At the time of it's introduction smokeless powders were not available to handloaders universally. Reloaders had to continue using black powder for the most part. An exception may have been gents like Whelen who had access to armoury supplies of smokeless. The 32 Special with it's 1/16 twist was the better ticket for black powder than the 30WCF and black powder complimented the very basic reloading tools commonly available. Think of the old tong type reloaders used without scales and sometimes without any form of measure being at hand. Fill the case by eyeball to the point a compressed load was certain and call it good sort of thing. I have a 1949 M64, 32Sp. which is a great cast bullet shooter and can get more velocity from a given alloy than I can with a 30WCF with maintained accuracy.
