Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Buckeye 32-20

The last 2 days have been constant rain & cold so I decided to finally shoot my 32-20 cylinder in my Buckeye. I've had this gun for a while now but never shot anything but the 32 H&R magnum cylinder since I have some 327's for the heavy lifting. This is the only small caliber I have that has a scope on top (1 1/2-4) so I wanted to see just how accurate it might be with some quality high speed cast loads.
My load was 12 grs of 2400 in new Starline brass, Winchester SP primers & a 116 gr Miha powder coated gas checked HP. In the 32-20 using a small pistol primer is kind of guess work, some will use small rifle depending on powder, others, small pistol. If I happen to switch to H110 powder I'll definitely give small rifle primers a try.
Since these loads will be used almost exclusively for Ground Squirrels, and most shots at them are in the 20 yd range that's the distance I zeroed the load at. Shooting off of sandbags & under the roof of the range because of the rain I began to shoot. The third target you see is the first target I shot. I threw it away & later got it out of the garbage can to show everyone something.
Next you see the 6 1/2" Buckeye with a very nice & tight group at 20 yds that measured .564" for 6 shots, with the first 5 shots going into .346", I was very happy! Here are the 3 targets, remember target #3 was the first target that I shot and the two loads were exactly the same except for one thing. And that thing involves reloading, any guesses?



My dies are Redding, a 3 die set & I'm guessing the old pro's here have already figured out the two different targets. The first six rounds were loaded just using the seating die as usual, seating & crimping in one step since I don' yet have a profile crimp die. After loading those first six rounds I changed my dies so that die #3 only seated the bullet but no crimp, then I adjusted the dies again & came back & crimped all of them as you would a 4th die, or a profile crimp die, see the difference in the 2 groups. That's why I dug the first target out of the trash can. Imagine if that group had been shot at 50 yds!
Do NOT use this load in your gun without working up your own loads!

Dick

My Buckeye With the 32/20 cylinder does really well with a milder load of 2400 and a Cast Performance flat nose, gas check. Really easy to shoot.

Idaho1945........that gun really doesn’t seem to shoot - I’d be glad to take it off your hands! Seriously great shooting and I really like the .32-20 seems to shoot well in whatever gun I’m using it in. I have a Colt Police Positive in .32-20 that shoots way beyond my capabilities.

PennDog