GeoDudeFlorida
Member
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2020
- Messages
- 11,037
As an example, it took me months and hundreds of rounds of ammo to get the right combination of bullet, powder, primer and case to come close to the old Colt's .32 New Police round for my Colt revolvers. I started with velocity - Remington back in the 1910's was claiming 800fps with a 98gr. flat-point projectile. The original black powder loading for the 32 Colt NP round was a 98-grain flat-point at a hair over 700 fps. The only "real" difference between the Smith & Wesson .32 Long and Colt New Police .32 was the shape of the projectile. Modern reloading manuals have velocities from the low 500's to over 1000fps for the same bullet/case in .32 S&W Long/Colt New Police.
Keep in mind: The methods of recording and measuring velocity back then were not very accurate so 800fps was probably puffery or a WAG on Remington's part. 700-750fps was the average claimed for a 4" revolver, regardless of who made the gun or ammo. I managed to get some old Winchester and Remington ".32 Police" marked ammo and clocked it from my 4" Police Positive at an average of 725fps. I have to tell you it hurt to shoot those "vintage" rounds but, it was worth it. The powder looked and smelled like Unique, weighed 3.7-3.9gr (Remington was heavier, on average) and when I loaded some Meisters' 94gr. RNFP .313" into new Starline brass with 3.7gr. of Unique, they shot to POA and had the same "kick" (if you can say a .32 NP kicks
) and close to the same velocity as the nearly 75 year old originals. Lyman's 45th says the max load of Unique for a 93gr. #2 Alloy bullet # 313266 (RN) is 4.3gr. Not only was that load not to POA for any of my Colts or Smiths, it did not group well - but it did hit the claimed 990fps from a 4" Police Positive. So why go through all the time and expense to replicate a defunct cartridge loading? And why bother loading to 725fps when I know 990fps is possible, safely?
With that 94gr. RNFP and 3.7gr. of Unique, all of my .32 Colts hit to point of aim. And with very reasonable groups given how bad a shot I am. To me, that makes it worth the effort.
