It always amazes me how the wrong answer becomes right just because enough people say so, soon becoming the lore of the land!
However, the truth (despite lore) still is: In 1905, when the .32 Special became a production gun, no one was still shooting black powder in anything but fireworks! They were using .32-20 bullets to reload smokeless .32 Special though!
Lyman mold number 21297 was the foremost mold for reloading of the .32-40 in matches and also, being the same caliber, it could produce a 170 grain bullet for the .32 Special, what a coincidence? However so many people then were trying to shoot .318 (8mmJS) bullets in the .32 WS with black powder, that it never caught on that it was the same caliber diameter as the .32-20!
Now a hundred years later and people still have not caught on that smokeless powder and Lyman #21297 will shoot really well in a hard cast (1 in 16 barrel twist) in the .32 Special.
However, I guess that we will (in the year 2112) still be reading about how the .32 Special was designed to be shot with black powder, despite the FACT that no one still used black powder even in 1905 when the .32 Winchester Special was invented!
