Loading .32-20 with Black Powder

[matdoodson]

Morning all,

I recently acquired a Winchester '73 with the intention of reloading black powder rounds for it.

I've picked up:

Starline brass
S&B small pistol primers
Kranks Black Powder, fine, medium, coarse
120 grain .32-20 .314 soft lead alloy bullets with black powder lube (Shellhouse Bullet Company)
RCBS Cowboy Dies

So I'm good to go.

I assumed that the 20 grains in the .32-20 relates to the 20 volumetric grains. My smallest spout for the black powder flask is 24 grains. I'm using Henry Kranks Medium Black Powder. So threw 24 grains of powder and it weighs in at 23 grains. 23 divided by 24, multiplied by 20, tells me that 20 volumetric grains would weigh 19.1 grains.

Am I doing OK so far?

So my 19.1 grains of powder does fit inside my brass:


Here's the bullet:


But when I seat the bullet it only gets this far before contacting the BP:


My Speer reloading manual tells me the max cartridge length is 1.592" which means I need to be seating the bullet down to the canulure above the pink lube.

So what I'm wondering...

- Is it OK to compress the black powder?

- Am I right to assume there should be no air space in the cartridge (like loading a muzzle loader)?

- I assume I have to crimp given I had to use the expander die to open up the case mouth enough to seat the bullet?

Any hints, tips, observations welcomed...

Cheers,
Mat

[dromia]

Yes compressing BP is OK it is just some BP respond to it better than others.

Kranks powder isn't the best to begin with so a slight handicap there.

The first thing I would do is try a drop tube this settles the powder further into the case, failing that put the loading block and cartridges on a spin dryer, depending on the viciousness of the cycle it may be prudent to seat the bullet a little to keep the powder in the case, I have one of the old Vibrashine case cleaners and it is very good for settling powder.

You could also try the fine grade powder.

At the end of the day don't be too precious about getting 20 grains in as in the day when they loaded these cartridges they were balloon head types which had greater internal capacity than our solid web types. So 20 grains might not be possible for you.

So drop tube and/or settle, finer grade powder and compress about 1/16" and see how much you can get in with the bullet seated to the crimp groove, if the powder is compressed then you will need to crimp as the bullet will move forward as the powder uncompresses.

A slight air gap 'tween powder and bullet is no problem, the world and his wife will tell you it is a problem, personally if it is good enough for old Greener then it has been good enough for me over the decades but then I am no keyboard expert so what would I know.

[redcat]

Buy another spout for the flask and grind it down gradually until you have the correct volume of powder. As Adam says, don't worry too much about actual weight, just get in what the modern case will allow.

Redcat

[matdoodson]

Sounds good to me, thank you for the replies chaps.

I'm not after perfection, I just want to pull the trigger, hear a bang and see if I can make a hole in the target at the other end!

Cheers!

[Sim G]

I use a nitro load in .32-20 for my original Marlins. Falls into the "cowboy load" category and is very gentle on originals. But gives good obturation and just under 1000fps out of a 24" barrel. It's proved very accurate in a Marlin 1894, a Winchester 73 and a Winchester 92.

3.0gns TiteGroup, 115gn lead RNFP cast with Lyman #2 alloy.

The cries of "Heretic" will soon blast....!

[dromia]

32-3?

Naw, doesn't have the same ring and romance to it as 32-20.

[Sim G]

[matdoodson]

3.0gns TiteGroup, 115gn lead RNFP cast with Lyman #2 alloy.

Pah to your new fangled way of doing things!

<<<<<subtitles - Sim, I'll keep that in my back pocket for later! ;-) >>>>>

[matdoodson]

So in the end I got 18.2 grns of fine powder and 17 grns of medium in the cartridge, both with a slightly compressed load.

The gun shot really well. The 18.2 grns of fine was there or there abouts at 50m standing. The 17 grns of medium appeared to be hitting the back stop a couple of feet high. 5 rounds cycled through well.

Next up.... how to clean a '73 which has been shot with black powder! I'm currently watching a very detailed in depth (57 minutes long) video on how to fully teardown and clean the rifle, which I'm hoping is a little over the top for the regular cleaning schedule.