Beginner reloading .32 rounds

[JamesH]

I tested two Toz49s and the barrels are a little tighter, I size to 0.311-0.312 - the sizer is nominally 0.311, resizing to a consistent diameter also seems to help - cast .32 are rarely consistent enough.

Lee make very cheap resizers.

[JiriK]

ok, I'll try to find a .312 sizing die.

What grease you use? I have used only lee lequid alox so far.

[oldcaster]

No one I know has used liquid alox but that doesn't mean it won't work. Some used the Saeco soft lube and some used any brand of 50/50 lube. All of the lubes used were soft and several of us tried hard lube which did not work well.

James H... Many cast 32 bullets did not work in the guns tested. A Fas, three Benellis, and a Walther but the Saeco#323 bullets made with a soft alloy and lubed with soft lube were excellent in all of them.

[BobGee]

I was testing an old Toz-96 revolver today.

I read that it makes a taper crimp.
Roll crimp might be better? Do you know, what Lapua uses?
Their cartridges dont´t seem to have much crimp at all.

As I understand it JiriK, you need a taper crimp with the TOZ 36 and 49s (which is what I use with my 49 converted to .32S&WL) so that you do not have trouble seating the cartridge in the barrel when the cylinder moves forward. I assume it would be the same in the 96s if they use the same gas seal system. If they don't, then a roll crimp is the way to go as Oldcaster said.

Bob

[JiriK]

As far as I can tell, 96 is same as 49 except for different caliber.

I got some lee 85grain tl dewc bullets yesterday. I'll test them next.

[PaulT]

I had good accuracy/feeding results in Hammerli 280 .32, SP20 .32 and Pardini .32 using:

- Lapua brass (batched so all cases had been reused exactly the same number of times. They were absolutely fine up to 5-7 reuses and training several times after). Cleaning was optimal for feeding before popping the old primer out.

- Winchester small pistol primers

- 1.35 grains of VIT N310

- Lapua bullet heads. These are soft lead so discard any with malformed skirts

I used a 4 die set, so bullet seating, taper crimp followed by slight roll-over crimp.


I probably have a few thousand brass cases in my garage (in the UK) of once fired Lapua and Magtech .32 brass - offers?

[morten]

For the 25m (27 yd) ISSF event, the H&N hollow based 100 grain .314 WC bullet are perfect.

I use them with 1,5 grain N310, very sliter roller crimp. ( lapua brass, what ever primer you have)

But if you shot at longer distances, over 30-40 meter, the hollow based bullet loose stablility, and start to tumble, and you get the key hole impact holes on your target

In Norway we shot competitions with the 32 S&W as far as 80 meters (87yd), and the only way to get rid off the key hole, are with cast bullet ( no hollow base)

98 or 100 grain cast WC with the same load (1,5 grains N310) have work'd great in all my 32 S&W guns ( Hammerli 240/280, MG4, and my current Pardini HP)

A comman load In military rapid fire, is a 90 grain WC ( cast or not) with 1,4 grain N310. A little less recoil especially helpfull in the 6 sec event.

[fc60]

Greetings,

I get excellent results with the 100 grain H&N bullets at 50 yards.

Barrel is a Haemmerli SP-20 mounted in a mechanical fixture.

Cheers,

Dave

[FredB]

Zorro is alive! With an updated weapon and living in Washington state!

[Rover]

I lived in Washington, too. The advantage was that the women were better looking than in Oregon.

[shootaholic]

An important issue of reloading .32 HBWC's is that they are soft and easily damaged [squashed] when seating.
An undersized projectile will shoot eratic groups and probably lead to lead fouling in the bore making the situation even worse. You stated that you were using a variety of S/H brass which if you measured the wall thickness, you will find there is a wide variance. therefore when you seat your HBWC in a case with a thick wall it will reduce the projectile diameter making it undersize for your barrel.
If you use a kinetic hammer to pull one your loaded rounds and compare the measurement with a new one you may find that it has been squashed in the seating process and there is your cause for poor accuracy.
As others have posted, you may need to have an expanding/powder die made up to open the case up after sizing to accept the projectile without squashing it. You should be able to hand seat the projectile well into the case before seating.
You may have fixed your problem by now , but it's all good info for teh newbies.

[oldcaster]

The response by shootaholic is right on but don't let what he wrote make you think that you should shoot a hard bullet instead to avoid the swaging down of the bullet when shoving it into the case. Those bullets do well primarily because they are soft and therefore more forgiving. If you go to a hard cast, it definitely will not swage down from a case but more than likely will not shoot as accurate. When shooting cast, soft lube fits into the same category also. It is sticky, and a pain, but they are more likely to be accurate and not lead as much.

[Rover]

Mike a bullet, seat it, pull it, and mike again. See what you find.

[JamesH]

No one I know has used liquid alox but that doesn't mean it won't work. Some used the Saeco soft lube and some used any brand of 50/50 lube. All of the lubes used were soft and several of us tried hard lube which did not work well.

James H... Many cast 32 bullets did not work in the guns tested. A Fas, three Benellis, and a Walther but the Saeco#323 bullets made with a soft alloy and lubed with soft lube were excellent in all of them.

The original post was about the Toz 96, the Toz 49 will shoot cast bullets just fine.

For a while in Aus there was only one volume supplier of swaged bullets and they were so variable I had to buy .314s and resize them.

My current supplier uses his own recipe of Alox on swaged HBWC and it works perfectly, not a hint of leading. Part of the trick is to wash in alcohol before lubing, maybe this removes the mush which can develop on swaged bullets.

Resizing to the exact diameter does seem to help .32 more than other calibres, maybe people just expect better accuracy out of .32 and this is the last tweak.

[fc60]

Greetings,

I have shot "oversize" bullets with excellent results. My old SP-20 barrel is a 0.309" barrel blank and I shot the Speer HBWC, which actually measure 0.313". My best score was an 884 on the NRA 90 shot course with slow fires at 50 yards.

In a barrel tester, these loads shot well under 2" at 50 yards.

Another thought is the S&W Model 52. It "usually" has a groove diameter of 0.354" and shoots the 0.357" HBWC bullets quite well. Especially the old 1960's era Remington commercial ammo.

I did try to size the larger bullets smaller; but, the resulting groups at 50 yards opened up with the small bullets. Never did sort out why that happens.

Cheers,

Dave

[JiriK]

I don´t have a lead hardness measurement tool, but I made a comparison tool from brass pipe and center punch. Drop the punch from same height to a cast bullet (brass pipe acts as a guide) and compare mark it leaves on different alloys.
Pure lead is the softest. Scrap collected from airgun range is next and .22/.32 range scrap is hardest. I have cast all my cartridge gun bullets from .22/.32 range scrap lead. Is that too hard?

So far I have used only second hand Lapua brass. Some are very old, some are new. Most should be just once fired, but who knows. I have approx. 5000 shells here cleaned and ready for reloading.
I did a test batch of 100 cartridges where I trimmed all brass to same length. Haven´t tried them yet, and have to say, prefer not to trim all that brass...

Also made a quick bullet calibrating die from .32 shell, 7.62x53R shell and .32 FL sizing die. It sizes bullets to .313 diameter.
Haven´t tried those either.

[oldcaster]

If half of the alloy is from standard 22 rimfire ammunition and the rest is from commercial bullets your alloy is probably fairly close to correct as long as you can cast a decent bullet from it. If not, you will need to add some tin.

[David M]

My current alloy for cast .32/.38 target wadcutters is a stick and a half of plumbers
50/50 or 60/40 solder to a 10 pound lead pot of pure lead.
It gives just under 4% alloy, casts very well and is good to 950 fps.

[JiriK]

I'd say that vast majority of the lead is from .22lr bullets. It is indoors range with steel bullet trap plates so 22 rimfire, .32 and .38 are the only allowed calibers. No jacketed bullets allowed. Few shoot centerfire there these days.

Have you water dropped your cast bullets? Ie. Drop bullet straight to a waterbucket from casting mold? Does it harden -or do anything to bullets?

[David M]

Dropping into water will harden the surface of the bullets, but
be very very careful NOT to get any water on your mould or
in the lead pot.
Water in the lead pot will cause a lead explosion or splatter.
VERY DANGEROUS.