Ed Harris
Member
The .327 Federal is a niche cartridge, but its promoters are marketing to the wrong niche.
It is well known that light-weight bullets at high velocity expand rapidly and reduce penetration, causing shallow surface wounds which often fail to reach the vitals. As a defensive round the .327 will prove inadequate to penetrate heavy clothing and reasonable cover. If a 100-grain bullet at 1500 f.p.s. was so great our military and hostage rescue teams would all be carrying CZ52s. Small caliber defense rounds have never been successful in the US.
For use as a hunting round full-power .327 loads will be suitable only for varmints, not for taking food animals, due to excessive meat destruction caused by those high-velocity, frangible bullets. Maybe the Speer-ATK people understand this and have offered bullets having different types of construction suitable for defense, varmint, and meat hunting purposes, but there isn't enough field experience with the .327 yet to know.
The .327 has great potential as a combination varmint-small game hunter’s handgun for trail use, if it were chambered in a more accurate, handy platform. The SP101 snubby is not accurate enough for small game, and while the GP100 and Blackhawk have potential, neither is exactly a handy field gun. Much better would be to offer the .327 in the Ruger Single Six. This could be done by using a longer cylinder and by shortening the barrel extension where it protrudes through the frame. A production version of custom revolvers Hamilton Bowen has made, a strong 6-shot, 26-ounce revolver with 5 inch barrel and good sights would make an ideal trail gun.
For the .327 cartridge with such excellent potential to survive, there must first be another source of quality brass for reloading other than buying factory ammo at a buck a shot. Starline saved the .32 H&R Magnum from extinction by providing cases of better quality than the Federal stuff which has very poor life. Let's hope they do so for the .327 also. Then all we need is for somebody to introduce a trim small game rifle weighing no more than 5 pounds, with a long enough barrel for a good sight radius with irons, and low noise when shot with .32 S&W Longs.
The .327 also has great potential for rifle use in the varmint hunting and home defense role. Fired from a rifle, the .327 would perform much like a rimmed cal. .30 M1 carbine. With properly constructed expanding bullets the carbine has a much better track record in law enforcement than it ever did with the FMJ military service loads.
The .327 would provide a stronger case for easier reloading than the .32-20, with the ability to digest lower powered ammo for small game. A handy 5-lb. lever-action rifle with ten round magazine capacity, which could digest either .327s or .32 H&R Mags with 20-inch. barrel and conventional loading gate, not the removable follower tube of the 1894 Cowboy, would be very poular. Using .32 S&W Longs it would have "silent without silencer - cat sneeze" performance which kills better than a .22 LR.
Marketing hype surrounding the .327 is based on the premise that American shooters won't accept a new cartridge unless it belches fire and singes the hair off the back of your hand. The promoters think that American buyers are stupid and that more noise and higher velocity are all that matters, which is poppycock. Shooters need to tell them so.
It is well known that light-weight bullets at high velocity expand rapidly and reduce penetration, causing shallow surface wounds which often fail to reach the vitals. As a defensive round the .327 will prove inadequate to penetrate heavy clothing and reasonable cover. If a 100-grain bullet at 1500 f.p.s. was so great our military and hostage rescue teams would all be carrying CZ52s. Small caliber defense rounds have never been successful in the US.
For use as a hunting round full-power .327 loads will be suitable only for varmints, not for taking food animals, due to excessive meat destruction caused by those high-velocity, frangible bullets. Maybe the Speer-ATK people understand this and have offered bullets having different types of construction suitable for defense, varmint, and meat hunting purposes, but there isn't enough field experience with the .327 yet to know.
The .327 has great potential as a combination varmint-small game hunter’s handgun for trail use, if it were chambered in a more accurate, handy platform. The SP101 snubby is not accurate enough for small game, and while the GP100 and Blackhawk have potential, neither is exactly a handy field gun. Much better would be to offer the .327 in the Ruger Single Six. This could be done by using a longer cylinder and by shortening the barrel extension where it protrudes through the frame. A production version of custom revolvers Hamilton Bowen has made, a strong 6-shot, 26-ounce revolver with 5 inch barrel and good sights would make an ideal trail gun.
For the .327 cartridge with such excellent potential to survive, there must first be another source of quality brass for reloading other than buying factory ammo at a buck a shot. Starline saved the .32 H&R Magnum from extinction by providing cases of better quality than the Federal stuff which has very poor life. Let's hope they do so for the .327 also. Then all we need is for somebody to introduce a trim small game rifle weighing no more than 5 pounds, with a long enough barrel for a good sight radius with irons, and low noise when shot with .32 S&W Longs.
The .327 also has great potential for rifle use in the varmint hunting and home defense role. Fired from a rifle, the .327 would perform much like a rimmed cal. .30 M1 carbine. With properly constructed expanding bullets the carbine has a much better track record in law enforcement than it ever did with the FMJ military service loads.
The .327 would provide a stronger case for easier reloading than the .32-20, with the ability to digest lower powered ammo for small game. A handy 5-lb. lever-action rifle with ten round magazine capacity, which could digest either .327s or .32 H&R Mags with 20-inch. barrel and conventional loading gate, not the removable follower tube of the 1894 Cowboy, would be very poular. Using .32 S&W Longs it would have "silent without silencer - cat sneeze" performance which kills better than a .22 LR.
Marketing hype surrounding the .327 is based on the premise that American shooters won't accept a new cartridge unless it belches fire and singes the hair off the back of your hand. The promoters think that American buyers are stupid and that more noise and higher velocity are all that matters, which is poppycock. Shooters need to tell them so.
Yeah, I'd rather just get an M1 Carbine myself. Might even still be some surplus ammo here or there in the caliber considering how many were issued in how many countries.
