New .32 Rimfire Ammo!

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jeffreyguy

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Recently I picked up an antique .32 rimfire revolver and naturally I wanted to shoot it. My search for pre loaded ammo came up with nothing new or cheap enough to shoot without breaking the bank. The only option after that was to buy the reloadabke cases, but I didnt like the offset blank that meant I had to align each cartridge in the cylinder. I found that a .27 ramset blank available from most hardware stores was big enough to be hit by the hammer, but much smaller than the chamber, so I lathe turned some adaptors with the same outside dimensions as a 32 cartridge, but the inside diameter was the same as the od of the blank. Then I seated a .310 round ball on top of the case and fired it like a regular round. This worked fine, bit it was taking me more than 20 minutes each so I couldn't make an appreciable amount. Then I heard that a 32 short colt is the same dimensions as the rimfire version and could be drilled out, but brass in that caliber is nearly impossible to get in Canada.
Finally I stumbled on a solution while I was in canadian tire looking at brake lines. The od of a 5/16 steel brake line is a perfect match to that of a .32 cartridge, and the flare on the end looked sorta like a rim. The id was too small for the blank, so I just drilled it out on the milling machine. A regular flare made too big of a rim, and it was angled and just not the right shape, so I made myself a set of three hardened steel dies to progressively work the end of the tube into a perfect rim. Then the blank is seated and held in by friction alone like a regular primer, and a .310 lead ball is seated with a few taps of a hammer. Ive made about 50 so far and they should be able to be reloaded almost indefinitely because theres no head to seperate and it has a straight wall. If someone can help me figure out how to post an attachment ill be happy to put up a couple pictures
 
you will have to load your images up to an image hosting site like picasa etc. then post the link like this

link [img]

in picasa i select the size 800px and check the image only box then copy that link into the above. clear as mud?
 
If you're going through the trouble of making an adaptor/inert on the lathe to fit a ram set 27cal blank into a 32cal barrel there is not much metal left on thickness of wall ? Why not make it for a 22cal and shoot shot shells only ? much safer !
Before everyone jumps on this about 22 not antique talk.......I know !!
 
Ok ill give the picasa thing a try. I was originally going to just convert it to.22 but id like to keep it as an antique. There is a fair amount of wall thickness and theres no pressure on the case itself as it is supported by the chamber wall. They seem to shoot all right too.
 
Good thinking.

I wonder how much pop will come back around the too-hard case because it doesn't expand to seal the chamber. Copper pipe maybe.

Keep it up!
 
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Nice truck by the way. :)
 
Thanks, I couldn't figure out how to do that on my phone. That truck has been a work in progress for the last year and a half.
 
Last batch of new made .32RF that I recall was made by CBC and marketed by Navy Arms..
They also had .41RF made. Apparently it was a bit hot, and resulted in some cracked Remington Derringer hinges.

I cannot understand why someone has not had runs of .25, 32, 38 and .44 rimfire made. There has got to be a market.
As far as that goes, reintroduction of .25 Stevens Long rimfire would make sense. It was an excellent cartridge. Would be at least as useful as the little .17s.
 
Well unfortunately I don't have the equipment to draw a case from sheet to make a proper rimfire cartridge, but at least this way being formed from tube, it actually has been drawn in a similar way to commercial brass, which keeps the grain aligned and the rim is work hardened, while the rest of the case is still soft.
 
Nothing wrong with your method. It is a good one. I have found that if .32 Short Colt brass is drilled and counter bored for the blanks, there isn't much holding the rims on. Drawn with a formed flange is much stronger. If copper or brass tube were available in the appropriate size, quantity production could be practical.
 
Funny you mention the brass tube, I just ordered some seamless brass tube with a wall that would require much less material removal for the blank. The brass should form much nicer than the steel and expand properly to prevent gas leakage, It should show up in 5-9 business days and I will keep you posted with the results
 
tiriaq said:
Last batch of new made .32RF that I recall was made by CBC and marketed by Navy Arms..
They also had .41RF made. Apparently it was a bit hot, and resulted in some cracked Remington Derringer hinges.

I cannot understand why someone has not had runs of .25, 32, 38 and .44 rimfire made. There has got to be a market.
As far as that goes, reintroduction of .25 Stevens Long rimfire would make sense. It was an excellent cartridge. Would be at least as useful as the little .17s.
Click to expand...
Some .44 rimfire would put life back into some very old guns. I'd sure like a few.
 
What I would suggest is first to use 22 longrifle shells with the bullet pulled as your primer. I would also suggest using a feeler guage to check the gap between your cylinder and the recoil shield of your gun. If you are lucky, it will be a little loose and greater than .065". Lucky because that would give you enough room to make a lathe turned case with the rim of the 22 shell only partially enclosed. If the 22 shell is sitting .005 - .010 proud, you will not need to cut a notch in the rim of the turned case to allow the firing pin to hit the primer. The other worry of course is whether or not your pin will actually hit the primer. With my bicycle rifle I had to modify the gun to accept an oval shaped blade and make a new firing pin to match. Many of the revolvers however had blades rather than pins and are more forgiving of the location of the primer

cheers mooncoon
 
I tried .22 shells first, but the rim wasn't big enough to be consistently hit by the firing pin, and the blank im using seems to work fine by itself qs the powder load
 
This is topical because I picked up some 5/16" drawn brass tubing at the hobby store the other day thinking the same thing; the .27 cal Ramset fits in but loosely but the bullet is as you indicate, nice tight fit; and my plan was to simply wrap it in tape. The O.D. mics the same as my .32 SC brass so... In my case I can't get anything less than Green color Ramsets which seem a little hot on their own for my revolver (maybe OK with a ball in my Stevens) so I usually cut them off dump the powder and use em as a primer - when you say you are using yours as the power load only what color Ramset are you using? If you have found Brown or White I'd love to find out where, even eBay seems to have dried up. There is a great thread on castboolits on exactly this topic too, something like 30 pages of R&D/Trial and Error from one or two retired guys, forming brass from different parent cases - and also running loads (including PTLs alone) through chronographs. Well worth the read.
 
Found two sizes of 5/16" tubing listed. Aircraftspruce has it with .028 wall, and K-S with .014.
 
I got the stuff with the 0. 28 wall because it left me a little material to drill out to get a press fit on the blank. I tried the steel tube without a rim, just the blank at first, but the cartridge didn't protrude far enough from the cylinder to be hit by the hammer. I have just been using the green blanks on their own mostly, and it seems a little hot, but I dont notice any excess wear yet. I also tried unveiling the blank and filling the case with fffg pyrodex and that worked satisfactorily, but it was much dirtier.
 
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