Straight wall?
Tapered wall?
With a shoulder ? 
Smokeless in a tapered wall?
Smokeless in a straight wall?
A heavy enough projectile to buck the maximum amount of wind without dropping much? 
A lighter faster projectile?
A looong cartridge 
A short cartridge 
Assuming both velocities are the same?
Thoughts ?

There is no "perfect" Schuetzen cartridges but, there are "Modern" and "Traditional".

Ok that’s a start. So, why do they believe that?

The modern Schuetzen cartridges are the .32 Miller and the .32 RKS. 

Both are straight walled with a slight taper from using a .223 FL sizing die to form them.

Originally the .32 Miller used the shorter and weaker .357 Magnum cases whereas the .32 RKS used the .357 Maximum cases which are thicker walled and have a significantly longer life span.

The .32 Miller is a shorter case and is much more susceptible to powder load changes whereas the longer more voluminous .32 RKS case being 1.470" long is less susceptible and allows for fine tuning powder loads over a more extensive range.

And I have not seen anyone with a .32 Miller shoot five five shot groups in a row in less than one hour that have an average 1/2 MOA accuracy.

I extensively used .32-40 but was unable to fine tune powder loads for my rifle that I could with the .32 RKS.

Last picture of fine tuning a load by adjusting a Weber seater using .32 RKS cases - 10 shot groups @ 100 yards.

That's a typo.  It should read .357 Maximum.

Ideally a fixed loading would be best for offhand. Look into user  MIS (Martin Sten..) he did a lot of experimenting with cartridges for fixed offhand shooting. 

Charles

Good question: A heavy enough projectile to buck the maximum amount of wind without dropping much?
Every match I was in at 200 yards I always felt I had the advantage over the 32-40's shooting a 33-47 with 240gr. Spitzer bullet. I will back this statement up if you like. That said the 32-40 overall is an excellent round.
Ken

One of the best schuetzen cartridges that I have used is the 38 Spl case, un-necked, with a steep chamfer into the .32 bore, throated to use with breech-seated bullets.  Very easy to load the ctgs, easy to load the rifle, cheap cases.  Keep it simple.

CHRIS

What about a straight wall cartridge vs a tapered wall but no shoulder ?  I wonder how the characteristics would be with smokeless vs black.

When I first got into this sport, in 1985, there was a "Schuetzen" 32/40 chamber, that had been popular, prior to that. It is a straight taper, with no neck, ending at about .344 OD. The only throat to it, was just a 30° angle, from that diameter, threw the lands and was a BS only chambering. I think that style chamber, for match rifles, went all the way back to the beginning of match shooting, with the 32/40. Pope, may have used that chamber, too.

I have two rifles in that chambering.

The .32 RKS pushing a 235 grain Paul Jones spitzer bullet with a muzzle velocity of 1,526 fps is supersonic at 200 yards and has won the Canadian Schuetzen Benchrest Championship at 300 yards after going subsonic.

With the .32 RKS case I am capable of driving this bullet over 1,600 fps.

Heavier bullets result in greater kinetic energy from the mass which reduces the wind deflection of the bullet.

When I started the Schuetzen game the .32 calibers were 180-190 grains with 16:1 twist barrels, which changed to 200-210 grain bullets with 14:1 twist barrels to 220-230 grain bullets with 12:1 twists to 235 -240 grain bullets for 11.5:1 twists - to reduce the wind deflection of our bullets.

I use a 235 grain Paul Jones Spitzer in a 11.5:1 twist barrel  shooting 1,526 fps in a .32 RKS case with 12.4 grains of H108 but do sometimes increase to 13.1 grains H108 to shoot 1,600 fps.

frnkeore wrote on Nov 30^th, 2024 at 2:41am:


I also have a couple rifles with that chamber and the chamber reamer. Never have to bell the case mouths when shooting breech seated bullets.

My .32 RKS has only shot 13 Perfect 250s and more than 50 249s using a 24X Burris scope or Anschutz iron sights and my forearm is only 2 inches wide (narrower than the 3 inch widths that are allowed). 
And I use a front sand bag instead of using the advantage of a mechanical contraption to hold my barrel steady. 
Maybe I should go back to the 32-40 which was not so successful for me.
Maybe my .32 RKS is little bit more successful using the heavier 235 grain bullet which is less susceptible to wind drift similar to Ken Lewis use of a heavy bullet in his 33-47.

249 iron sight 200 yard target

I never use BP when breech seating so don't know if a straight taper 32-40 chamber is better. Do have a lot of experience with the standard 32-40 chamber and BP. Some chambers/rifles do okay and some such as my Meacham HW which once broke 17 out of 20 new cases don't. 

Have shot thousands of BP rounds in the 8.15X46R and never broke / separated a case. Have not lost a case yet using BP in the 32 Krag. 

Art, as far as I can tell it really depends on the chamber design, and if you are breech seating.  I've never lost a case with bp and fixed ammo.  When breech seating, if the rifle has a 45 degree angle at the end of the case before the throat, it is quite a bit less likely to separate a case.  It also depends on the powder.  I used to shoot a lot with Goex Fg powder.  When Old Eynesford came out I tried it (but in 38-55) and it separated a case almost every time I pulled the trigger.  Swiss 1.5 shoots best for me, but is more likely to separate or stretch a case than plain Goex.  I suspect that a felt wad on the powder, like Randy Wright describes in his last book, would go a long way to solving this.  Maybe that's what the old timers did?

Chris

My take is that it's the friction of the course BP, at the cannelure, that causes it and the straight taper of the Schuetzen has less of that.

I only used the nickle plated John Wayne cases so, all mine had cannelures and never compressed my loads, other than what it took to put a 1/16 LDPE wad in the case.

Later I used 30 Americans, that didn't have a cannelure and never separated any of those.

I also went to my 32/35, with both Fed 30/30 and 30 American cases and never separated and of those, again using LDPE wads. The 32/35 was also about 4 points, per target better than the 32/40.

Maybe it just depends on how far North you live 

westerner wrote on Dec 1^st, 2024 at 6:18pm:


That's the gist of an article written by Steve Garbe on the subject a few years back.  I think he also might have mentioned using thicker "everlasting" style cases, but that probably takes away a fair bit of case capacity.

Chris.

Joe, maybe our different results, was because I always shot duplex loads.

Did you shot the BP matches in Springfield? They were duplex rules.

I am at a loss to understand these reported case failures.   My 32-40 schuetzen rifle has fired around 16,000 shots out of the original 200 cases, and the only cases that were "lost" were the ones that were stepped-on or mislaid or otherwise got away.   No failures.

CHRIS

Actually, in this case Chris got no breaks at all.

Bill Lawrence