.32 Smith & Wesson auto loading pistols

[adds033]

Hi all, just wondering does anyone know of any other models of .32 autoloading pistols with grip magzine configuration. Besides Unique and FAS? I like the 32 SWL and grip magazine configuration, but the choices seem limited!

[jipe]

Sig Hammerli P240 exists in .32 SWL.

[Tycho]

Erma had one, but from what I heard, that is already stretching the limits of usability. Otherwise, Sako 22/32, Sako TriAce, Britarms, if you're not afraid of not-available-spares (but that goes for the Unique, too). The sometimes mentioned .32 conversion for the Walther SSP seems to have stayed on the drawing board.

[Guest]

I have this silly question.... is it possible that in a near future what we currently know as Centerfire would be shot with a 22 lr pistol? Something like what happened with Rapid Pistol [22 Short to 22 lr].

[jipe]

I have this silly question.... is it possible that in a near future what we currently know as Centerfire would be shot with a 22 lr pistol? Something like what happened with Rapid Pistol [22 Short to 22 lr].

In some countries, at national level, men already use .22lr instead of center fire just like women do. Center fire is a "confidential" event using expensive, difficult to reload ammunition, going to .22lr could increase the number of shooters doing it ?

[Guest]

Could you, please, tell us what those countries are?

Personally, it'd certainly increase my chances of doing Centerfire as my STP pistol is all I have.

Thank you in advance!

[Mikey]

In New Zealand men can either shoot Centrefire or .22 which is called Mens sport pistol or something like that. It is a completely seperate event to Centrefire and the Womens 25m event but is exactly the same course of fire with Men shooting .22 pistols.

It is pretty popular and can can sometimes have more competitors than Centrefire - well quite often really.

Am not impressed with the Commonwealth Games dropping Centrefire and Standard pistol as the popularity of Centrefire will continue to diminish.

Mike

[Tycho]

Same in Switzerland, lots more people shooting the 30/30 program with the .22, but I can't see them dropping CF completely, as long as it's a international event. And, as CF is not olympic, there are no tie wearers interested in "improving" anything, as it happened in RF (where we have a quarter of the starters we used to have, contrary to all the "experts" forecasts). To complete your thought, you could strike FP, too, and shoot the same match with the SP, but nobody's discussing that, either.

[jipe]

For RF, the motivation was to use the same pistol and cheap .22lr ammunition and also reduce the scores. But even if the .22 short ammunition is more expensive than .22lr, people have no competitive RF .22lr pistol and have to buy a new one. RF also needs the 5 target installation that is not available in many shooting ranges, changing the type of pistol/ammunition doesn't change that.

For FP, not so many shooters but changing the type of pistol won't change that, it would be the opposite, the magic of FP come slaos from the pistol.

For centerfire, I think it is different: many people have a competitive pistol in .22lr. The ammunition used is very expensive, more than .22short and is a difficult one to reload to make accurate/stable ammunition. Also, there are few pistol available and a .32SWL match pistol is much more complex to develop than a FP. The old approach of making a .32SWL conversion for a .22lr SP pistol is not possible anymore with the latest sophisticated .22lr pistol. This is also what happened with the MG4: it looks like a MG2, uses the same ideas/concepts but is a different pistol.

Of course, dropping/replacing centerfire would be a disaster for Matchgun, the only company who took the risk to develop a modern .32SWL pistol.

[Spencer]

For RF, the motivation was to use the same pistol and cheap .22lr ammunition and also reduce the scores. But even if the .22 short ammunition is more expensive than .22lr, people have no competitive RF .22lr pistol and have to buy a new one...

Same pistol? - top-end RFP pistols tend to differ from those for 25m Womens/Standard pistols. They don't have to be the same, other than to comply with the 25M rimfire pistol requirements
Cheap .22LR ammunition? - not cheap for the better ammunition
Reduce the scores? - don't know where you get that one from. ISSF Competition scores were not knocking on the door of 600 and the WC scores are only a few points down from those prior to the change.

For centerfire, I think it is different: many people have a competitive pistol in .22lr. The ammunition used is very expensive, more than .22short and is a difficult one to reload to make accurate/stable ammunition.

the ammunition used is very expensive? - for those of us allowed to reload (not so in all countries) it still works out cheaper than top-end .22LR
difficult one to reload to make accurate/stable ammunition? - takes a bit of work with a ransom rest and some applied experience, but it can be done (in both .32 and .38)

Also, there are few pistol available...

If you want to chase fashion (and reliability) it's not an overly big range of CF pistols in .32 semi-autos, but if you are after reliability and accuracy a good .38 revolver is hard to beat (yes - I have a couple of .32s that I normally use for ISSF CF, but if I was chasing selection (days LONG passed) it would be with a K-frame S&W)

Spencer

[David Levene]

I have this silly question.... is it possible that in a near future what we currently know as Centerfire would be shot with a 22 lr pistol? Something like what happened with Rapid Pistol [22 Short to 22 lr].

It all depends how you define "near future".

With the reduction in trigger weight to 1000g in the latest rules the only difference between the C/Fire and 25m (Sport) events is hole size.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the C/Fire event replaced by a Mens "Sport" event in the 2013 or 2018 rules, with the new event replacing Rapid in the next Olympics.

[Tycho]

I see the change in the olympics as a real possibility, but I wouldn't bet on them replacing CF - because nobody cares about it. Like STP, it's only shot at big international events (from ISSF's POV), so why bother. The suits aren't going to be on TV with that, anyway. They're probably going to kill RF (what's left of it) - on the other hand, that would take the pressure of it and allow a switch back to the old RF rules, as nobody would care anymore. On the whole, it would probably be healthier for the sports (although not for its public representation in some countries) if it were kicked out of the olympics.

PS: The whole points issue can't be the cause, as the guys lying on their bellies for 60 shots are doing 600 all day long, and nobody intervenes. They can't even make them by new pants, but they are forcing RF shooters to practice a lot more than in the past, and buy new pistols, too. Nuts!

[jipe]

For RF, the motivation was to use the same pistol and cheap .22lr ammunition and also reduce the scores. But even if the .22 short ammunition is more expensive than .22lr, people have no competitive RF .22lr pistol and have to buy a new one...

Same pistol? - top-end RFP pistols tend to differ from those for 25m Womens/Standard pistols. They don't have to be the same, other than to comply with the 25M rimfire pistol requirements
Cheap .22LR ammunition? - not cheap for the better ammunition
Reduce the scores? - don't know where you get that one from. ISSF Competition scores were not knocking on the door of 600 and the WC scores are only a few points down from those prior to the change.

It was the idea to promote RF by being possible to use the same pistol but as we agree, it is not the case, special RF .22lr pistols were developped.
About cost of ammunitions, most people do not use the very expensive type of .22lr and just use good ones, less expensive than .22short.
Indeed, after falling in the beginning of the switch to .22lr, scores went up again, also may be due to the pistol upgrade.

For centerfire, I think it is different: many people have a competitive pistol in .22lr. The ammunition used is very expensive, more than .22short and is a difficult one to reload to make accurate/stable ammunition.

the ammunition used is very expensive? - for those of us allowed to reload (not so in all countries) it still works out cheaper than top-end .22LR
difficult one to reload to make accurate/stable ammunition? - takes a bit of work with a ransom rest and some applied experience, but it can be done (in both .32 and .38)

Again most people use low/medium price .22lr not the top expensive ones. Also intrinsic accuracy is not that important for RF, it is more reliability.
Concerning reloading, the evolution I have seen is that less and less people reload even easy ones as .38SP.
Besides tuning the load/shell/bullet/primer/crimping combination, just reproducible measurement of the tiny amount of powder used for .32SWL is shit and takes time. I do not like to spend as much time reloading as shooting. And it seems that it is the case for most shooters.

Also, there are few pistol available...

If you want to chase fashion (and reliability) it's not an overly big range of CF pistols in .32 semi-autos, but if you are after reliability and accuracy a good .38 revolver is hard to beat (yes - I have a couple of .32s that I normally use for ISSF CF, but if I was chasing selection (days LONG passed) it would be with a K-frame S&W)

Spencer

I definitely do not like shooting revolver and never saw them used at high level CF shooting.

[Mike M. (as guest)]

From my perspective, the problem with RF has always been the target bays. Here in the United States, they cost abut $3,500. And there are not enough RF shooters to warrant having more than 20 operating bays in the entire country. The guns don't matter...unless you have an obsolete RF pistol and ammo. Anyone want to buy a case of R25?

Still, I would not like to see RF die out. What I might support would be either a complete shift over to a system based on shot timers (which would allow cheaper facilities), or possibly an RF air pistol setup. I know the latter would not meet with a lot of approval, but it would be better than nothing.

Were I doing the rules, I would make RF air a 3-target event in order to shrink the target bay to a size that could fit in a car. Something that a shooter could buy for himself, and bring to major tournaments.

[Tycho]

What good does me a lower ammo price, if I have to practice twice as much (as if I had the time) to get acceptable 4 second series? Small wonder nobody starts shooting RF nowadays - you're still on 14th place, but with 520 points instead of 555, so where's the fun? In the old days, you at least had a chance to walk out of the range on a good day with a brilliant result - but today's 4 second series with the STP is a joke. And look at the world class - almost exclusively specialists, so much for the generalization.

I really don't see the problem with reloading, .32 is as easy to load as it gets, and out of my MG4, almost everything shoots well :-) And as long as I can load 500 shots an hour, where's the problem?

[David Levene]

I really don't see the problem with reloading, .32 is as easy to load as it gets

I'm glad you said that, I was beginning to think I was the only one who didn't think .32 was a problem to reload.

It is now several years since I had a reason to reload but decent components and a sensible reloading procedure gave ammunition that I could always call to within half a ring on 25m precision targets.

[Tycho]

Same here - I actually don't care if a load will get me 10mm or 20mm groups, as long as it's nice to shoot and lands approximately where I call them. Never had any problems, not in earlier times with the 280 or the CF603, and not now with the MG4. Only the MG4 shoots well with much slower loads than any other .32 I've seen so far, don't know why. And my 650XL will crank out as much ammo as I'll ever need, as fast as I can pull the lever :-)

[Mark Briggs]

Hmmm, I can't resist chiming in here... I only shot RF once with the old .22Short pistols. It was fun, an art form. I since have tried RF using the .22LR and have purchased a number of standard pistols to allow me to compete in this event. I say a number of pistols because it took me a few before I found one that worked best for me.

I'm not a great shooter in any respect, and I haven't trained extensively for RF. But even as a lowly "hobbiest" shooter I still have no trouble breaking 550 in training. And that's using some of the cheapest .22LR ammo I can find (less than US$3/box of 50 rounds).

As a result of my experience I conclude that most people who complain about the switch to .22LR standard pistols for the RF event are going to complain about anything - there's no pleasing them. My experience in this part of the world is that more people are participating at a "hobbiest" level, simply because they can use their old GSP's, Model 41's etc to shoot the RF match. Sure, we still have the odd "Classic RF" match to allow folks to shoot their .22Short pistols, but by and large, at a grassroots level, RF is benefiting from the move to use of the Standard Pistol.

With respect to CF, I feel sorry for those who cannot legally reload - that is a huge limitation. Like a couple of posters above, I've found that making .32S&WLong ammo that will hold the precision 10-ring is not that problematic. I base this experience on only two pistols, a GSP and a Pardini HP-E, so others may be more picky. In the long run, though, it's possible to use a .38Special, which is as common as can be and cheap to shoot, even if using factory ammunition. The complaints about CF being an "exclusive" event as a result of the pistols/calibres remain in my mind the usual background noise from shooters who will complain about anything, just for the sake of complaining.

In the interest of providing feedback of a positive nature, if CF and RF are facing some probability of being removed from the list of official competition events, why not combine them? This combined event already exists in the form of Military Rapid Fire. Same rules as ISSF RF, except it's shot on a single target, using a CF pistol. And it's a real hoot to shoot (from my extremely limited experience).

[Tycho]

RF is benefiting from the move to use of the Standard Pistol? How did you compute that? I see the scene in Switzerland, and I hear about Germany, and there are far more people who have left RF than such who have started to shoot it. Last year's national champs, everybody who shot the qualification (!) got to shoot at the championships, and there weren't even enough starters to fill all the slots. AFAIK, in Germany they are shooting the .22 short up to regional level or so, and having much more success there with the hobby shooters (participating is more important than winning...) than on higher level with the .22lr. If you're doing 550 without practicing, you should start planning for London 2012...

[R.M.]

I might not have read this whole thread closely enough, but what's all the bitching and chewing about? Cf isn't an Olympic event. It's not shot at the World Cups, at least when I was shooting them. Yes, it's an ISSF event, but so is Standard and the 5-shot air stuff. It's there for us to shoot up to the National level, but that's about it. I guess CF was shot at the CAT Games (I think), but that's as high a level of match that I've seen.
I've been a reloader for a long long time, and I have to tell you, the .32 S&W Long is about as easy to reload as they come.
Like Mark has mentioned, some people just like to bitch.

R.M.