Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire S&W Ultimate Carry J Frame 432

Friends!

It has arrived!







After carrying my ever present and faithful companion, S&W 442 for almost 25 years, I picked up a new J Frame. The 442 is not going anywhere, and is still going to get carried and shot, but it has a new, easier to shoot younger brother.

My 442 definitely has some miles on it. I finally exceeded roughly 6K rounds through it, but I am not sure exactly what the round count is. Suffice to say, it is still rocking along, but looks a little worse for wear (kind of like its owner).




 

Last year I was asked if I wanted to be involved with a project with Lipsey's, who are the distributors who worked with S&W to bring out the Ultimate Carry J Frames. Naturally I said yes! Long story short, I developed a load that would shoot to right to the sights for the gun. As it ended up it also shot to the sights on a Ruger LCR that I had on hand for product development.

(For those who don't know, I have a small custom handgun ammo business.)

The ammo (a 100 grain poly coated full wadcutter) ran right at about 800 FPS for me, and 794-796 for the guys down in Louisiana when they did their product launch. Pretty darn consistent.

Anyways, the gun came out fantastic. Besides the truly excellent grips, the sights are the first thing that really stand out. The front sight just Pops. It immediately catches your eye.

I kind of had a hard time getting a pic of it with my phone, but it is exceptional.

 


The front and rear sight combo is such a night and day difference compared to what we have worked with for decades on your typical J Frame. It is just truly impressive. Wish they would have done this 30 years ago! The rear sight is a big U shaped trough and it is very easy to line up.

The grips, I was a little amused. They are almost identical in size to what I had built up with vet wrap and hockey tape on my old 442. Obviously these look a whole lot nicer!

Here is a pic of my old 442 grips and the new 432 grips. You can see how close they are. Needless to say, they are great.

Nice to get a set of factory grips out of the box that are done right. Plus they are relieved for speedloaders.








More to follow....

Cool! Good luck with it.

Once you shoot it, please let us know what kind of difference in recoil and snappiness you notice.

Thanks for the pictures and narrative, M.S. . Aside from that Smith looking "very handy," I really like those sights.

L.W.

I have to agree, like the sights, on the new one!

Your 442 looks like the gun Michael used to gack Sollozzo.






P

So after working with and doing development on the .32 H&R, there was no question about which caliber I was going to get. The recoil characteristics were just night and day different. I carry 148 grain full wadcutters in my .38 Special 442 and have for years. They make the gun quite manageable and do great in terms of penetration.

What surprised me with the .32 H&R was just how light the recoil was. It was like shooting a .22 Magnum. Super light recoil, and as a bonus, you get 6 rounds instead of 5. Some have mentioned just carrying a rimfire, but it has been my experience that rimfire revolvers have always needed much heavier springs, which equates to much heavier trigger pulls to make them reliable. The .32 H&R eliminated that issue.

The real surprise for me was the penetration. I honestly did not expect much in that department. I figured it would go 14", maybe 16" I was way off base. Multiple people tested the 100 grain poly coated wadcutters. One report gave 22"s, and another came back at 24"s.

In fact, Jeff "Tank" Hoover, a writer for American Handgunner shot one of the .32 H&Rs with a bunch of different ammo, including the 100 grain poly coat wadcutters, and he got 24"s of penetration.

You can read about that in his article here:

https://americanhandgunner.com/our-experts/sw-ultimate-carry-ballistic-testing/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ


It really has proven to be a "Goldilocks" load. Super light recoil, and good penetration. Pretty hard to beat.

I decided that since I got my new 432 BUG that I really needed to familiarize myself with it, and the only way to do that is shoot it, and shoot it a LOT. When I was working on the Job, I used to shoot my 442 quite frequently, all the way out to 50 yards. In fact I cannot tell you the number of people who told me that snubby revolvers were only good for "bad breath distance" and you can't hit anything with that past arms distance, etc, etc. Only to show them on the range how very wrong that thinking was.

So my idea is to shoot the heck out of this gun over the next year or so and post up the results here. See how it does accuracy wise and how the gun holds up. Not so much a torture test, but to get used to shooting a J Frame a good bit once again. Plus using one with such dang nice sights will be a very nice change of pace! Plus I will take my old 442 Centennial along with some 148 grain poly coated wadcutters and see how they do as well.

It will give me an opportunity to shoot the Old School along side the New School and see how it all shakes out.

Very cool!

Hmmmn?

Gotta check and see if that is allowed on our "roster" here, which we're hoping disappears in the not too distant future.

What caliber is the new one?

Mackay….Your posts are always insightful and informative. In your “carrying a handgun you can fight with” thread I recall the .380 got less than favorable endorsements but now with the .32 it’s something worth carrying? I’m curious why a 32 is a “fighting” handgun but the 380 isn’t?

With firearms there are plenty of opinions out there and that’s not going to change any time soon but I’m curious what makes the 32 worth carrying while the 380 gets snubbed (pun intended)?

Thanks 👍🏼

Be nice

S&W numbering system is not "always" easy to figure out.

a 625 is not a .25 caliber

Had not clicked link.
I would rather have the 2 extra rounds with my 317.
But I carry Kahr CM40 that is better than either other than leaving evidence behind.

Ted, sweet little revolver!

Quick side-note here...

Couple days ago I tried your .38 Short Colts in my S&W 340PD and they were quite tolerable if not downright fun! They were more accurate than me and shot great, very happy with the results.

This new gun of his isn't just a standard .32 caliber ...it's a .32H&R Magnum...

Sam,

Gald you enjoyed them!

So I made up a whole bunch of those, as once people try them , they usually come back for more. I thought I made enough to last for a while. Boy was I wrong. They did not last 24 hours. Mostly because I had 2 repeat customers and one more. They literally bought every single round in stock. Totally wiped me out. I ended up ordering more brass, as I have had a dozen or so emails from guys saying they went to order more and they were out of stock..

They really do make shooting a J Frame a Whole Lot more fun, that is for sure!

I know it’s a “magnum” but a 100gr bullet going 800fps or a 90gr 380 at 1000fps is what matters…not the marketing term magnum. I’m wondering why a a 32 is worth carrying, even with 6 rounds, but a 380 with better ballistics and 8 rounds isn’t considered powerful enough to carry?

Nice 😎👍