Why no 32 Super Auto?

They already make one or two in .22 MAG. That along with the limited intrest in 327 and 32 H&R MAG power guns.

I think because you need a 9mm sized frame to get the benefits of 9mm pressures. For 327 fed its unique in that it buys you a 6th shot vs 357, but would 32 auto the size of a hellcat or p365 with 14-15rd flush and 16-17rd extended pinky really sell vs. Smaller 380 or larger 9mm?

North American Arms tried a "hot-32". It just never really took off, as it was intended for the company's own pocket-class pistol. Had either the pistol or the calibe been a better seller, I'm certain NAA would have released the round for use in other makers' guns.

Given today's climate (especially!), it would be foolhardy to try to introduce a new cartridge for ammunition makers to have to produce, and then expect the gun manufacturers to step up and adapt, which would be a gamble in itself.

You know, I used to wonder about this myself years ago. I was shopping around for a sub-compact ultra light pistol years ago and wondered how possible it would be for someone to create a slightly lengthened rimless .32 auto with energies falling between a .380acp and 9mm (such as a 75gr JSP at 1250-1300 FPS from a sub 3" barrel). Of course being rimless eliminates rimlock and a double stack capacity of 13+ rounds could be possible.

Not ideal for defense, but I would imagine a 13+1 ".327 Super" with the above ballistic in something the size of a Taurus LCP or Spectrum to be superior to the P32 with any loading while being nearly as concealable. Prove it can provide 12+ inches in ballistic gelatin while exhibiting even the slightest of expansion and I'm sure it would make waves and sell.

Some will cite the .327 Federal Magnum's lack of momentum in the market to be an indicator for possible failure of such a venture. However, the .327mag, while respectably landing between the .38special and .357mag in energy, only provides one additional round. Aware of the impossibility of it, had Federal and Ruger teamed up and used some sci-fi witchcraft to pack in double the capacity (10-12 rounds) of their .327mag in an SP101, it certainly would have graced many a gun rag's cover and flown off the shelves.

Hotter than a .380acp in the same sized platform with well over twice the capacity would be the required recipe to be successful, IMO.

bersaguy said:

CZ could introduce it as a Colt 32 Super and roll out a 18 round double stack 1911

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Bingo! Thats why the “Super” moniker as well, it fits with all the other 1911 cartridges.

Now, who takes my money?

BTDT
7.92mm VBR and 7mm Penna

Jim Watson said:

BTDT
7.92mm VBR and 7mm Penna

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Either WAAAAYY too long and/or a bottleneck cartridge. The 7.92 VBR has ballistics similar to what I'd want to see, but has a case length of 24mm and an OAL of 32.4mm (slightly longer than a 10mm). The 7mm Penna is leaning even more in the wrong direction at 34.5mm OAL. That's going to make for a lengthy grip.

The OP and I may not be on the same page but a cartridge resembling the .30 Peterson/7.65x20 Longue in size and with ballistics landing in the 280ish ft/lbs range in a compact package is closer to the target.

It'll likely never happen, but I would lose money if it does.

Pulled from TFB

.30-06 Springfield, 3 versions of 30 Peterson/7.65x20, .32acp and .45acp

Kleanbore said:

There was the 7.65 Longue
Single stack.

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Wrong, double stack. Feel free to come to my house and handle several of them, the Savage 1907 pistol.

As much as I like .32 ACP, I am suspect of any sort of 'improvement' in the cartridge. Such would require a new pistol. The now existing .32 ACP platform would not handle the pressure suitably. The blow back action would not handle the pressure suitably. It might turn an existing arm into a trigger actuated hand grenade on the first shot, but such pressure would quickly cause problems including breakage.
In addition, presuming a suitable pistol of suitable size could be built, the power would be rather limited. One might attain higher velocities and therefore, higher kinetic energy, at the cost of higher pressure and a really nasty report. Rather unsuited to the concept of appealing to the casual shooter. By the time one has a reasonable weight bullet (presuming the bullets are not made of uranium or gold) the result is more or less a .30 caliber rifle bullet. Rather difficult for a normal hand sized grip with internal magazine.

Naw... I don't see much promise there.

7.65mm Parabellum?

The 32 NAA was it. Buddy had one. Hot. Biggest problem was shells were a one time thing. Blew shoulder almost straight and most had cracks at the neck. Expensive if you can't reload. IIRC it was a 380 case necked to 32.

Far too many think there must be “improvements”, rather than just differences.

I am here for the differences, beyond that, they are all just the same thing…
Some just do it in style!

They do, it's called .32 NAA. North American Arms built their Guardian pistols to compete with Seecamp and after a few years wondered how they could improve upon the .380 and .32 ACP and they came back with bottlenecking the .380 down to .32. There's a lot of advantages to bottlenecking, improved feeding, higher velocity, heavier bullet for caliber vs a straight wall... it all made sense to do, but the issue was and always has been will the market take to a new handgun caliber?

New chamberings in rifles is always easily accepted because people generally aren't shooting thousands of rounds a year from them, so the ammo cost or availability isn't an issue that sways people away from something like .350 Legend, 6.5 Creedmore (talking the early days, it's caught on now), etc. Circle back to handguns and offer something that's not 9, .45, .38/.357, .44, or .22 and people act repulsed, they get physically ill at the thought of any handgun not in any of those caliber because "Good Lod, the ammo is so much and so hard to find!"

I mean, I can understand that with something like .357 Sig in a full size pistol where you can blow thru 200 rds in an hour at the range, but for a pocket pistol the size of the LCP, I don't even get thru a 50 rd box before I'm done shooting. So, whether it's in .380, .32 ACP, .32 NAA, it doesn't matter what the price of the ammo is, I shoot so little of it.

I suspect most people who own a pocket gun for conceal carry do not shoot them much.

So, why hasn't.32 NAA caught on even tho converting a .380 to .32 NAA requires a barrel change and a new recoil spring? I've explained it before, I'll explain it again in an abbreviated way:

1. No ammo companies make the ammo because they say there's not enough demand (due to lack of guns)

2. No gun companies make the guns because they say there's no demand (due to lack of ammo)

3. There's no big names in the media like Skeeter Skelton, Elmer Keith, Jeff Cooper, etc. writing articles or making youtube videos demonstrating the benefits of .32 calibers for self defense. The only one that really has is Chris Baker at LuckyGunner, but he didn't shoot .32 NAA because it's one gun and one factory load that's available.

It's really hard to get a caliber attention when nobody knows it exists and there's no interest because of bias in that .380 is more common, cheaper, and perceived as more powerful because it's bigger; these factors all contribute to .380 being "better."

"Hey, I can find .22 LR easier and cheaper than I can .32 ACP... that makes .22 better!"

I suspect that with the revival of interest in .32's that someone is going to offer something in the caliber that's more powerful than .32 ACP whilst being straight wall and rimless so as to increase capacity in stuff like the P365 or Ruger Maxx over 9mm/.380. I say the capacity is not important at all, after 10 rds if the threat isn't stopped you've got bigger problems than another 10 rds or more can handle. The .32 NAA is already the answer to a more effective pocket pistol caliber than .380, but nobody wants to make them for the reasons I just listed.

Snowdog said:

Some will cite the .327 Federal Magnum's lack of momentum in the market to be an indicator for possible failure of such a venture. However, the .327mag, while respectably landing between the .38special and .357mag in energy, only provides one additional round. Aware of the impossibility of it, had Federal and Ruger teamed up and used some sci-fi witchcraft to pack in double the capacity (10-12 rounds) of their .327mag in an SP101, it certainly would have graced many a gun rag's cover and flown off the shelves.

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I wouldn't say that .327 has been a failure, it's pretty much been what has spawned this resurgent interest in the 32 caliber because while everybody but Ruger gave up on making a revolver in .327, Charter decided to do a 7 shot .32 Magnum and Henry did the Big Boy in .327. Further, if the .327's Ruger makes weren't selling, they'd drop them; they already did drop the .327 GP100, now it's only a Lipsey's exclusive (that I doubt sells much).

Given the success Ruger is having with their .327's, I figure it's only a matter of time before Taurus jumps in on that and starts making .32 revolvers again. Offer someone a .32 Taurus for $300 or 350 vs a Ruger at $600 and people are more willing to buy the Taurus to "try out" a .32 wheelgun. Some will like it, some won't and will sell it to someone else who will "try it", but so long as you can get them in people's hands the ammo side of things will take notice and start ramping up production.

S&W is still the king of revolvers, but they just don't seem to care about making new ones anymore. Instead they seem more focused on the tactical market making AR's, Kel Tec KSG clones, or the Victory with the easy take down compared to the then Ruger Mark III. As for them making a new revolver the only thing I can think of that they made because of off the chart sales of a competitors was the Governor to take some of the Judge's market.

The .327's that Ruger makes sell nowhere as well as the Judge does/did, so S&W isn't interested.

Hotter than a .380acp in the same sized platform with well over twice the capacity would be the required recipe to be successful, IMO.

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I think people are too obsessed with capacity.

TTv2 said:

I think people are too obsessed with capacity.

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There in, alone, lies the market.

Low recoil, high capacity, in familiar firearms, while being capable of defense.

I’ll take two 23rd 1911’s in 32Super please!
Rock Island, you hearing this?

The French 7.65 longue aka 32pedersen may have quelled the notion as it was easier to just bump up to 9mm case diameters.
The question of why no one thought to build an 8x20 is probably down to case diameter and capacity.
Which would have been somewhat moot in an era focused on revolvers (despite the ever-increasing rise of self-loading pistols).

8mm Roth Steyr. Could easily be boosted.

I think this class of round never caught on in the US because automatics other than 22s were viewed more as self-defence guns than as hunting guns, at least until behemoths like the 44 Automag came along. And for self defence, we wanted big calibers, not small ones. 38 was kind of the mininum. If you wanted a centerfire 32 woods gun, you got a revolver in 32-20 or handloaded 32 Long hot.

Now that automatics are becoming the standard type of pistol, with many new shooters viewing all revolvers as historical niche guns (like we used to think of the Colt SAA), a 32 caliber automatic useful for small game might make more sense. I would think 7.65mm Parabellum would be a cinch in that role, given the instant convertiblity to 9mm Para, but I am just daydreaming here.

Looked at in a certain way, the "jump" was really to the .32wsl, which was like 7.62x32, to later become .30 carbine as 7.62x33.
Although, "we" would likely all agree that a 30mm case length does not much leap put and scream "stick me in a handgun." Certainly not when the world had .357mag.

That 7.65 french was what, 77gr at 1100, so it really did not offer much that .38spl (or .38acp) didn't in existing, already engineered weapons.

But, shoot, where's the fun in not reinventing the wheel? []

Dunno--always a cool discussion when we deal in might-have-been.

Snowdog said:

Either WAAAAYY too long and/or a bottleneck cartridge. The 7.92 VBR has ballistics similar to what I'd want to see, but has a case length of 24mm and an OAL of 32.4mm (slightly longer than a 10mm). The 7mm Penna is leaning even more in the wrong direction at 34.5mm OAL. That's going to make for a lengthy grip.

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Developmental rounds, made in several lengths. There was a VBR that fit a Glock testbed and Penna was in cahoots with STI because they thought they could get a 7mm into IPSC.

Roth Steyr is tapered and not a lot smaller cartridge than 9mm P.

Could we gain much capacity or gun size with a 9mm CASE diameter? Yup, heel type bullet.
We would have to rigidly specify the bullet profile, the round would have to headspace against the rifling, what with a straight chamber hardly over groove diameter.