Something old, something new: and nothing to be blue about

Guns Magazine, June, 2008 by Holt Bodinson

"Discontinued" is a dreaded word in the rimfire lexicon. Too many fine rimfire firearms have been sidelined by the major ammunition makers who dropped cartridges from their lines. Yet, there's hope. Companies like Navy Arms still supply .22 Winchester Automatic and .32 Long Rimfire through their 01d Western Scrounger branch. Winchester still turns out .22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF) ammo. The latest good news is Aguila in conjunction with Centurion Ordnance and DKG Trading is bringing back the 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum.

Being an ingenious lot, shooters, too, have demonstrated their resourcefulness in working around the problems of rimfire obsolescence. Bolts for the .41 Swiss Rimfire and the 5mm Remington are routinely converted to handle formed centerfire brass. Centerfire breechblocks for Civil War Spencers have become available. And of course, there's the old single shot trick of welding up the rimfire pin hole and drilling out a new one for a centerfire pin.

Creative Rimfires

Maybe the most radical solution I've seen is one done by Bob Hayley. Hayley is the man behind the Old Western Scrounger's smorgasbord of obsolete cartridge offerings. He owns hundreds of bullet moulds and can recreate almost any cartridge ever chambered.

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Pictured is his solution to getting those wonderful old .32 rimfires shooting again. He takes a centerfire .32 Long case, bores it off center, and inserts a rimfire RWS "Acorn" blank that extends out to the edge of the parent case rim.

Hayley also provides the proper 90-grain heeled bullets and loading data for the .32 Long Colt. Similar case head conversions I've heard about use .22 caliber "Level 4" nail gun blanks without any powder to propel roundballs or buckshot downrange at about 300 or 400 feet per second.

The .32 Long

I admit having a soft place in my heart for the old .32 rimfire. One of the great .32 rimfire stories, entitled "Won't Kill Rabbits A-Tall," appears in Walter Rogers' autobiographical book, Huntin' Gun.

Rogers was a working Texas cowboy and an entertaining author whose works often appeared in the American Rifleman in the 1940s and '50s. It seems one day he is riding along and meets a barefooted boy on a mule carrying an old single shot .32 rimfire rifle and a bunch of fox squirrels with the top of their heads shot off. Striking up a conversation about their respective guns, the boy observes his rifle will kill squirrels, but it just won't kill rabbits a-tall.

Rogers is carrying an old .32 caliber pistol, and before long, the young hunter suggests a trade. Rogers agrees, and they both ride off with their new toys.

Later that day, Rogers buys a box of .32 Long Rimfire at the general store and goes squirrel hunting. The rifle is dead on and that night he enjoys a delicious squirrel dinner by the campfire, deciding to go rabbit hunting the next day.

Dawn comes and Rogers spots a cottontail almost immediately. Pulling the trigger, he is met with a dull clunk. Putting a fresh cartridge in the chamber, he aims again, and again it's a misfire.

Thinking back to the boy's words, Rogers looks at his new acquisition a little bit closer and realizes the old rifle has a most generous case of excess headspace. When the old single shot was title up for taking a shot at a squirrel, the cartridge would slide back against the breech block where the firing pin could impact the rim. When the .32 was titled down for potting a rabbit, the cartridge would slide so far forward into the chamber the pin could not touch the rim, and that's why it "won't kill rabbits a-tall."

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Thanks to Navy Arms we can still enjoy our .32 rimfires today. Navy Arms .32 Long Rimfire ammunition is great stuff. Produced under contract by CBC of Brazil, the load consists of the proper 90-grain heeled, roundnose bullet over 2.7 grains of an unknown ball powder. Velocity from my Stevens Model 44 single shot with its 24" barrel averages 998 fps.

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Over the years, I have shot a lot of Navy Arms rimfire in both a Marlin Model 1892 and several Model 44 Stevens. For some reason, every .32 caliber firearm, either rifle or revolver, I've ever owned has always delivered exceptional accuracy. My current Stevens Model 44, sporting a tang sight and a globe front sight, will punch out 1" 3-shot groups at 75 yards with the Navy Arms ammunition more often than not, and it has been known to kill squirrels and rabbits.

Stay tuned for the latest on the 5mm Remington Rimfire Magnum reintroduction. Cartridges will not be available until mid-winter 2008, but Taurus and T/C have already indicated they will introduce firearms and barrels for the hot new loading.

Originally, Remington loaded a 38-grain, .2045" diameter, hollowpoint bullet at a velocity of 2,100 fps. The new Aguila/ Centurion loading features a 30-grain, hollowpoint bullet at 2,300 fps. The original 5mm was a sensational cartridge, but never reached its potential in the cheap rifles Remington chambered it in. It's going to do much better the second time round. Look for it from DKG Trading.