32-20 Spanish

4

458winshooter

New member
Just picked up an old 32-20 Spanish off GunBroker and was wondering if anyone has any experience with one. The only thing that I have found is that it is patterned after a S&W hand ejector, or so I think. Some were made after a Colt pattern and look very much alike the only thing I see different between the two is the cylinder release. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Russ
 
Generally it's considered inadvisable to fire them.

These guns were made by many makers to many levels of quality -- some are extremely good, others are not.

Generally the exteriors look like S&W but the mechanisms tend to borrow more from Colt than S&W.
 
In my experience, most of these Spanish knockoff revolver are actually chambered for the 8mm Lebel revolver round. The 32-20 will chamber and fire, but the .312 bullet kinda rattles down the .330 bore. That said, some of the guns were chambered and labelled for the 32-20, or so i've heard. Never seen one. The guy I bought mine from said it shot well with the 32-20, and included a bag of gunshow reloads with the deal. When I tried to slug the bore, the .312 bullet slid right down the bore. I even bought a box of 8mm lebel from Grafs - a lifetime supply.
 
32-20

Thank you both I had found some on it including where the French had contracted many Spanish firms to build Lebels for them. It's a bit of an odd duck it is stamped 32-20 Long ctg. The manufacturer is Beistegui brothers. From what I found they left the gun business to concentrate on bicycles.
 
I’ve had several Spanish 32/20s. They look like S&W HEs but you pull of the grips and you will see a wishbone type spring. The ones I had were marked 32/20 or 32 Win. Never saw one for 8mm Lebel. I think in one of the older Cartridges of the World, Barnes suggests
either 32S&W Long or 32/20 for 8mm 1892. I tried it and cases split and bullet went somewhere.
 
The ones specifically chambered for 8mm Lebel were ordered by the French during WW I as a stopgap measure to get any firearms they could. Same situation with the 7.65 Ruby pistols.

After the War the makers turned their attention to the US and South American markets, hoping to capitalize on their looking like S&W revolvers to gain sales.

I've seen examples of Spanish made "S&Ws" chambered in .32 Long, .32-20, .38 Long Colt/.38 Special, and .44 Special.

It became such a problem for S&W that they finally resorted to suing the importers to stop them from coming into the US.
 
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