32-20 Impressions

A

Alex Johnson

New member
Just finished reading an article in handloading on the 32-20 revolvers. I was just wondering how many people here shoot the 32-20 today and what their thoughs are on the subject.
 
I took a model 16 Smith 6" full lugged and had it rechambered to 32/20. Then I sent it to Simmons and had a new 32 Magnum cylinder installed. Now I have a K frame Smith that will fire either one (32 Mag, or 32/20).

First, if you do this, don't use a 32 Mag cylinder. It won't quite clean up in the neck area of the chamber. It does not hurt anything, but it would be better to use a 22 cylinder for this conversion.

I was able to get some pretty impressive ballistics out of that gun without hurting it any. The K frame Smith is pretty rugged for a 32 of any kind--even a 32/20.

Without going into the details, I was getting over 1400 fps with 100 Gr. Hornadys, and over 1600 fps with 71 gr. Remington bullets. I never tried the Hornady 60 grainer, god only knows what that bullet would do.

It was fun and interesting, but eventually I decided that a high velocity 32 was not all that usefull--I did not want to scope this gun, so I installed the 32 Mg. cylinder and let it go at that.
 
I used to shoot a Colt Army Special and Police Positive Spl in 32-20 . It was a very fun caliber to shoot . Not too hard to load for .

I used lead bullets as well as the Speer .308 100gr plinker bullets if memory serves me . That was 10 yrs ago .
 
I'm considering getting a 32-20, I'd like one of the old Smiths or Colt's but I'm not all that familiar with the different models that were made. Figure it would be a good rabbit and gopher gun.
 
My dad has two of the loudest handguns I've ever been around; a Ruger Blackhawk in .30 Carbine and an old Colt Police Positive in .32-20. Neat old gun.

Stay safe.
 
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