I'll watch this one with bated breath.  I've been wanting to know the answer to that question for nigh on 15 years!   I ran across a short article in one of my old Am Rifleman the other day about a Wesson revolver (of all things) that used a .32 CF cartridge with a case 1.5" long. Still too short.  No picture, either.   Maybe the article had the length wrong - in which case that might be the one.  The revolver was said to be something short of a roaring success. . . .

Phil

Often wrong but seldom in doubt, I thought the .25-20 SS came from the .32 Ideal(?) 

BTW, while going through an old junk box recently, I found not one but two of the old Ideal hammer type sizing dies for the .25-20 SS, then last night I found a brand new in the box Lyman 257283 mould I had stashed away.   I guess I'm running out of excuses not to have one of my little quarter bores up and running! 

Froggie

PS  I have my own supply of original Rem & W-W brass for this caliber, but I am curious as to how everyone's Jamerson brass is working out for them?

If you compare base sizes you will see that the .25-20SS could have only been made from a .32 rimfire/centerfire size cartridge. The .32 Ideal or .32 Wesson rifle cartridge are too big at the base. Maybe some relative of the .32 Ballard extra long was used . The problem is that the .32 extra long is not quite long enough. It's possible that the originator (Rabbeth) of the .25-20 cartridge got untrimmed extra long shells from the factory or it is possible that the whole story was either not told or it got mixed up in printing. There was a lot of misinformation printed over the years including back at the turn of the century.  I don't recall ever seeing it said that the .25-20SS that ended up as a factory cartridge was exactly the same as the cartridge that Rabbeth used in developing it. In fact I think I recall reading that the original wildcat .25-20 was a folded head case and the factory version was a solid head. Some of these mysteries are impossible to unravel.

Found the article this morning.  It is in Am Riflemen June 1982.  It's a narrative about all three of the Wesson brothers.  I saved it because I have most of an Edwin Wesson muzzleloader that was found in a barn in Montana some ten years ago.  Edwin bought Alvan Clarks' patent for the false muzzle, and made a lot of match rifles until he died rather young, in 1849.  His heirs, it is written, formed the Massachusetts Arms Company, which of course made many guns we all know from that period.  

The second brother Franklin was also a gunsmith and is responsible for the well-known Wesson breech-loading rifles, in partnership with his brother-in-law Nathan Harrington, and later with a Mr. Cutter.  His company also made some pistols that he designed.  

Baby brother Daniel was of course the one who allied with Horace Smith to create the modern cartridge revolver we still know today, and along the way they tried a rifle based on the general design of the revolvers.

To quote from the article:  

"...in 1874 was a decision to discontinue the small tip-up revolvers and produce a .38 S&W cal. revolver and other advanced models.  In this year, too, they designed a revolver-rifle - a top-break revolver with a 16 inch or 20 inch barrel which could be used with an attachable shoulder stock.  It took until 1880 to complete the manufacture of these long-barrel guns, and the model did not prove a howling success.  About 1000 were made.  They took a special .32 centerfire cartridge with a 1 1/2 inch long case".

I want to think that this case was actually about 1.6" long, and that this is the case that Rabbeth used.   Maybe because, what with the poor sales of the S&W rifle, there were a lot of unused cases going begging?   That the rifle was a commercial failure would explain the dearth of information about the cartridge.

Author of the article was James E. Serven.  

Found this info on my old hard drive as I once looked into finding a base case to make 25-20SS cases from. As you see I found no 30 Wesson but a 32-35 Wesson (with an outside lubed bullet) that has almost identical dimensions to the 25-20SS. Very interesting topic.
Good luck on your research & keep us filled in. 
MIKE-T

uscra112 Let me help you spend your $$$ on the new project,
 
"Boy, that sure looks to be the answer !   

So, now that we can buy new .25-20 SS brass, we can go backwards and make .32-25 from it.   Then we'll need a mold for the heeled bullets, and the reamer, and dies, etc., etc.   Powder capacity would be close to these .32-20-sized things that the modern Schuetzen guys are using, too.  

Oh, the joy - another project !"


Check out the Jamison web site they have BASIC 25-20SS, this brass is straight sided 32-25 Wesson ready to go. (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Some more data on Wesson cartridges, believe this is where I located the 32-25 data, found this 4-5yrs ago when the 25-20SS "B" brass lasted about one firing.

Mike-T :  You remembered that, and I didn't !    

I've bought 100 of the Jamison brass already, and mighty good stuff it is, too.   Has made me completely forget my arduous process for making it from .223!