.32 Long, What does it go in?

T

thedaddycat

New member
I was going through the ammo shelf just cleaning and neatening things up, and I came across two boxes of Canuck brand .32 Long rimfire ammo. The box says it has 80 grain bullets and the case is copper or copper plated. I have no recollection of when or how I got it, and have never owned or shot anything in this chambering.

My question is this: What is this ammo used in, anything modern or just the old "shootin' irons"? It seems like it is an upsized version of the universal .22 LR which is used in both hand guns and rifles, but I don't think I've seen or heard too much about the .32 Long rimfire in ages.
 
Introduced in 1861 for revolvers but later some single shot rifles were chambered for it. Not much of a cartridge [950 fps] but it was loaded for a long time .
 
A member of my gun club has an old .32 rim-fire, a beautiful old rifle that he had sleeved to fire .22lr. It's a rolling block type action, as best I can tell, with peep sights, his wife beat the pants off most folks at our recent .22lr match with it.
 
It's an old updated blackpowder cartridge. No one makes guns specifically for that anymore, but I have heard of some high end target guns but never cared enough to seek them out. They will however, fire in any gun chambered in 32 magnum and 327 federal, much in the same way a 38 fires in a 357. Also, if you're adventurous, they also fire in the nagant revolver
 
hardworker,

He's talking about rimfire ammunition. It won't fire in any modern revolver.

.32 Long Rimfire was introduced around 1861 for Smith & Wesson tip up revolvers.

It proved to be a pretty popular cartridge and was chambered in handguns by most manufacturers of the time. It was also quite popular as a rifle cartridge. Stevens manufactured rifles until just before World War II, and Marlin chambered it in their 1892 lever action.

Most ammo makers dropped it in the run up to World War II, but some continued to make it until the 1950s.

Canuck apparently made the ammo until the end of World War II. I've heard that it was popular in Canada with trappers because it had good power but didn't tear up pelts.

Navy Arms commissioned a run in the 1990s from CBC in Brazil. That's the last I've heard of it being made.

Full, unopened boxes in good condition have collectors value. If they're the later yellow and black boxes, they would probably retail at a cartridge collector's show or gun show for $75-100 a piece.

If they're the older yellow and green boxes (which were not labeled Canuck), they'd probably push $200.
 
FWIW the only somewhat modern firearms I've seen chambered for this cartridge were pre-WWII single-shot falling-block rifles. The most common seems to be the Stevens Favorite. I've also seen a Husqvarna that I believe was chambered for the cartridge; IIRC it was cryptically marked ".32 L." but it appeared to have a rimfire-type firing pin.
 
Here is a pic of the ammo. I put a Remington Viper .22 LR next to the .32 Long round just for scale. Since there is no seal on these boxes, "unopened" would just be full. I did see that it does say "Plated" on the box so the cases must have a copper wash on them.

I have no use for this stuff and doubt I'll be going to any gun shows any time soon. I guess I'll just hold on to it for now, maybe use it in a trade at some future date...

DCP05274.JPG
 
I'd be interested, if you want to sell or trade... I don't collect cartridges, & I don't plan of shooting my antique S&W "much" but I do like to have a box or two of ammo around & all my guns in the collection, as they must be "shootable" before I'll add them to my collection...

I currently only have a 1/2 box of newer manufacture Navy Arms ammo, but the Canuk stuff should be considered shootable as well...

let me know
 
FWIW, some years ago, a punk held up a convenience store with a revolver. He tried to shoot the clerk but his gun misfired. Turned out he had loaded a .32 S&W swing cylinder with .32 Rimfire cartridges. It was a fatal mistake because the clerk's gun was loaded with the right ammunition.

Jim
 
I suspect that those cases are actually copper, and the "plated" means that they're coated with something to prevent them from corroding, possibly to the point where they would no longer chamber in the gun.

The old rimfire rounds that did continue in production past World War I almost universally continued as copper cases simply because copper is more ductile and thus helped ensure ignition.

Brass, being a harder material, could resist hammer blows and result in misfires.
 
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