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.32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final (Read 645 times)

oneatatime Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 3751 Location: Rocky Mountains Joined: Oct 30^th, 2011	.32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Oct 6^th, 2023 at 12:13am	Print Post
	So it was 2400 vs H108 (AA9?). The bullets were the Lee, the Saeco and the Accurate 125GC with no GC on the 2400 loads and GC on the H108 loads. The 2400 loads used CCI 500 primers and the H108 Remington 5 1/2 primers. The H108 loads burned clean and the 2400 left a lot of unburned powder in the barrel except with the heavy Accurate bullets. The loads were 2400 - 6.1, 6.4 and 6.6 grains and the H108 were 6.2, 6.4 and 6.6 grains. I'm going to skip the 2400 results for the Lee and Saeco bullets as they were not in the same league with the heavy Accurate 2nd and 3rd loads which were about 1 1/4 inches. With H108 the 3rd Lee (6.6 grains) did 1 1/2 inches and the 2nd Saeco (6.4 grains) did 3 in 1 hole and then had 2 wild flyers. With the Accurate bullets the 3rd load (6.6 grains) did just under 1 1/4 inches with a nice circular group but the star of the show was the 2nd load (6.4 grains) which did 7/8 inch. The next time out it will be at 100 yards with H108 with the gas checked Accurate bullets and 6.3-6.4-6.5 grains to see if the 6.4 results hold. I'll also take the Chrony along. I'm sure they will be subsonic but I suspect just barely. Sometime in the future I may revisit the Lee and Saeco bullets with some of the fast pistol powders but for now I will be satisfied with H108 and the heavy Accurate bullets for Pistol Cartridge Cowboy Silhouette.
	« Last Edit: Oct 26^th, 2023 at 7:02pm by oneatatime »

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oneatatime Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 3751 Location: Rocky Mountains Joined: Oct 30^th, 2011	Re: .32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Reply #1 - Oct 26^th, 2023 at 7:19pm	Print Post
	OK, now it is final. To settle the matter I wanted to see what the load above that looked best at 50 yards would do at 100. I also wanted to bracket that load closely to make sure it couldn't be tweaked a bit. I'm glad I decided to do it. I was at the range yesterday under good conditions which we often get at this time of the year before the northern winds blow in. Today I carefully measured the loads my Harrells Schuetzen was throwing with the H108 (which some claim became AA9). Anyway, they were 6.26 - 6.36 (the load that looked good at 50) - 6.46 grains. I shot a few rounds of the 6.36 with the AA 32-125LG sized to .3125, cast in 1 to 20, with the GC and seated to an OAL of 1.366 as foulers and to get on target at 100. Then I fired 8 onto the target. Results were OK but not as good as I hoped they would be. Average FPS was 1172. Then I shot the 6.46 loads on target. Average FPS was 1183 and the results were not as good as the 6.36 loads. Finally, I shot the 6.26 loads (average FPS 1125) and the first 4 decided the issue. I thought, OK if this holds up they will be it and moved the sights about 1 1/2 minutes to the left to get centered on the bull. I shot the last 4 and did a double take when I looked through the spotting scope. I think you will see why. The first four measured 13/16 C-to-C and the last four measured 15/16 C-to-C. 1/10 of a grain can make a considerable difference. Also the 2 faster loads may be going transonic which affected them more. Here is the target with the first 4 on the right and the second 4, after shifting the sights, on the left. If I had tried to shoot matching patterns like that, no way in a warm place. These are with a tang rear and a vintage Lyman Beach front with the aperture .
	« Last Edit: Oct 29^th, 2023 at 2:03pm by oneatatime »

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oneatatime Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 3751 Location: Rocky Mountains Joined: Oct 30^th, 2011	Re: .32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Reply #2 - Apr 15^th, 2024 at 5:48pm	Print Post
	OK, finally Final. The powder/primer will be as above but I wanted to try the 125 grain Accurate GC with GC against without GC against the same Accurate design plain base. I wanted to try the three at 100 and with a scope to remove me/my eyes from the equation as much as possible. I tried gluing a scope rail to the barrel for a small 4 power 22 scope and that looked like it was working until it fell off;-) Back to the drawing board as it was looking like winter was finally going to give us a break. I removes the fore arm and slipped a piece of bicycle inner tube over the barrel and clamped it and the scope base to the barrel with hose clamps. Very sturdy! The one catch was that I ran out of right adjustment on the scope while about 16 inches left of the aim point. But, I was at the range and all set up and I was going to get it done. I lined the vertical wire of the crosshair up with the right edge of the 200 yard paper and the horizontal wire across the bullseye. Of course then the wind came up out of the SSE but reasonably steady at 15 to 18 mph. And, of course, there was a match going on the next range over and I had to shoot my 10 shots of each during the 4 minutes and 20 seconds between cease fires. All in all, not ideal but very adequate for what I wanted to see. So, the results, and, as you might expect, the plain base bullets came in slightly ahead of the GC which were slightly ahead of the GC sans GC. I will be using the plain base bullets in this rifle. Final.


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marlinguy Frequent Elocutionist Offline Ballards may be weaker, but they sure are neater! Posts: 15749 Location: Oregon Joined: Feb 2^nd, 2009	Re: .32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Reply #3 - Apr 15^th, 2024 at 5:57pm	Print Post
	I like 2400, but as you noticed it's a bit dirty. I've had good results using Unique in the .32 Long S&W, and .32-20 also. My load for Unique is 5.0 grs. with a 115 gr. bullet which is about 1350 fps.

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oneatatime Frequent Elocutionist Offline Posts: 3751 Location: Rocky Mountains Joined: Oct 30^th, 2011	Re: .32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Reply #4 - Apr 15^th, 2024 at 7:11pm	Print Post
	At the pressure level I'm happy with Unique burns a little dirty. Also it is very difficult to get an accurate drop from a measure, even my Harrells;-) I remember back in college I was using 5 grains in my K38 with the Keith bullet and that worked well but I was weighing every charge. Unique is definitely unique in its versatility in being usable in a wide range of pistol and rifle cartridges if you accept the high ES.


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willsweptline Participating Member Offline Posts: 24 Joined: Feb 27^th, 2016	Re: .32 S&W Long Rifle - Almost Final Reply #5 - Apr 21^st, 2024 at 3:33pm	Print Post
	About 10 years ago I was experimenting with the .32 S&W Long in converted Stevens and Marlin rifles and believe it or not (for me) a case full of Trail Boss outperformed everything else. If memory serves me right I was comparing it with Bullseye, Unique, Red Dot, Triple 7, Pyrodex and probably a couple different Clays powders.


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