Reloading .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R

[GCBurner]

I recently picked up a little H&R .32 in .32 S&W Long, along with some boxes of the short .32 S&W ammo that had been packed away in a friend's garage for quite a number of years. The gun came with the original box, and evidently hasn't been carried, or shot very much, and responded well to a good cleaning and lube job. I got some .32 S&W Long ammo at a recent gun show, and tried out the shorts and the longs, and found it groups pretty well with both of them. After pricing factory ammo in this calibre, reloading the emptys is definitely the way to go, even for casual target practice. I have both lead and jacketed bullets that will fit from loading for my .32 ACP and .32-20 WCF, but I'll be needing a set of dies.
My question is whether a die set for .32 Long or .32 H&R could also reload the .32 Short? The only Lee dies I've seen around are marked just ".32 S&W", and I don't know it they'd work for the .32 Long as well. Has anybody tried this?

 

[billyjoe]

The .32 s&w long takes differant dies than the .32 s&w. I have loaded the .32 long and .32 magnum for fifteen years and they are easy to load and fun to shoot.

 

[rcmodel]

.32 S&W marked Lee dies you saw are very likely for the .32 S&W Long.

They will load that, as well as the .32 H&R Magnum, and the .327 Federal.

You can buy a .32 S&W Short seating and crimp die seperately and probably get by with the .32 Long sizing die.

The S&W 32 Short case is only .002" - .003" smaller in dia. then the .32 S&W Long, and what with the very low pressure involved, should not expand enough to take much resizing.

rc

 

[GCBurner]

The .32 Short ammo actually costs more retail than the .32 S&W Long, I noticed. I remember reading somewhere, maybe in an old Dixie Gun Works catalog, about someone reloading the Shorts without dies, thumb pressing in a #1 1/2 .310 lead buckshot over black powder, or a grain or two of Bullseye, as a cheap plinking load.

 

[rcmodel]

Yep.
But you can do the same thing with .32 S&W Long if that's what you got.

rc

 

[GCBurner]

The H&R 732 "Sidekick" I picked up is chambered for the .32 Long, and feels solid enough for any .32 S&W Long load. Granddad's old Iver Johnson breaktop, however, is chambered for .32 S&W, probably in black powder format, and I'm not inclined to shoot any modern ammo in it. If the BP and buckshot works okay in the H&R, I might try a few rounds in the IJ; as long as I've had it, it's never been shot.

 

[FROGO207]

If you have a set of 32 ACP dies you can use the seating die for it when loading the 32 S&W shorts. I do this. RC's way is also good and will work well. Or if you need to get dies anyway get the Lee 32 S&W long dies and order a separate short seating die from Lee. They will send a 32 ACP seating die to you. I use .17 CC's/.85 grains of Trail Boss with my 32 shorts and a 76 grain FP .313 bullet from Hunters Supply. For the longs I use .3 CC's/1.7 grains TB with a 100 grain cowboy#6 .313 bullet from Missouri Bullet. For the old black powder break top pistols use the shorts only as the longs will stretch the locking parts if shot with them a lot even though the long bullet will fit and fire. The only ones that are safe for the longs will be marked as such. The unmarked guns were made for shorts only. These loads were safe in MY pistols YMMV.

 

[evan price]

I have been using my Lee 32 Auto dies for 32 S&W (short) and they will work for 32 S&W (Long) too.

The Lee 32 S&W dies will work for shorts and longs. The Lee 32 H&R Mag dies will work for 32 S&W Long or 32 H&R Mag.

I load my 32 S&W (short) with a Lee 95-grain round nose bullet I cast with range scrap and load with a tiny charge of 800-X powder (can't remember what I use and my load book is at home, I am guessing it's 2.5 grains but that's not a guarantee!!!).

My shorts go into Iver Johnson 2nd model safety automatic hammerless break-top revolvers; the 2nd model was black powder but it had the stronger double-post lock. No chrono, but they sounded rather un-enthusiastic, and they would shoot through one layer of auto muffler sheetmetal and ricochet off of the second layer.

The Longs go into several 'modern' 32 revolvers such as a H&R 732 and Colt Police Positive. I use 2.5 grains Titegroup and the Lee 95-grain roundnose roll crimped in the top lube groove. This load seems OK, not too hot, and it will go through a car door. Going to try hotrodding it in the H&R because if I blow it up it's no big loss. Not that it's a bad gun, just I can replace it for not so much.

 

[GCBurner]

Thanks to everyone for the load information. I just got a callback from Lee Precision to the same inquiry, and they told me "officially" that the regular .32 S&W die can also be used with the longer .32 S&W Long and the .32 H&R Magnum, just back the dies out two full turns for the Long and about an additional two for the Magnum. Nice to know I'll only need the one set of dies, after all.