Advanced Bunny Gun Project Concept

This brain fart started because I screwed up.  Back when I sent a .32 S&W Long REVOLVER reamer to John Taylor to make my very first .32 S&W Long Bunny Gun.

The gun shot fine, but its chamber had a revolver style, .315” diameter, cylindrical ball seat about 0.4” long! This was fine to seat bullets out to gain powder capacity, but I really have never been into “hot” loads accuracy was not as good as I had hoped for using my normal .32 S&W Long revolver loads.  The whole purpose was to use the same small game ammo in rifle and revolver. Having to do special rifle loads defeats the purpose.

John later reground that reamer to produce a normal “rifle type” throat, having a .313” ball seat and a 1 degree, 30 minutes Basic (3 degrees for the total included angle) forcing cone.  He used this to chamber my Army & Navy Cooperative Society rook rifle, which he relined for me to .32 S&W Long.  That rifle has shot splendidly, so well in fact that I sent my 18” .32 ACP barrel for the H&R single-shot to him to have it rechambered to .32 S&W Long as well, and that work exceeded all expectations.  

I still have a .32 ACP bunny rifle, but it's a Remington 580 single-shot bolt action, reworked by Andy Evens, which scratches THAT itch.   I call it my Bunny Sniper.  It doesn't need a “can” it is so quiet.... With the Accurate 31-087T bullet and 1.5 grains of Bullseye it is like a .30 cal. CB Cap.

Anyway, going back to the original revolver throated .32 S&W Long Bunny Gun barrel, I punched out the chamber to .32 H&R Magnum to experiment with that a while.  The long cylindrical throat was still 0.3” long, but it shot very well with H&R Magnum ammo.  No real difference with .32 S&W Long revolver loads, acceptable but “ordinary.” The Marlin Cowboy lever-action in .32 H&R Magnum was heavier and less accurate than the single-shot Bunny Guns, so I lost interest and sold it.

My 4-5/8” Ruger Single-Six in .32 H&R Magnum shot very well with either .32 S&W Longs or H&R Mags, but after Ruger discontinued the model, values went up, and a fellow shooter made me an attractive offer, so the Single-Six and Marlin combo went away.  I've never been enthralled with hotter varmint or small game loads which disturb the quiet of the woods.  My D-frame Colts fit easily in a coat pocket and were much handier in the woods than the Ruger.

I have owned several .32-20 revolvers in the past, but none were as accurate as the .32 Longs and the guns were larger and heavier.  I had assembled a K32 “parts gun” using a round-butt S&W Model 15 frame and a K32 cylinder I lucked into at the Richmond gun show about 10 years ago.  A chunk of .30 cal. rifle barrel was fitted to the frame, slab sided, and a ball cranelock installed, producing a .32 PPC revolver scaled to Bunny Wabbit proportions.  This has become one of my favorite guns and shot so well I sold off my pre-war Colt Officer's Model Target in .32 Colt New Police to a collector, to finance “tinkering” projects....

John Taylor and I were chatting and he mentioned that he was doing a gun for a customer using .357 Magnum brass necked to .30 cal. using .300 AAC Blackout dies.   I pondered my too-long, revolver throated rook rifle and my K32 parts gun and thought, why not do the same thing using .38 Special brass!  This should permit ballistics like the .32 H&R Magnum or .32-20, but at mild, standard .38 Special pressures, using modest charges of Bullseye.  Again, I have no interest in hot small game loads.  My objective is to work up a charge with Bullseye, probably 3.0-3.2 grains which is accurate with a heavy for the caliber, .32 revolver bullet at “Eley Tenex” rifle velocity (1050-1080 fps) and let the revolver velocity fall where it will, probably not much over 800 fps. Quite enough.   Quiet and accurate is the goal.

My plan is to have John shorten a set of Lee .300 Blackout dies by 0.22” and neck down .38 Specials, short-chambering the rook rifle barrel and S&W cylinder with his Blackout reamer stopped short to use the necked down .38 Special cases. 

I spoke with Tom at Accurate molds about cutting a mold similar to 31-114D, but heavier, about 130-135 grains, as heavy as will stabilize in a 16” twist barrel at subsonic velocity, which would  fill the Blackout throat, and also exploit the K-frame cylinder length, without any intrusion of the bullet base below the short Blackout neck.

The result is the Accurate 31-134D, which is now in the online catalog.  It should be a dandy bullet for those wanting a longer slug to seat out in .32 S&W Long brass for use in the 32 H&R Magnum, or in H&R Mag. brass for use in the .327 Federal.  Also a dandy small game bullet for the .303 British with a nose long enough to feed!