Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles .32 Winchester Special

Im giving some thought to reloading the Winchester .32 Special, I looked through Sinclair and a few other catalogs and could not find dies or bullets. Is this going to be a hassell to fnd compontes as well as dies bullet compatiors ext...?

Are any of you loading this caliber?

Lee makes dies for the 32 Winchester Special, and I believe RCBS and Lyman do also. Maybe others. Hornady and Speer make .321" 170gr. bullets for it. I load the Speer bullet and W748. IMR4064 also works well in my rifle.

I load with Lyman dies purchased within the past year or two from Midway. Both the Hornady and Speer bullets shoot well, as do 165-grain cast bullets from a SAECO mold for the .32-40. As I remember I use IMR4895 with the jacketed bullets; the cast bulets I load with FFFg black, just because that was one of the original purposes of the .32 Special.

JB

I don't have a manual handy but I seem to remember that Reloder 7 gave some pretty good velocity. Measures easy too.

Dale

I got both my 1st deer and 1st elk with one.

Before you go to all the trouble to reload, is your barrel in good shape? The 32 Spec is known to get terribly inaccurate when the barrel get even a little bit worn.

Dick

The barrell seems to be in very good shape. The gun is a 1955 model 336, and shoots factory Croe-Locks at 1 inch. Just hate to burn a buck a shot playin a round....

Rock Chuck,

Have you actually experienced that, or know somebody who has?

Jack O'Connor wrote it many years ago, apparently without having shot many .32 Specials. My friend Mike Venturino found an old one with a really awful bore and and it shot fine--as a lot of old rifles do even if the bore looks terrible.

JB

I`ve been burning 3031 in mine since I took over loading for it from my dad. (His favorite load...grin)

I bought 32 spcl Winchester brass and Hornady 170 gr FPs from Midway with in the last year. They may still have some components available. The dies I have are old RCBS and still work fine.

Maybe its just my area, but I have no trouble finding 32 Win Special ammo from Fed, Win and Rem in any of my local shops. Most of the time they are only $14.00. I have a model 94 that was my Great Granddads gun, I killed my first and biggest deer with it and still hunt with it when I am not in a tree stand.

I am loading for mine right now and its first groups at 75 yds were touching. This is in a 1952 production Marlin 336. Shoots great with the Lyman 66LA reciever sight on it. This is the first 32 special I have personally played with and a 1/2 inch center to center 3 shot group, I aint complainin'

My family has a first year (when the 32 was introduced) production Winchester 1894 in 32 special that has thousands of rounds and has taken Muleys, 1 Big Horn Ram, Elk and countless coyotes over the years and nearly all of the kids grew up shooting it too. It still shoots into an 1 1/2 inches......Unfortunately I think JOC opened his mouth before he had the experience to back it up...Ryan

My info on the barrels came from Speer.

Dick

I have dies and brass for mine, but have never got around to loading for it because, as Kimberman noted, factory ammunition is so cheap. I can usually pick up a couple or more boxes of Remington factory ammo on sale for less than $10 each at several of the old time hardware and farm stores in the area.

Maybe when I get my lead pot fired up again...

This article by Mic McPherson clears up a number of questions about the 32 WS including why it came about and the reason some 32 WS rifles don't shoot well.

http://www.levergun.com/articles/special.htm

To quote from the article:

I discovered one other possible explanation several years ago. I came upon part of a box of 32 WS cartridges that must have been made in the earliest years of this century. These loads feature an oversize primer - 0.25-inch diameter, which has a window in the copper (?) cup. A brass (?) disk - with a "W" stamped on it - obturates this window. These semi-balloon head cases are headstamped W.R.A. Co. above, 32 W. S. below. Topping things off is a nickel-plated jacketed flat point bullet with a "W" stamped on the jacket. Shaking one of these cartridges reveals a somewhat loose charge of smokeless powder.

The box these cartridges came in was rotted and abused beyond recognition and I felt there was no great collector value so, just for fun, I chronographed three rounds.

Each fired with an interesting sound: "Click, bang, tu-tu-tu." Yes, every shot was an audible hang-fire and each sounded as though the bullet tumbled upon leaving the barrel - and I am certain that it did because the bullets never hit the target! All gave respectable (considering the age of these loads) and similar muzzle velocity - average MV was 1900 fps.

Why should these bullets tumble? Examination of the remaining loads revealed the puzzling answer. Maximum diameter of every bullet was 0.318 inches, which is quite odd for loads intended for use in a 0.321-inch bore. With the worn bore in the well used and somewhat abused Winchester '94 in which I tested those loads, those undersize bullets had no chance of catching the rifling without obturating. Obviously the load did not generate sufficient pressure to cause full obturation and the bullet therefore tumbled - accuracy was nonexistent.

Now the ninety-four-million-dollar question: Why should Winchester deliberately load 32 WS ammunition using a too-small bullet? As far out at it may seem, I can imagine only one explanation, that is the 8mm Mauser! What in thunder, you may ask, has the 8mm Mauser to do with Winchester loading undersize bullets in the 32 WS?

Well, here is one possibility. When originally introduced, the 8mm Mauser was loaded with a heavy 0.318-inch round-nose bullet and the rifle was equipped with a shallowly rifled barrel. When a lighter pointed-bullet load was adopted, a new rifling specification was also adopted. In the newer design, the lands were the same diameter but the groves were opened to 0.323-inch. This provided longer barrel life before accuracy dropped off significantly, this was important in those days of soft steel and somewhat corrosive and erosive loads. This design also made it possible to shoot the older 0.318-inch bullets through the newer barrel with reasonable accuracy. While European manufacturers adopted separate 8mm Mauser loads, US manufacturers stayed with the 0.318-inch bullet.

I do not know if Winchester was loading for the 8mm Mauser when they made the 32 WS cartridges I tested and measured. Again, it seems a long shot but why else should the bullets in these 32 WS cartridges be made undersize and at the exact diameter used for early 8mm Mauser bullets? Perhaps Winchester was saving a bit of money by using the same sizing dies for both 8mm and 32 WS bullets. Whatever the reason, it is likely these undersize bullets shot okay in new, 0.321-inch, 32 WS barrels. However, as noted, 0.318-inch bullets do not shoot worth a hoot in a well worn 32 WS barrel.

The 32 Special has been branded as, "Prone to losing accuracy," after its barrel sees lots of use. When undersize bullets are used, that is a fact. On the other hand, the 30-30 is said to maintain useful accuracy, practically forever - I suspect this is also quite true. However, when correct diameter bullets are used, even well worn 32 WS rifles shoot just fine. The same abused '94 noted above shoots surprisingly small groups when any correct-diameter bullet is tested, so does my Marlin 1936.

The lack of any variety of bullets, availibility of components and odd bore size have always plagued the 32 Special. I have often considered rolling my own and it is the only rifle I own that I do not. I never bought into the 'inaccuracy' BS from JOC or anyone else. My Model 64 built in 1956 will still shoot 'deer accurate' well past 150 yd. doubtful it shoots any different than the day my father bought it from Skeffs hardware store.

My 1955 Marlin 336 in .32 Special is a nail driver, shoots under an inch at 100 meters, shoots the same hole at 50 meters....

I have my Dads old Winchester in 32 Special a few years ago I thought ammo might get tough to come by so I picked up dies, 500 bullets and 500 brass. They are all still available today through Midway USA and in stock.

Oh and yes RL7 does a fine job in the old 32. Lyman 45th Edition
RL7 28.0 to 31.0 Gr with 170 gr bullet. You will get well over 2200 fps even with the accuracy load.

I have a Martini Cadet that was imported from Aussie-land and as a neat little safety that soemone thunked up. the gun does well with the issue 310-cadet sights, but I want to put a proper peep sight on it and recrown it, and I bet it will be much better.

Oddly, due to stock shape I think, it is one hard kicker!

....Seems I recall that the reputation for lack of consistent accuracy rifle to rifle with the 32 Winchester was attributed by O'Connor to the rifling twist of 1 in 12". Which it's said is just barely sufficient for proper bullet stabilization.
.....I've seen it claimed that a 1 in 10" twist would have been an improvement, but with 170 grain bullets and sufficient rifling quality left in a worn barrel, there ought to be no problem within the old 32's ranging ability.

Oh, nother thing that this round had agains it was it's marketing niche. Per Cartridges of the World and I think an accurate statement backed up on research, this ctg., at time of introduction, was to fall between the 30WCF an 30Army, today known as 30-30 & 30-40. Thus, it was neve fish nor fowl

That is mentioned in McPherson's article as well, but his source is the 1916 Winchester catalog. COTW is not the be -all and end- all of references.