I would suggest you get a old lyman loading book and look at the unique loads...   works for me...   trust No one who gives u his load!!!!!!

3.0 grs. of Red Dot, or 3.5 grs. of Green Dot with a 115 gr. cast makes a load that's very mild, with no recoil, and low report. No fillers needed, or wanted.

The manufacturer's listed starting load of Trail Boss is very mild. Much lower will start sticking bullets. I suggest starting there.

Gaz wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2017 at 1:17am:


Excellent! But I would additionally suggest getting into habit of ALWAYS checking bore after each shot with such light loads, especially since it is to easy with a roller. Shot-to-shot pressures can vary widely with such light loads, even with fast burning powders. With such powders I generally make it a practice to have powder in reproducibally same position, most often as it would be in a horizontal cartridge, a common position when shooting. My favorite practice is to put rifle in shooting position and then use trigger hand to "sharply" tap side of chamber before shooting. Works well for me.

marlinguy wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2017 at 2:27pm:


Never had much better than +/- 100 fps, which gave so much vertical stringing that such loads were totally useless for hunting. Quit such useless nitro "revolver" loads long ago in favor of 100gr bullets with "rifle" powders for non critical shooting and standard velocity 120-135 gr or higher velocity loads with 4759, 4227 etc. for hunting. 

So-called "revolver" loads have long given excellent performance in my 44-40s but never in my 32-20s. "Rifle" loads were even better in my 44-40s.

Obviously, our personal experiences differ substantially.

No apparent difference in appreciation of 32-20 performance, just loads that have worked really well for me. Mine have been scoped single-shot hunting rifles for foxes, turkeys, javelina and similar sized critters at ranges of 40 to 130+ M with flat nosed bullets at 1400-1700 fps muzzle from full-case or nearly so loads, all one-shot kills, so far. 2-shot groups from cold barrel and solid rest are nearly always less than 2-3 cm from POA at these ranges. Actually, it is only 1st shot groups from cold barrel that count. Better than that I do not need nor can even use presently, thanks to failing eyes and loss of fine muscle control. More than 3-shot groups are waste of ammo for hunting rifles. Only once in 50 years of hunting with CF rifles have I needed a 2nd shot. These are not plinking rifles or "target" rifles.

For whatever it might be worth, a fellow shooter that is also fond of 32-20 rifles, but for MS rather than hunting, went through 10s of "pistol powder" loads to find one that was reliable for 100M MS target shooting (10-shot groups). He shoots nominally much better rifles than I use for hunting and is also a reloader with decades and decades of reloading experience.

I guess I am missing something here, as I don't see why anyone would want a reduced load in the 32-20 cartridge anyway.  I've been shooting 11g of 4227 and the 115 bullet for many years in several 1892 Winchesters and a #2 Remington rolling block.  The recoil is so mild that I just can't imagine why anyone would need a reduced load.  Both my daughters learned how to shoot with that #2 Remington when they were in the early years of grade school.

George