Wheelgun Wednesday: .32 S&W Long
I was going to finish off the Wheelgun Wednesday series with a post about .32 caliber revolvers but I want actually write a separate entry for each round. So we’re going to have a few more of these but they’re all going to focus on a one way interchangeable family of cartridges and we’ll start with the smallest first. Well, technically the second smallest but we’ll get to that.
Remember in revolvers when we say “one way interchangeable” we mean that a revolver chambered for one cartridge can chamber and fire smaller, often precursor, cartridges safely but guns chambered for the precursor cartridge can’t chamber the larger ones. So a .357 magnum revolver can safely chamber and fire any .38 Special ammunition because the .357 magnum was created by lengthening the .38 Special cartridge to hold more powder. But the reverse isn’t true - even if you could get a .357 to work in a .38 it wouldn’t be safe to do so.
The .32 family of revolvers goes from the seldom scene (and irrelevant for our purposes) .32 S&W to the newish .327 Magnum. In between you have the .32 H&R Magnum and the subject of our post the .32 S&W Long. I’m ignoring the .32 S&W because I’ve only seen one box of it in the wild and those were black powder blanks. But I’ve seen, shot and purchased hundreds of .32 Longs.
So some info on the round from American Handgunner:
Before the .38 Special became ubiquitous, the moderately powered .32 S&W Long and .38 S&W were popular. Colt, reluctant to stamp the name of their primary competitor on their revolvers, called these cartridges the .32 and .38 Colt New Police. Many thousands of quality Colt and S&W revolvers were chambered for these cartridges. But, in the early 20th century many inexpensive break-top revolvers were also chambered for these cartridges. In old mail-order catalogs they were advertised for around $3 to $4. The “steel” was little more than soft iron, not heat treated, and they had delicate lock-work components. Most you find today don’t function.
With so many old and weak revolvers floating around, factory loads in .32 and .38 S&W are modest. Currently the Winchester website lists .32 S&W Long with a 98-gr. LRN bullet at 705 fps.
[…]
The .32 Long enjoys some popularity as a target round — Federal offers a 98-gr. WC load at 780 fps. Though not intended as a defensive load, it’s wadcutter profile would at least cut a hole rather than just push through. I’m not sold on the .32 Long as a defensive round but I’d use Federal’s WC load to shoot a skunk in a trap — from a good safe distance!
While the author here is unimpressed by the round people at the time were not. They considered it effective enough but more importantly a more “shootable” round than other cartridges. Even Teddy Roosevelt advocated for it:
The .32 Smith and Wesson Cartridge dates from the late 1870s and was a ubiquitous presence in the various single and double action pocket pistols manufactured up until World War II. The Long variation came along in 1896 with the introduction of Smith and Wesson’s first hand ejector revolver. It received a jump-start as a police cartridge when Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt acquired the Colt New Police revolver as the standard arm for the New York City Police Department. Roosevelt was deeply impressed by the extremely poor marksmanship of the NYC officers and it seems likely that he chose the .32 for its light recoil rather than any great regard for the small bore as Man-Stopper. Whatever the reasoning, the Colt and Smith .32 Longs were quickly adopted by several northeastern police agencies and the cartridge remained a police standard for some time to come. The round proved very accurate and gained worldwide acceptance as a target cartridge. Colt, Smith and Wesson, Charter Arms, Taurus and others produced substantial numbers of .32 S&W Long /Colt New Police revolvers right up until the development of the .32 H&R Magnum Cartridge.
Chuck Hawks describes the round thusly:
The .32 S&W Long is a 100 year old revolver cartridge that would be obsolete except for its excellent accuracy and the fact that it can serve as an understudy to both the .32 H&R Magnum and the .327 Magnum. In the early 20th Century, the .32 Long (along with the .38 S&W) was a reasonably popular police service cartridge; eventually it was replaced for police use by the much more effective .38 Special.
Factory loads are available from Federal, Remington, and Winchester. They are all similar. Winchester figures show a 98 grain lead round nose bullet at a muzzle velocity (MV) of 705 fps from a 4 inch revolver barrel. This relatively feeble load delivers 115 ft. lbs. of muzzle energy (ME). Of course, at this velocity there is ordinarily no bullet expansion. That load has a 2.3 inch mid-range trajectory over 50 yards. This is the general purpose load.
[…]
The target loads shown for the 98 grain wadcutter bullet in the Speer Reloading Manual No. 13 delivered a MV of 674 fps on top of 1.6 grains of Bullseye powder, and 1.8 grains of Bullseye gave a MV of 777 fps. These loads used Remington brass and CCI 500 primers, and were chronographed in a 4" barrel. Such loads would be my choice for general purpose use if I owned a good .32 S&W Long revolver. At 750+ fps the 98 grain wadcutter bullet ought to make a pretty good small game cartridge out to about 50 yards.
Preppers are starting to see the point here amongst the negativity. For us the .32 S&W Long is a good replacement for .22 LR if you’re going to be doing the kinds of outdoor activities people want .22s for (running traplines for example) or can be used by recoil sensitive family members. This gives you more defensive capability while not doing too much meat or fur damage to small game. It’s also mild enough to be used around the farm (carefully) on predatory vermin and varmints.
I first shot a .32 long out of my .327 and loved the round. But from my .327 (Charter Arms Patriot) some of the wadcutters would keyhole. Eventually I bought an old H&R Guardsmen revolver chambered in .32 S&W Long which I love. It’s a double action revolver with a 4 inch barrel marketed to security guards in the mid 20th century. In a gun properly chambered for it the .32 Long is a true tack driver.
.32s perform well in some test done by revolver guys:
The minimal recoil of the round cannot be understated. From a snub-nosed revolver I felt the same recoil firing .32s as I did firing .22 LR from a full sized single action with a 5 inch barrel. This alone makes it worth owning one and makes training very pleasant.
The ammo also used to be cost effective but now it’s about a dollar a round. For perspective during the last ammo shortage under Obama I was getting 50 round boxes for $15. Now you can find the same boxes around $35 on sale.
The guns however are very cheap to make up for this. Think $150-300 range for good ones like Smith and Wesson. My Guardsman cost me about $130.
So for the prepper what does the .32 S&W long bring to the table:
Light recoiling centerfire round that can stand in for .22s for bushcrafting, trapping and garden gun duty.
A good platform for frail or elderly people who usually get saddled with .22s or for new gun owners who are recoil sensitive but may need to defend themselves.
While not as light as .22 ammo it’s light enough for woodsrunners to carry a few hundred rounds.
Great for target practice in guns chambered for more powerful .32 mag and .327
The majority revolvers in this are small, quick handling double action guns that are easy to get comfortable with.
The negatives - it’s a .32 long. The round was considered an OK defensive round for the time it was invented but time has passed it by. On the other hand it outpaces the .22 LR and .25 ACP in power and people use those two rounds all the time.
I recommend it as a bug out bag gun or as a back up gun if you like the round. My go to round is a Fiocchi 97 grain FMJ but I do have a lot of wadcutters as well. The FMJ just leaves my guns cleaner. Right now Sellier and Bellot 100 grain wadcutters are at Midway USA for $35 per box of 50.
My .32 also is our “glovebox” gun. This is an extra gun I tuck in the car just in case. .32 revolvers are so plentiful on the used market I don’t feel like I’d die if it was stolen.
Another plus is that many people worry about overpenetration of home defense and this probably will allay the fears of people like.
I just wanted background info on this for the next instalment. Bottom line is you could do worse than your grandpa’s .32 but it’s more of a utility homestead round than a serious defensive round. I wouldn’t want to to be my only gun but I wouldn’t feel unarmed if it was.