I had an idea a short while ago when looking at the 7.65mm French Long.
Someone told me that you can use the 32S&W long casing to build the rimless casing of the other one...they trim the casing to be rimless then it is shortened to 19.5mm.
I am simply wondering...why bother shortening it? Leave it at 23mm then take a standard 32S&W long reload die...change the rim clasp to one meant for the new rimless design(same one used for the 7.65mm long)...then replace the bullet seating button with one from 32ACP for seating HP bullets and other jacketed bullets.
Load a 32 or 30 cal 95-110 gr hp up to 1250 fps...in the same space of a 1911 45acp 8rd mag you can then get 20 shots of the new cartridge.
But considering it is a pipsqueek cartridge, if ever it had to be used for law enforcement you might actually need all 20 shots and then some...just a rambling thought.
The original 7.65mm French Longue had marginal performance in battlefield conditions like the 7.63mm mauser/7.62mm tokarev and the 30 luger but that was primarily because of using FMJ's that were too stable upon penetration.
For personal defense when these cartridges are loaded with HP's they seem to perform much better. My thought was to simply eliminate the the excess thickness of the other casings and elongate the original 7.65mmFL so that a thinner backup pistol could be the end result.
A single stack pistol of this new cartridge could end up being about 3/4'' thick overall while a double stack would still be thinner than most 9mm auto's. Take for instance the excessive thickness of the Glocks and SIGs(still a favorite of mine). The Glock is about 1.25'' thick overall while the SIG 226/228 are 1.5'' thick at the handle near the slide catch(although the slide is still much thinner). The only other option for ''thin'' would an STI 9mm 1911A1, overall thickness being just around an inch. Having said that though I could still see one of the smaller single stack 9mm pistols filling the gap.
If I could see what the cartridge would do to gel/blocks it might have a limited market.
Plus I have seen many wildcats that have found themselves to do something better than other cartridges for the intended job and they also have found themselves to reside in the obscurity of history after about a decade or so. One cartridge I have seen recently is the necked down 380ACP to 32 calibre...the 32 NAA. Considering that its performance is almost identical to the 7.65mm FL, they still went ahead and made a new one anyway. But in this case performance isnt the only factor. They made a cartridge that could allow the pistols chambered in 380 to be changed with the swap of a barrel to the new 32NAA. I hear thet the same manufacturer is also about to release a necked down 32ACP to 25 cal; although I cant see this one rivalling the 5.7X28 it might still make a good squirrel gun, but then again so would a 22LR pistol :roll: .
Here is an article on the 32NAA.
http://www.handgunsmag.com/ammunition/32_0924/
I would plan to have the loaded cartridge set to the same overall length as a 45acp. One could build a mag tube die that would fit internally inside the 1911 mag and then simply form the feed lips for the new casing, leaving a double stack with single feed at the top. End capacity would be around 18-20rds(pinned to 10 of course :wink: ).
Rather than building a new slide from scratch just take an older 1911 slide and cut out the entire rear end(bolt face, firing pin and extractor space, etc) so that it is internally the same dimensional width as the front(or so). Then build a breech block similar to the kind made by SIG, and just "pin" it in place. A chunk of steel would have to protrude above the breech block through a hole cut into the slide so as to alleviate pressure from the "pin" instead to the slide itself. Then get a barrel made to fit the 1911 in the new calibre, voila.
I have even designed (but not built yet) a simple casing cutter that uses a sewing machine motor and a solid lathed block to hold the casing while being cut; a miniature lathe for cutting 32S&W casings into the new calibre. It also will have a chuck on the other end with a free spinning blocking device that fits into the primer cap space to stop the casing from moving laterally. The cutting tool would also have a small retension wheel(free spinning) on the side to stop the cutter from moving too far forward, allowing for quicker cuts.
Any thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated, input anyone?
Peckerwood