Speaking “Frankly”
by Frank Marshall, Jr.
by Frank Marshall, Jr.
(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Fouling Shot #39, September-October 1982.)
Normally, the prescription for case necks is to trim to slightly less than SAAMI specifications. However, this may be considerably shorter than the actual neck length of the individual rifle chamber. Concern as to neck length arises primarily in connection with high pressure jacketed loads wherein an overlong case neck can be crimped by the chamber, thus causing pressure excur-sions. While this may be true, to a degree, with cast loads also, it is of more significance to cast load accura-cy that the case neck fills the full length of the chamber neck as closely as possible.
The idea here is to avoid giving the hot gases an opening to the sides of the bullet before it has complet-ed its entry into the bore proper. This moment during the bullet’s violent passage from the case neck through the throat and leade cone into the bore is a tough enough obstacle course without its being subject to a flank attack by hot high pressure gas.
After long consideration of this critical factor, the optimum case length for cast bullets seems to be about .005” less than chamber length. This also allows for lon-gitudinal case stretch upon firing. Cases which are to be full length re–sized should be trimmed .002” or .003” shorter than those which are neck sized only.
While many cartridges are not offenders in respect to neck stretch, ironically, a couple of very popular cast bullet rounds are among the worst, i.e., the .30-30 and the obsolete but very efficient .32 Special. It may all have started with the .32-40/.32 Special transition. When the .32-40 was converted to the new smokeless powder and given a jacketed bullet for use in rifles such as the 1894 Winchester etc., the standard loading was held down to about 1400 f.p.s. in deference to the many older rifles.
The .32 Special was just that. Due to the slow 16” twist you could load with black to .32 -40 ballistics, which many thought quite adequate in the East, or you could go full hell bent for Halloween to a little heavier than the .30-30 using smokeless powder and jacketed bullets. When reloaded, it would do anything the .30-30 would and at less pressure. With cast bullets in hunting alloy, it was six jumps ahead of the .30-30 because of its heav-ier, excellent standard bullet. This was the No. 321297GC weighing 188 grains in a medium 92-5-3 lead/tin/antimony alloy. Also, due to the long popularity of the older .32-40 as a target cartridge the array of .32 caliber plain base cast bullets was extensive. With one of these popular plain base cast bullets, loaded to about 1500 f.p.s., the .32 Special was all some old timers ever took to the timber. I personally could go from now on with a clean .32 Spec. Winchester or Marlin 1930 -era carbine using cast loads only and be quite confident. It is still one of the least finicky lead load cartridges in a clean carbine.
Normally, the prescription for case necks is to trim to slightly less than SAAMI specifications. However, this may be considerably shorter than the actual neck length of the individual rifle chamber. Concern as to neck length arises primarily in connection with high pressure jacketed loads wherein an overlong case neck can be crimped by the chamber, thus causing pressure excur-sions. While this may be true, to a degree, with cast loads also, it is of more significance to cast load accura-cy that the case neck fills the full length of the chamber neck as closely as possible.
The idea here is to avoid giving the hot gases an opening to the sides of the bullet before it has complet-ed its entry into the bore proper. This moment during the bullet’s violent passage from the case neck through the throat and leade cone into the bore is a tough enough obstacle course without its being subject to a flank attack by hot high pressure gas.
After long consideration of this critical factor, the optimum case length for cast bullets seems to be about .005” less than chamber length. This also allows for lon-gitudinal case stretch upon firing. Cases which are to be full length re–sized should be trimmed .002” or .003” shorter than those which are neck sized only.
While many cartridges are not offenders in respect to neck stretch, ironically, a couple of very popular cast bullet rounds are among the worst, i.e., the .30-30 and the obsolete but very efficient .32 Special. It may all have started with the .32-40/.32 Special transition. When the .32-40 was converted to the new smokeless powder and given a jacketed bullet for use in rifles such as the 1894 Winchester etc., the standard loading was held down to about 1400 f.p.s. in deference to the many older rifles.
The .32 Special was just that. Due to the slow 16” twist you could load with black to .32 -40 ballistics, which many thought quite adequate in the East, or you could go full hell bent for Halloween to a little heavier than the .30-30 using smokeless powder and jacketed bullets. When reloaded, it would do anything the .30-30 would and at less pressure. With cast bullets in hunting alloy, it was six jumps ahead of the .30-30 because of its heav-ier, excellent standard bullet. This was the No. 321297GC weighing 188 grains in a medium 92-5-3 lead/tin/antimony alloy. Also, due to the long popularity of the older .32-40 as a target cartridge the array of .32 caliber plain base cast bullets was extensive. With one of these popular plain base cast bullets, loaded to about 1500 f.p.s., the .32 Special was all some old timers ever took to the timber. I personally could go from now on with a clean .32 Spec. Winchester or Marlin 1930 -era carbine using cast loads only and be quite confident. It is still one of the least finicky lead load cartridges in a clean carbine.
The .32 Spec. in its power class was considered by many to be quite superior to the .30-30 due to the heav-ier bullet. However, a few discouraging words from a couple of gun scribes who were always pushing Big Woods Blazer Heavy Hardware, helped to kill the fine .32 Special.
Soon after the .32 Special appeared in the sport shops, many calculators of gunnery “how-to-do” tricks found out that a .32-40 round slicked right on into the .32 Special chamber snug as in a Pope cut Ballard. I don’t think, judging from some old notes, that this was actually the Big Red W intent, but evidently they had considered this inevitable skullduggery as the .32 Spec. chamber would closely accept the longer .32- 40 case. This is according to SAAMI specifications and has been true for all I’ve checked or heard about, but you should check yours to be sure. Whether Winchester also considered this in connection with the .30-30, I can’t say. However, the SAAMI specs, both old and more recent, for the .30-30 also show neck length sufficient for the .32-40.
A related fact, whether by coincidence or design, is that a .32-40 round fired in the .32 Spec. will fire form to a 32 Spec. configuration having extra neck length which is just right for cast loads. This is also true of the .30-30 when a necked down .32-40 is used. This trick, back when .32-40 cases were common and cheap, and cast load economy was a big factor (as it soon will be again) gave the shooter who used it a noticeable edge in accu-racy along with a little more velocity due to the closer overall case to chamber fit so critical to cast bullet per-formance.
Today with .32-40 cases scarcer, although still avail-able as this is written, salvage .32 Spec. (or .30-30) cases even from your own rifle can be noticeably length-ened by trimming only to the extent required by your chamber. Instead of a fast trim job, check your chamber length carefully and trim accordingly. You too, may be very pleasantly rewarded.
In the Northeast where I lived in my early gunnery daze, the then popular 32 Spec. was considered a dual power factory load proposition due to its ability to digest either .32 -40 or .32 Spec. factory rounds. One could then reload to suit his needs using either the fire formed .32-40 case, the .32 Spec. case or the .30-30 case necked up.
The 32 Spec. reload options were very attractive, including all the cases mentioned above, plus several good cast bullets as well as factory jacket-ed pills. I actually knew an old woods wiz-ard who loaded his .32 Spec. with black powder and the standard 321232 plain base cast bullet because he didn’t have a scale for smokeless powder. He would scoop up a case-full of FFg black and then dump out some until he thought it was about to the base of the neck, and then proceed to seat his bullet.
He had a venison recipe that called for strips of ham meat cut about 1/2” thick dipped in milk and then swished around in pancake flour and fried in bacon grease. On a crisp November morning you could smell that for a mile just before dawn and I used to walk three country miles to his cabin for that breakfast treat and a day’s hunt. At that time I was carrying my Mod. 54 .30-30 carbine with the so-called ‘N.R.A. type” stock. This was an improve-ment on the original European style stocks on the early M-54’s and in my opinion, was the finest sporter stock ever bolted to an American rifle. It was not so bulky as the later M-70 stocks. My standard .30-30 load for the M-54 was the 308291GC bullet sized .311” in 92-5-3 LAT alloy ahead of 28 grains Hi-Vel #2. This gave me about 1900 f.p.s. and was a little faster than casters of the day advised. However, I used a graphite wad at the base of the bullet and a uniform amount of the graphite material on the bore riding nose and never had any barrel trouble, even after a belt-full plink-out session.
I also had a light load for off-season economy con-sisting of the same bullet minus the gas check in front of 10 grains of Unique. This load gave about 1400 f.p.s. and would cut one ragged hole at 50 yards over iron sights. The old woods wizard noted that fact one evening while we were doing a little fun shooting and allowed that he had been thinking that he was about ready to switch to that “newfangled” smokeless powder anyhow. This was in 1934.
He had no loading tools other than an Ideal nut-cracker with the attached mould and the double adjustable seating chamber. He shot the bullet unsized from the mould at about .322” and lubed with axle grease applied with a toothpick. That and his eyeballed charge of black powder.
I gave him a half -pound can of Unique together with a .30-30 case cut to hold 10 grains level full and with a wire soldered on for a handle. This was his load there-after. It was about equivalent to his black powder load and was accurate in his .32 Spec. to a degree not believed possible by the old Timber Topper. I also gave him some Lyman lube and showed him the cake-cut method. This was easy for him to work on his wood stove where he melted his lead-tin mix of 16 to 1. In those days, a rule of thumb formula for alloy was to match the parts of lead to the twist rate of the barrel in which the bullet was to be shot. The 16” twist in the 32 Spec. handled that 1-16 alloy okay at 1300 to 1400 f.p.s. with the bullet mushrooming perfectly to about .50 cal-iber. The old boy cast nice bullets, and he always had plenty of prime venison.
One day the old fellow allowed he didn’t trust himself any more to load the smokeless powder because he was absent minded and afraid he’d double charged a few cases. Anyhow, he was smart enough not to shoot that batch and when we broke ‘em down sure enough, he’d done just that. While we were at it, we realized that he had been using a batch of cases originally loaded with mercuric primers. That was another problem of that era, as it made the brass brittle and dangerous. So we start-ed fresh.
I had recently been the beneficiary of a hardware store that went down with the depression to the extent of few cheap boxes of .32-40 Western factory loads. These were Non-Mercuric Non-Corrosive primed and were standard velocity with a 165 grain jacketed bullet. There was always a chance to pick up some give-away price ammo, if you stayed alert, not to mention the gun bargains if you had a few bucks in those desperate days. It was common then to find as-new M94 Winchesters for $14.00 and ammo such as the .32-40 I found for 50¢ a box.
Soon after the .32 Special appeared in the sport shops, many calculators of gunnery “how-to-do” tricks found out that a .32-40 round slicked right on into the .32 Special chamber snug as in a Pope cut Ballard. I don’t think, judging from some old notes, that this was actually the Big Red W intent, but evidently they had considered this inevitable skullduggery as the .32 Spec. chamber would closely accept the longer .32- 40 case. This is according to SAAMI specifications and has been true for all I’ve checked or heard about, but you should check yours to be sure. Whether Winchester also considered this in connection with the .30-30, I can’t say. However, the SAAMI specs, both old and more recent, for the .30-30 also show neck length sufficient for the .32-40.
A related fact, whether by coincidence or design, is that a .32-40 round fired in the .32 Spec. will fire form to a 32 Spec. configuration having extra neck length which is just right for cast loads. This is also true of the .30-30 when a necked down .32-40 is used. This trick, back when .32-40 cases were common and cheap, and cast load economy was a big factor (as it soon will be again) gave the shooter who used it a noticeable edge in accu-racy along with a little more velocity due to the closer overall case to chamber fit so critical to cast bullet per-formance.
Today with .32-40 cases scarcer, although still avail-able as this is written, salvage .32 Spec. (or .30-30) cases even from your own rifle can be noticeably length-ened by trimming only to the extent required by your chamber. Instead of a fast trim job, check your chamber length carefully and trim accordingly. You too, may be very pleasantly rewarded.
In the Northeast where I lived in my early gunnery daze, the then popular 32 Spec. was considered a dual power factory load proposition due to its ability to digest either .32 -40 or .32 Spec. factory rounds. One could then reload to suit his needs using either the fire formed .32-40 case, the .32 Spec. case or the .30-30 case necked up.
The 32 Spec. reload options were very attractive, including all the cases mentioned above, plus several good cast bullets as well as factory jacket-ed pills. I actually knew an old woods wiz-ard who loaded his .32 Spec. with black powder and the standard 321232 plain base cast bullet because he didn’t have a scale for smokeless powder. He would scoop up a case-full of FFg black and then dump out some until he thought it was about to the base of the neck, and then proceed to seat his bullet.
He had a venison recipe that called for strips of ham meat cut about 1/2” thick dipped in milk and then swished around in pancake flour and fried in bacon grease. On a crisp November morning you could smell that for a mile just before dawn and I used to walk three country miles to his cabin for that breakfast treat and a day’s hunt. At that time I was carrying my Mod. 54 .30-30 carbine with the so-called ‘N.R.A. type” stock. This was an improve-ment on the original European style stocks on the early M-54’s and in my opinion, was the finest sporter stock ever bolted to an American rifle. It was not so bulky as the later M-70 stocks. My standard .30-30 load for the M-54 was the 308291GC bullet sized .311” in 92-5-3 LAT alloy ahead of 28 grains Hi-Vel #2. This gave me about 1900 f.p.s. and was a little faster than casters of the day advised. However, I used a graphite wad at the base of the bullet and a uniform amount of the graphite material on the bore riding nose and never had any barrel trouble, even after a belt-full plink-out session.
I also had a light load for off-season economy con-sisting of the same bullet minus the gas check in front of 10 grains of Unique. This load gave about 1400 f.p.s. and would cut one ragged hole at 50 yards over iron sights. The old woods wizard noted that fact one evening while we were doing a little fun shooting and allowed that he had been thinking that he was about ready to switch to that “newfangled” smokeless powder anyhow. This was in 1934.
He had no loading tools other than an Ideal nut-cracker with the attached mould and the double adjustable seating chamber. He shot the bullet unsized from the mould at about .322” and lubed with axle grease applied with a toothpick. That and his eyeballed charge of black powder.
I gave him a half -pound can of Unique together with a .30-30 case cut to hold 10 grains level full and with a wire soldered on for a handle. This was his load there-after. It was about equivalent to his black powder load and was accurate in his .32 Spec. to a degree not believed possible by the old Timber Topper. I also gave him some Lyman lube and showed him the cake-cut method. This was easy for him to work on his wood stove where he melted his lead-tin mix of 16 to 1. In those days, a rule of thumb formula for alloy was to match the parts of lead to the twist rate of the barrel in which the bullet was to be shot. The 16” twist in the 32 Spec. handled that 1-16 alloy okay at 1300 to 1400 f.p.s. with the bullet mushrooming perfectly to about .50 cal-iber. The old boy cast nice bullets, and he always had plenty of prime venison.
One day the old fellow allowed he didn’t trust himself any more to load the smokeless powder because he was absent minded and afraid he’d double charged a few cases. Anyhow, he was smart enough not to shoot that batch and when we broke ‘em down sure enough, he’d done just that. While we were at it, we realized that he had been using a batch of cases originally loaded with mercuric primers. That was another problem of that era, as it made the brass brittle and dangerous. So we start-ed fresh.
I had recently been the beneficiary of a hardware store that went down with the depression to the extent of few cheap boxes of .32-40 Western factory loads. These were Non-Mercuric Non-Corrosive primed and were standard velocity with a 165 grain jacketed bullet. There was always a chance to pick up some give-away price ammo, if you stayed alert, not to mention the gun bargains if you had a few bucks in those desperate days. It was common then to find as-new M94 Winchesters for $14.00 and ammo such as the .32-40 I found for 50¢ a box.
First, I ascertained his chamber length using a fired case from a .32-40. This was to be sure that the case mouth wasn’t curled inward when fully chambered in the .32 Spec. I have yet to see a .32 Spec. chamber which was too short in this respect, but as I said earlier, check yours if you try this. If yours is short, trim the cases to .005” behind the start of the inward curl and in fire form-ing they will shorten back to about .010” short of full chamber length.
I filled the old timer’s mills belt with 45 of these fac-tory jacketed loads and we used 15 rounds left of the third box to sight him in at 50 yards. He liked those loads next best to his reloads of 10 grains Unique and his old plain base cast bullet, but using the fire -formed .32-40 cases. From the fun and check shooting we did, I noted a surprising improvement in accuracy by using the neck filling .32-40 cases in his .32 Spec. carbine.
We then checked out this neck factor on .30-30 rifles and the results convinced us of its importance in attain-ing top cast load accuracy. It would often shrink the groups by as much as one third. The .32-40/.32 Spec. combination was more versatile however, due to the greater available variety of cast bullets. The premier bullet, then and now, was the Lyman 321297. This design was of good weight at 188 grains in a hunting alloy of 92-5-3 L-A-T, and factory load energy was easily surpassed at less than factory pressure. This was due no doubt to the fact that cast and lubed bullets offer less bore resistance than jacketed bullets.
I filled the old timer’s mills belt with 45 of these fac-tory jacketed loads and we used 15 rounds left of the third box to sight him in at 50 yards. He liked those loads next best to his reloads of 10 grains Unique and his old plain base cast bullet, but using the fire -formed .32-40 cases. From the fun and check shooting we did, I noted a surprising improvement in accuracy by using the neck filling .32-40 cases in his .32 Spec. carbine.
We then checked out this neck factor on .30-30 rifles and the results convinced us of its importance in attain-ing top cast load accuracy. It would often shrink the groups by as much as one third. The .32-40/.32 Spec. combination was more versatile however, due to the greater available variety of cast bullets. The premier bullet, then and now, was the Lyman 321297. This design was of good weight at 188 grains in a hunting alloy of 92-5-3 L-A-T, and factory load energy was easily surpassed at less than factory pressure. This was due no doubt to the fact that cast and lubed bullets offer less bore resistance than jacketed bullets.
The .32 Spec. offers a slight cross sectional advan-tage over the .30 calibers in equivalent loading. This was insignificant on paper, but noticeable on game, if one wit-nessed it as often as we did. The .35 calibers point this effect up even more spectacularly.
We used then the medium burning powders such as Hi-Vel #2, 4064, 4320, and 3031. Hi-Vel #2 is no longer available but 3031 is now I think the best powder to duplicate the top cast load performance of the old Hi-Vel #2 in the .32 Spec. Using the 321297 bullet and working up loads carefully out of respect for the springy M94 and Marlin actions, 2000 plus f.p.s. was easily attained with very good accuracy and no excess case stretch.
The 321297 is supposed to have a bore -riding nose but often is just shy of .313” which is about average for a .32 Spec. bore. It shoots proportionately to its fit in this critical dimension.
I bumped the nose up to fit the .32 Spec. but found the nose snug enough as it came from my mould to fit a .32-40 with a .311” bore and .319” groove diameter.
The 16” twist of the 32 Spec. undoubtedly was a fac-tor in achieving this high velocity successfully using mild bullet alloy and at reasonable pressures, even with the old style Lyman lube. I have heard it said that bullet spin per second is a lethal factor, although I know of no deer, or black bear either, that ever noticed it. If spin does real-ly make a difference, I suggest that the softer bullet alloy permitted by the slower twist barrel would more than compensate for it.
We found it easier to realize 2000 plus f.p.s. using cast bullets in good hunting alloy from the .32 Spec. than from the .30-30 or .303 Savage. At normal woods ranges, the .32 Spec, when given the full accuracy treat-ment, including proper full-length neck fit, is second to none as a cast load natural.
We used then the medium burning powders such as Hi-Vel #2, 4064, 4320, and 3031. Hi-Vel #2 is no longer available but 3031 is now I think the best powder to duplicate the top cast load performance of the old Hi-Vel #2 in the .32 Spec. Using the 321297 bullet and working up loads carefully out of respect for the springy M94 and Marlin actions, 2000 plus f.p.s. was easily attained with very good accuracy and no excess case stretch.
The 321297 is supposed to have a bore -riding nose but often is just shy of .313” which is about average for a .32 Spec. bore. It shoots proportionately to its fit in this critical dimension.
I bumped the nose up to fit the .32 Spec. but found the nose snug enough as it came from my mould to fit a .32-40 with a .311” bore and .319” groove diameter.
The 16” twist of the 32 Spec. undoubtedly was a fac-tor in achieving this high velocity successfully using mild bullet alloy and at reasonable pressures, even with the old style Lyman lube. I have heard it said that bullet spin per second is a lethal factor, although I know of no deer, or black bear either, that ever noticed it. If spin does real-ly make a difference, I suggest that the softer bullet alloy permitted by the slower twist barrel would more than compensate for it.
We found it easier to realize 2000 plus f.p.s. using cast bullets in good hunting alloy from the .32 Spec. than from the .30-30 or .303 Savage. At normal woods ranges, the .32 Spec, when given the full accuracy treat-ment, including proper full-length neck fit, is second to none as a cast load natural.