What, exactly, is a .32 Smith?

The following was written before I saw Skalkaho's post;


I've been doing some research along the lines of 32 caliber cartridges.
What I have to offer is based on a limited memory and without the benefit of my notes as I am traveling away from home. 

A while back a number of shooters, one such guy "Miller" wanting to shoot smaller caliber projectiles, in this case 32 caliber, the goal was to design a more efficient case then the once popular 32-40. 

Miller,  Smith et.al designed a number or family of cartridges.
The ones I can recall are the;

32 Miller 
32 Miller Short
32 RKS aka 32 Smith (after Ron Smith I believe, Ret.)who was a popular Gain Twist barrel maker from Canada'istan. Ron's son still makes barrels.
One of Ron's favorite (gain) twists for the 32 caliber was 1 turn in 11.5".
IIRC correctly The twist rate stated off slow 1/24 which increased to 1/11.5

There are a couple more designs along these lines along with a number of different parent cartridges but suffice it to say
in order to reduce the case capacity of the longer 32 caliber cartridges, i.e. 32-40 (2.125") or the 32 Maximum etc. these cranks designed their own cartridges in search of the holy grail, one hole groups.

I believe the accuracy buffs had to shorten the cases to a point where the available smokeless powders that achieved the desired  burn rates etc., where 95 ish + - percent of the case was filled,  95% ish of case fill being recognized as desirable from a efficient burn standpoint.

I hope someone has the parent cases, their lengths and case capacities and will post them for these 32 cal wildcats.

I think the venerable 32-20 case was too small (and thin walled) to develop a cartridge to shoot the normally heavy for 32 caliber bullets.
Having said that Paul Shuttlworth's (CPA Rifles) 32-20 was chambered for the 32-20 (.320) 200+ grain projectiles)
 


oneatatime wrote Today at 1:36pm: