

had run of good luck today. a friend of mine found some 32-20 brass in the back of his closet. i have about 35 to play with now. thx everyone. and yes i have nothing but problems ordering "gun stuff" from the states.

I know you are not supposed to do it but I believe the practice was quite common back when. They probably wouldn't feed well thru a rifle but they will chamber and fire in a revolver.
C.G.B.

It was possibly a lot safer to do back "when". In those days cartridge brass was more maleable than today.

When I used to shoot the .219 Improved Zipper, the "before WW II" .219 Zipper cases reformed quite well to .219 Imp. Zipper just by firing them in your rifle. After the War, virtually every case split on firing in MY rifle, whereas before-the-war brass had never done so.

I inquired what was up in a conversation with the NRA Technical Service and was advised that the pre-war brass had much less zinc and, thus, more copper in it. That made the pre-war stuff much softer and more easily reformed.

The change after the war was claimed to be to handle the higher pressures folks were starting to commonly load to, and it did handle higher pressures much better IN THE CHAMBERS IT WAS FACTORY DRAWN FOR.

Myself I suspect it was because of the lage numbers of rifle cartridge chambered machine guns and semi-auto rifles used in WWII. I suspect the manufacturers changed the brass composition to optomize functioning in them. As the harder brass worked great in the chambers it was designed for, they likely saw no logicistic need to use BOTH soft and hard brass after they resumed civilian sales in the post-war era.

But, where much free space existed between the case wall and the chamber (such as at the shoulder when firing the .219 brass in the "Improved" chamber), it often slpit.

I'm not saying the .32 Long brass WILL split in a .32-20 chamber, just that I wouldn't try it in MY gun...especially not a weaker locking and less gas-tight gun such as the Colt Lightning.

quote:

Originally posted by Zephyr:
Are the restrictions such that you can not go on line or pick up a phone and order brass from the USA???
Can I buy it and mail it to you??

NO.

Just out of curiosity, could you buy some brass on a visit to the U.S. (Washington State) and take that back with you by declaring it at the Douanes and paying the duty and GST on it?

I know you can't buy a gun on a visit here, but how about brass?
I haven't heard or read anywhere that that is illegal, and it's only a short drive...

unfortunately i don't think you can. and its' an 8 hr drive one way for me to the border. not really practical to buy brass.

quote:

Originally posted by smoke_eater:
unfortunately i don't think you can. and its' an 8 hr drive one way for me to the border. not really practical to buy brass.

That surprises me, as there is no ID of any sort required to buy loading components in the U.S. And I don't think the customs folks on the Canadian side much care what you bring back as long as it is legal to possess it in Canada, which brass is. (And as long as you pay the duty and GST.)

Must be the traffic near Vancouver that causes it to take you 8 hours one way to get to somewhere like Blaine, Washington, where there are gun shops. I used to drive from Edmonton to Spokane, Washington (going through south-eastern B.C down through Yahk into Idaho, then west into WA) in about that amount of time or slightly more in my 'Vette. Used to buy a ton of stuff several times a year at the White Elephant....

I was always careful to declare it as being my own personal goods for my own personal use (not resale) when I re-entered Canada, but it was never a problem. And the U.S. still allows American hunters and shooters to take guns and ammo out of the U.S. for their own legitimate use.

If I were in your shoes, I'd drop a dime or two and call U.S. BATFE and ask.

This is old wisdom. Can you fire a .32 in the .32/20? Probably. Is it super safe? Probably not. Is it that dangerous? Probably not. Pressures were well below the 20K CUP. Case splits. You get some gas back in your face. Can't reload the case. I wouldn't but how desperate are you? Now if you were stuck in the snow and hard up for eats and might kill something... .32 Colt. .32 Short S&W. Etc. DESPERATE.

b). The second series of 73 winchesters saw a smaller action and these "house hold" calibers for garden pests. .25/20 and .32/20 at the time. The .218 Bee is the .25/20 necked down to .224. They used to suggest making 7.62 Nagant Revolver cases (little short) from .32/20. You might reverse that if you ran into the Russian Revolver case.

Since I don't know maple leaf land I won't be specific. I know Speer used to import into Idaho the old black powder calibers, eg. .32/40 from Canada. Dominion brand. Cannuck brand. No idea what it is like now. Good luck.

There is a lot of 32-20 brass around if you look in the right place.
About 7 or 8 years ago a lot of Winchester over run brass was sold on Ebay. It included .375 H&H, .348 Win and 32-20 Win. I know there must have been 50 to 100K 32-20 sold because I bought a lot and I did not put a dent in the supply.

If I was absolutely determined to find new .32-20 brass IN CANADA, I'd let my fingers do the walking.

I'd call whoever is running what they used to call Xelex first. They import powder and ammo in LARGE QUANTITIES, so I doubt if they have a lot of trouble importing brass. (I know they are still in business, as they have a powder ad in the latest issue of The Canadian Marksman.)

Second I'd call Erv Heiman (or his son Robert) at Western Gun Parts in Edmonton. Between WGP and the Custom Gun Shop, he has been in the business of finding ammo and parts for every kind of gun for over 40 years that I know of.

Third, I'd call Bob Hobbs in Kamloops. He and Art Bourne ran the gun shop there since the day before God invented dirt.

If nothing else, one of them could probably tell you who you SHOULD call.

Yeah, just about any .32 caliber pistol cartridge (.32 S&W Short, .32 S&W Long, and even .32 ACP) will chamber and fire in the oversized chamber of the .32-20. I used to shoot some .32 Longs in my Colt Police Positive Special (chambered for .32-20) way back when. The cases come out bulged, but will make a "bang" and project a bullet out of the barrel in a semi-effective manner. I never had any case splits or other failures which would cause safety concerns. However, other than administering a coup-de-grace to something which has otherwise been incapacitated, I can't think of much use for such a combination of gun and cartridge.

quote:

smoke_eater: the book i read was "cartridges of the world" 6th edition.

This book is full of inaccuracies. And edition after edition they never bother to correct them.

Fortunately, I have a pretty good supply of brass & bullets for my Marlin 1889 (originally my great grandfather's).

like i said before i found some brass, the wholesalers i normally order from are out of stock right now for 32-20 and 577-450 so i'll have to try again later. i got these cases reloaded and i'm liking the results so far. so i won't be trying any other caliber in my rifle. thx for all the feed back.

What most of you don't realize is that your gov't doesn't allow non-residents to purchase or be in possession of ammo or components anymore, ....virtually anything that may come in contact with a firearms. Yes, we can buy them when travelling, but border patrol will pull periodic checks of Canadians returning home and if anything is found in your possession, you now have an extended holiday in the U.S., courtesy of Obama and crew. ....All for the sake of "security"!