Log In
Members
Home
Add Reply
Add Topic
Offline
What is the proper rear sight for a 1904 manufactured 26” round barrel rifle chambered in a 32 W S?
Thank you.
[email protected] said
What is the proper rear sight for a 1904 manufactured 26” round barrel rifle chambered in a 32 W S?Thank you.
The proper sight is the one that the gun had when it left the factory. The Cody Firearms Museum can verify which one. The standard sight is usually a buckhorn with the 1901 elevator.
Rustyjack said
This thread may have some info..
Never owned a 32 Spl. That’s one of the reasons I read the site. Learn something new all of the time.
They pop up on eBay from time to time, if you need one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Winchester-32WS-M-94-1894-Smokeless-Rear-Rifle-Sight-Vintage/273175737088?hash=item3f9a8af300:g:bUEAAOSwIzBa3o~j
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Have always been curious about this sight–were the ballistics of .32 WCF really so different from .30 WCF that a special sight was required? Little flatter trajectory with the latter, but given the practical range limits of iron sights (assuming you’re not Elmer Keith), together with the uncertainty of range estimation under actual hunting conditions, I should think the standard .30 WCF sight would be perfectly adequate.
Another curiosity: in the WRA catalogs I’ve got (1899 to 1933), which show every other factory sight available at the time, the special .32 WCF sight is not shown or mentioned.
clarence said
Have always been curious about this sight–were the ballistics of .32 WCF really so different from .30 WCF that a special sight was required? Little flatter trajectory with the latter, but given the practical range limits of iron sights (assuming you’re not Elmer Keith), together with the uncertainty of range estimation under actual hunting conditions, I should think the standard .30 WCF sight would be perfectly adequate.Another curiosity: in the WRA catalogs I’ve got (1899 to 1933), which show every other factory sight available at the time, the special .32 WCF sight is not shown or mentioned.
This is quoted from Catalogue # 70, March 1903. It probably explains why there was a different sight designed for the 32 Winchester Special in that it has different graduations for smokeless or black powder loads. It also mentions the different ballistics for smokeless and black powders.
Here’s what Winchester’s Catalogue No. 70, dated March, 1903, had to say about the .32 Winchester Special Cartridge:
“.32 Winchester Special Caliber.
For Smokeless Or Black Powder.
We have adapted the popular Winchester Model 1894 rifle to handle the new .32 Winchester Special Cartridge, and are prepared to furnish it in solid frame or take-down style with 26 inch round, octagon, or half-octagon nickel steel barrels with full or half magazines. Rifles for the .32 Winchester Special Cartridge are fitted with a new and specially designed rear sight, which is graduated for either Smokeless or Black powder cartridges. All extras furnished on .30 W. C. F. or .38-55 caliber Model 1894 rifles can be furnished for this gun except extra light weight barrels. Model 1894 .32-40 caliber rifles will not handle the .32 Winchester Special Cartridge, and .30 Winchester caliber rifles cannot be bored up to do so.
The .32 Winchester Special Cartridge, which we have just perfected, is offered to meet the demand of many sportsmen for a Smokeless powder cartridge of larger caliber than the .30 Winchester and yet not so powerful as the .30 U. S. Army, and which could be reloaded with black powder and give satisfactory results. The .32 Winchester Special Cartridge meets all these requirements. Loaded with Smokeless powder and a 170 grain bullet, it has a muzzle velocity of 2,112 foot seconds, thereby generating a muzzle energy of 1,683 foot pounds. At the standard testing distance of 15 feet from the muzzle, this cartridge, with a full metal patched bullet, will give a penetration of 37, 7/8 inch pine boards. Its trajectory is as follows:
100 yards Trajectory. Height at 50 yards, 1.17 inches.
200 yards Trajectory. Height at 100 yards, 5.60 inches.
300 yards Trajectory. Height at 150 yards, 15.26 inches.
From these figures it will be readily seen that the advantages of this cartridge are its great striking energy, penetration, high velocity and consequent flat trajectory.
With a charge of 40 grains of black powder, the .32 Winchester Special develops a velocity of 1,385 foot seconds, which makes it a powerful black powder cartridge. In loading or reloading the .32 Winchester Special with black powder the Winchester No. 5 ½ primer should be used.
We load this cartridge with Smokeless powder only, but are prepared to furnish primed shells, full metal patched, metal patched soft pointed, or plain lead bullets, and reloading tools, for loading black powder only. We do not advise hand loading or reloading of this cartridge with Smokeless powder by individuals.“
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Above warning about reloading the .32 with smokeless makes no sense to me, and if there was supposed to be some danger in doing so, as implied by this statement, why wouldn’t the same warning apply to .30 WCF & .30 US? Also seems odd that anyone preferring BP over smokeless wouldn’t choose one of the well-known BP cartridges instead, like .32-40.
Somehow I don’t see any warning about reloading the 32 WS with smokeless powder. What I do see is a warning that the 32WS won’t fit in a 32-40 nor a re-bored 30 Win, which I take to mean the chamber dimensions are different.
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Wincacher said
Somehow I don’t see any warning about reloading the 32 WS with smokeless powder. What I do see is a warning that the 32WS won’t fit in a 32-40 nor a re-bored 30 Win, which I take to mean the chamber dimensions are different.
“We do not advise hand loading or reloading of this cartridge with Smokeless powder by individuals.“
clarence said
“We do not advise hand loading or reloading of this cartridge with Smokeless powder by individuals.”
That’s a good point but since they said “by individuals” I took it to mean that reloads by gun shops or by Winchester themselves were OK. Probably a statement made solely as a marketing ploy to encourage people to purchase new Winchester ammo. My earliest Ideal Reloading Handbook is a few years newer than the 1903 Winchester statement but it lists 6 different DuPont and Hercules smokeless powders to use with the 32 WS. (Interestingly enough, they don’t mention any Winchester powders.)
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
Wincacher said
Probably a statement made solely as a marketing ploy to encourage people to purchase new Winchester ammo.
Exactly what I was thinking! And introducing a new cartridge (like the .32 WCF) little different from others long available (like .32-40) in the hope of selling a new rifle is another marketing ploy that’s still going strong.
November 7, 2015
Online
As I understand it the early days of smokeless powder presented a huge learning curve that apparently scared the bejeezus out of the manufacturers. They didn’t think the average reloader familiar with BP could be trusted with smokeless powder. Even though only a few powders were available at the time the burn rates varied and it’s conceivable that someone used to loading BP would simply fill a case with a new-fangled smokeless powder without first determining which one had the correct burn rate. BP was (is) pretty simple. Cartridges were designed to hold a case full of the bulky BP and burn rates varied little. If a reloader had a choice between slow, medium or fast smokeless powders he’d probably think fast is better. I’m thinking a 32WS case full of fast smokeless powder would be a bad thing for a Model 94.
Mike
TXGunNut said
As I understand it the early days of smokeless powder presented a huge learning curve that apparently scared the bejeezus out of the manufacturers.
Well, maybe so. But why wouldn’t the same thinking apply to .30 WCF, .30 US. etc. What makes reloading .32 WCF a special case?
November 7, 2015
Online
clarence said
TXGunNut said
As I understand it the early days of smokeless powder presented a huge learning curve that apparently scared the bejeezus out of the manufacturers.
Well, maybe so. But why wouldn’t the same thinking apply to .30 WCF, .30 US. etc. What makes reloading .32 WCF a special case?
I’ve read & heard that the 32WS was developed and marketed for the hand loader (presumably with BP; at least at first) and the catalog Wayne quotes above seems to support that. I believe the 32WS is a slightly better cartridge (in theory, anyway) than the 30WCF for cast bullets but I haven’t been able to prove it. The 30WCF loaded with BP hasn’t worked out well for me and quite honestly I’ve never been curious enough to try Holy Black in the 32WS, I have no reason to believe it will do better in the almost identical case. I’m a big fan of the 32WS cartridge but quite honestly I don’t think it’s a better cartridge than it’s more popular older sister, the 30WCF.
To answer your question, Clarence, I wish I knew. Sounds to me like a committee decision. Maybe some marketing people wanted to reach the handloading market and someone else on the committee was worried about what someone would do with the unfamiliar smokeless powder. The result would probably look like the article quoted above.
I’ve always liked the 32WS, probably in no small part because of it’s controversial history. Some fans swear it’s a far better round than the 30WCF but it’s simply not possible. But in the interest of full disclosure I’m also a big fan of the 30WCF.
Mike
TXGunNut said
I’ve read & heard that the 32WS was developed and marketed for the hand loader (presumably with BP; at least at first) and the catalog Wayne quotes above seems to support that. I believe the 32WS is a slightly better cartridge (in theory, anyway) than the 30WCF for cast bullets but I haven’t been able to prove it. The 30WCF loaded with BP hasn’t worked out well for me and quite honestly I’ve never been curious enough to try Holy Black in the 32WS, I have no reason to believe it will do better in the almost identical case. I’m a big fan of the 32WS cartridge but quite honestly I don’t think it’s a better cartridge than it’s more popular older sister, the 30WCF.
To answer your question, Clarence, I wish I knew. Sounds to me like a committee decision. Maybe some marketing people wanted to reach the handloading market and someone else on the committee was worried about what someone would do with the unfamiliar smokeless powder. The result would probably look like the article quoted above.
I’ve always liked the 32WS, probably in no small part because of it’s controversial history. Some fans swear it’s a far better round than the 30WCF but it’s simply not possible. But in the interest of full disclosure I’m also a big fan of the 30WCF.
Mike
It is my understanding that Winchester was having trouble with the 30 WCF loading. Isn’t it a fact that the first 94’s were in 32-40 and 38-55? Did the 30 WCF come out in 95?
Mike, et al,
There actually is a significant difference in the 32 WS versus the 30 WCF. While both were designed to shoot a 170-grain flat-point bullet at essentially identical velocities (1,960 fps versus 2,050 fps), that is ballistically where the similarities end.
Specifically, the 30 WCF barrels were made with a 1:12 twist rate, whereas the 32 WS was made with a slower 1:16 twist rate. The .308 bullet used in the 30 WCF has a slightly higher (better) ballistic coefficient than the .321 bullet used in the 32 WS, which results in better down-range performance. The 32 WS bullet sheds velocity faster than the 30 WCF bullet, and it will stop spinning (stability) at a lesser distance than the 30 WCF bullet.
It is my understanding that the slower twist rate was selected for the 32 WS to help reduce fowling when loaded with black powder.
From my personal perspective, the 32 WS was an “unneeded” cartridge in the Model 1894. The 32-40 filled the need for the black powder diehards, and the smokeless powder guys who wanted the bigger .32 caliber bullet. With the advent of the WHV factory loadings (available in the 32-40), it was a useless endeavor to offer two different .32 caliber cartridges in the Model 1894.
Bert
WACA Historian & Board of Director Member #6571L
Bert H. said
With the advent of the WHV factory loadings (available in the 32-40), it was a useless endeavor to offer two different .32 caliber cartridges in the Model 1894.
Don’t know about WHV factory loadings, but Dominion’s HV loads were hot. I think I bulged the chamber of a .32-40 HW by shooting them.
November 7, 2015
Online
The slower twist rate of the 32WS is why I was drawn to the cartridge because I cast bullets and reload. I think as a practical matter with the right bullets and load I can make the 32WS do virtually anyhing the 30WCF can do and vice versa but my far-from-exhaustive testing has involved only three 32WS rifles or carbines and maybe half a dozen 30WCF rifles or carbines. The ones with good bores haven’t showed much inclination to be particularly accurate but both cartridges are intended to be medium range rifles for medium sized game so both are more than up to the task. I seldom shoot much over 100 yds so the BC difference is not a noticeable factor. In fact, the bullets I cast for hunting or plinking have large meplats so BC’s are even worse than the factory rounds.
Mike
Interesting question: what is the reason for a letter stamped on the bottom of the 32 WS Smokeless sight (# 64A)? I have one with an “F” and there are 3 on eBay right now that have a “P”, an “A” or triangle, and one with nothing stamped on the bottom of the dovetail. Lyman stamped application codes on the bottom of their sights but this Winchester sight is only for the Model 1894 in 32 WS so an application code would not be needed.
"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
1 Guest(s)
