Why no high powered .32 pistol cartridge?

[Richard Head]

Yes Michigan public shooting ranges Island lake and Bald mountain are open year round. I think Ortonville is also but I'm not sure on that. $10 a day for rifle & pistol 25-50-100 yards Ortonville also has a 200 yard rifle range. Check it out if you're in the area no membership required. Michigan takes care of it's shooters.

 

[Turkina]

Hi Dale, let me just clarify.
I did not mean they must use the same .327 cartridge to built a pistol for it. But rather a new rimless cartridge that gives the same power as a .327 rimmed cartridge

Not many folks are remembering about the .22TCM.

I wish there was more support for the round.

 

[Tallball]

Here is what a high-powered 32 pistol might look like...

Oh, wait, this is what it DOES look like.

My Uncle Tim (RIP) gave me this French 1935S that his uncle brought home from WWII. It uses the long French 32 cartridge. I have never fired it, due to lack of ammo.

 

[Richard Head]

Nice gun you have their Tallball. I'll say it again, the Tokarev TT33 and CZ52 are high power 32 caliber semi auto handguns. They shoot bullets sized between .307 - .314 right square in the middle of the 32 caliber range and they shoot them at very high velocities for a handgun.

 

[Skribs]

Bottleneck cartridges don't fill the need of more capacity. Bottlenecking .380 or 9mm down to .30 won't get you more in the pipe, which would be the biggest advantage of this cartridge, of it were made.

The problem I see is a thinner bullet is harder to engineer reliably expanding JHPs for and a thinner case gives less power, so you might end up restricted to FMJs for carry unless you get something at higher pressure.

Still, I imagine your typical Glock-type weapon could hold 20-21+1 of a 30 cal, straight walled case in the same frame as 17 rounds of 9, so if JHPs could be made reliable and penetrate deep enough, it would have some appeal.

 

[MICHAEL T]

No one is going to tool up for a gun that may not be popular, it's simple, it's always about money

Taurus seems to do it a lot ,a see thru revolver a curve and a ugly snub with a weird grip

They need to make less junk and more quality .

 

[MAKster]

I think there are two likely reasons. Because pistol rounds are going 1/3 the velocity of rifle rounds there is a belief that a larger caliber is needed for pistol rounds to compensate for the lower velocity. Smaller caliber rounds are far more common in rifles. Also I think 32 caliber is considered European and Americans believe bigger is better.

 

[Ron James]

Goggle the .32 French Long . Same diameter as the 32 ACP but is longer, but try and find any for sale. People just didn't cotton to it. The closest you are going to get what you want is NAA.25. A 32 necked down to 25 caliber, I like the .32, I really feel it is under rated, but I see no need for high cap magazines for one.

 

[barnbwt]

"Bottleneck cartridges don't fill the need of more capacity. Bottlenecking .380 or 9mm down to .30 won't get you more in the pipe, which would be the biggest advantage of this cartridge, of it were made."
Well, Tok is just barely getting long enough that the added case capacity does deliver a lot more power for a round of its length (unlike 32NAA, which isn't hugely different from 32acp since the case is still short). I agree that necked rounds above 30cal simply won't compete on capacity, which is why I find the 30 Carbine case head so interesting as a compromise.

What about a saboted 32 slug in a larger bore, as an alternative? Same capacity, but bigger gains in a short overbore barrel than a necked overbor-ier configuration.

TCB

 

[Deaf Smith]

Just get a Glock 17 or 19 and get a barrel maker to make a .30 Luger barrel.

Nothing else is needed. Springs and mags work for both.

.30 Luger is essentially a 9mm necked down to .30.

Deaf

 

[Tallball]

Thank you RH. It is well-made and feels good in my hand. It would be really fun to have some ammo for it!

 

[blue32]

I designed a 32AM (auto magnum) to fit into a standard 32 auto magazine. Quality Cart wanted $10k to produce brass so I told them no thanks. I tried trimming down a 30 carbine without luck. My example features a case length of .78" and was designed to use hollow point bullets to keep COAL within 32 auto magazine specifications. The internal case head was strengthened to handle increased pressures. Essentially, it was a strengthened 32 auto with .1" longer case to prevent it being chambered in 32 auto guns. The design allows the user to upgrade a 32 auto to 32AM with a barrel swap and maybe recoil springs and still use the same magazines.

I intended to bore out a Keltec P-32 barrel for a test gun but without brass there was no point. I just dont have the capital to get it off the ground.

 

[Nom de Forum]

Thank you RH. It is well-made and feels good in my hand. It would be really fun to have some ammo for it!

Tallball you have a really cool pistol. I did a quick search and found this source for ammunition.

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Detail.aspx?PROD=158128&CAT=4451

 

[Brin]

If you looking for a hard hitting 32cal auto loader with ballistics similar to the 327 federal magnum, my recommendation would be to spend $250 or less on a new Zastava m-57. It should come with two 9 round magazines and have a smooth well designed safety. Any pistol that can launch a 90gr 32 caliber hp bullet at 1700 fps is a magnum in my book. Both of my m-57 have .312 bores which makes finding 85 to 100gr hp bullets a lot easier.
The 7.62x25mm round, in my opinion, is the most under rated hand gun round out there.

 

[barnbwt]

Blue32, you're readin' my mind! That sounds like exactly the type of cartridge I've been idly envisioning as a basis for another whack at the PDW apple.

-Longer than the dimuntive 32acp for badly needed powder capacity
-Reinforced case head (I've read even ACP brass can reach respectable pressures; yours would probably get up into magnum levels, easy)
-Smaller diameter than 9mm for added capacity (but not so skinny the primer pocket is weak like 5.7x28)

Neck it down for a fire breathing little zipper round, leave it straight for very efficient sub-sonics usage, or work up a sabot load for a very efficient (but probably less accurate) zipper round.

10 grand for an initial run, huh? Hmm, would have to have a pretty solid business plan in place to even justify messing around with that. Probably cheaper to buy some brass rod and a big press, and turn some drawing dies. If you don't mind saying, how did you reinforce the case head? Was it simply thickened by the corresponding .1" of overall length?

"I intended to bore out a Keltec P-32 barrel for a test gun but without brass there was no point. I just dont have the capital to get it off the ground."
If you have access to a lathe, just turn the brass you need for the test rounds. After proper annealing/treating, they would not be substantially different in a solid locked breech setup than a similarly heat treated drawn case (now, I don't know if the same would be true in a case-stretching delayed blowback). The drawing process is mostly used since it can bang out a billion rounds cheaply, not because it's the only way to skin the cat

TCB

 

[barnbwt]

"The 7.62x25mm round, in my opinion, is the most under rated hand gun round out there."
Indeed. 'Tis a shame that the best pistol available for us in the chambering is the stinkin' Tokarev, though. The gun works and all, but it's hopelessly outmoded at this point, and not much more than a novelty for all but the most strident devotees (granted, a very nicely priced one for the new production Zastava's). There's a Norinco polymer SIG clone available up in Canada that appears highly regarded (granted, it's still a cheap gun, so not particularly nce) and would probably be single-handedly capable of bringing the round back into some sort of prominence here in the states.

There's a lot of talk and bravado about "big 'n slow" rounds being superior, but in all honesty, there aren't any good pistols properly exploiting the opposite end of the field. Even the Five-seven, as excellent a weapon as it is, is so massive and long in the grip that carry is often impractical (to say nothing of the toll it takes on brass and the reloader). The lack of accessibility to a single good, modern pistol in a properly designed fast/zipper round (which rules out the 22TCM's expanding-not-fragmenting bullets) makes it really hard for me to accept that the idea is "fundamentally flawed" and the like.

TCB

 

[Mayvik]

Another vote for Tokarev. If someone made a modern one (EAA maybe, or Canik?) I suspect it would sell like hotcakes. Mega penetration and earth-shattering kaboom with minimal recoil.