32-40 Ballard
Miniature, Short-Range and Gallery Loads
feature By: William M. Curry, Jr. | April, 26
The 32-40 Ballard cartridge (also known as the 32-40 Winchester and Marlin) was created by Ballard in 1884, as a target cartridge loaded with a 165-grain bullet and 40 grains of black powder. It is based on the 38-50 Ballard Everlasting and the 38-55 Ballard necked down to take a .319 to .324-diameter bullet. It also has applications as a hunting cartridge from small game to deer, depending on the loading. The 32-40 was loaded to several different power levels ranging from gallery, miniature and short range, through standard black powder, smokeless low pressure to various versions of high velocity including the Remington “High Power” load that was equal to both the 30-30 WCF and 32 Winchester Special.
The UMC 1905 Catalog shows short-range and miniature loads available for the 32-40, as well as many other cartridges. The short-range loads are listed with a 98-grain grooved lead bullet with 13 grains of black powder or smokeless. Miniature loads have smokeless and a 100-grain metal cased bullet. The short-range loads are described as “accurate to 50 yards”.1
Gallery loads are for reduced range target practice or hunting small game and vermin at close range. Blunt (1889) generally described gallery loads for ranges of 100 feet or less.
Blunt also described the targets used for gallery practice at 50, 75 and 100 feet. Appendix A also gave instructions for the reloading of cartridges for gallery practice.2
Milton Farrow also mentioned short-range, gallery or armory practice loads in his 1904 book.3 Two of Col. Whelen’s books had chapters on reduced and gallery loads and practice, as well as Phil Sharpe’s 1948 book on handloading.4 Ken Waters (1991) described gallery loads in an article for Handloader magazine 5 and Mattern (1926) has a chapter on reduced loads.6 Mattern classified gallery loads, as having a velocity of 800 fps with an accurate range to 25 yards and short-range outdoor loads with a velocity of 1000 fps with an accurate range of 50 to 100 yards.7
As target and small game loads, gallery loadings offer reduced noise, muzzle blast, and penetration. As target loads, they are all about sight picture, trigger squeeze, follow-through and calling the shot. Because of the low velocity and consequential long barrel time, good follow-through is very important. It is entirely possible to ruin a shot after the sear breaks and before the bullet leaves the barrel. Another benefit of gallery loads is it’s usually easier to find a 50 or 75-foot range than a 200 or 1,000-yard range and the short distance makes scoring, marking and changing the target much easier. Militaries found this useful, as gallery ranges did not require target pullers in pits.
Typical gallery distances for rifles in the U.S. are 50 feet, 75 feet, 1,000 inches and 100 feet. Metric distances are 15, 25, and 30 meters. For years, the standard US military gallery distance for was 1,000 inches (83 feet, four inches) until being replaced by 25 meters (82 feet). I believe, 1,000 inches was selected because one-inch at 1,000 inches is one angular mil. Military fire control instruments were graduated in mils. This made scaling targets and adjusting fire easier. Artillery such as anti-
tank guns was used at 1,000 inches with .22 rimfire sub-caliber inserts. Mortars were used out to 2,000 inches with sub-caliber devices propelled with .22 blanks or compressed air. There were also artillery simulators firing one-inch ball bearings with .22 blanks or compressed air, which were used on the short gallery ranges as well. The 1,000-inch “A” target is still available.
Blunt described the recommended gallery targets in his book. The 50-foot target has a one-inch bulls-eye that counted five points. The 75-foot target has a 1.5-inch bulls-eye and the 100-foot target has a two-inch bulls-eye.8 I recreated these targets and used them along with the 1,000-inch “A” target and an “A” target reduced in scale to represent the target at 50 yards to simulate 300 yards. This target has a two-inch bulls-eye.
There are two basic ways to produced gallery or short-range loads. One is to use lighter than standard weight bullets with small propellant charges, the other is to use standard weight bullets with very light propellant charges.
There are several lighter than standard bullets available from commercial sources. I used the 109-grain .321 lead round nose 8mm Nambu bullet and the 125-grain .323 lead round nose 310 Cadet bullet as well as the 180-grain lead flat nose .323 32-40 bullet, all from Bear Creek Supply (BCS). They also make a 109-grain lead round nose bullet for the Swedish Nagant revolver that is .325. I had problems with this particular bullet, as some chamber throats would not accept it. BCS bullets
appear to be hard cast and coated with a proprietary lube containing moly. I also used the .325 125-grain lead round-nose 310 Cadet bullet from Matt’s Bullets. These were hand cast from a 1/20 alloy and were shipped to me un-sized and un-lubed. I lubed them with either Rooster Jacket or Lee Liquid Alox. The Cadet bullets are heeled and have a lubrication groove on them, which in the 310 Cadet is outside the case. In the 32-40 this is used as a crimp groove. Also used were Hornady #00 Buckshot #6400, which are .330 in diameter and weight 53 grains. To use these, they were first sprayed with Hornady One Shot (HOS) case lube and then run through a Lee .323 size die and re-lubricated with HOS. I’ve used HOS as a bullet lube for gallery loads in the 32-40 and other
cartridges with success as long as the propellant charges are small and the velocity is not too high. I would not use these round nose bullets in a tubular magazine other than one in the chamber and one in the magazine, even though the recoil impulse from these loads is small.
Factory gallery, miniature and short-range loads used both black powder and smokeless. Farrow (1904) states that the powder in factory black powder armory practice loads was loose in the case. He also recommended the use of a cotton over-powder wad to retain the propellant against the primer. He further recommended that fine grade, sporting or shotgun black powder should be used. He recommended smokeless shotgun powders in small charges for gallery or armory practice loads as well as King’s semi-smokeless.9
Vintage manuals recommended such propellants as Pistol #5, Gallery Rifle #75, Sporting Rifle #80, Unique and #2400 for gallery and short-range loads. Except for
the last two, all these have been discontinued decades ago. Gallery Rifle #75 was originally made by Laflin & Rand under the name “Marksman” and was designed as a reduced load propellant for rifles. When Laflin & Rand was bought by DuPont, the name was
changed to “Gallery Rifle #75.” Gallery Rifle #75 powder was replaced by Sporting Rifle #80, which was then replaced by SR4759 and itself discontinued within the last decade or so.10 Unique was also developed as a reduced load rifle propellant by Laflin & Rand and ultimately became a Hercules product after the breakup of the powder trust. It is still in production.11
Waters (1991) used a number of fast propellants for his gallery loads in his Handloader article, among them Red Dot and Accurate Arms #2 (AA#2). Over the years, I’ve used Red Dot extensively for gallery and short-range loads and found it to be excellent for this purpose. To develop the loads for this article I rounded up the usual suspects: Bullseye, Red Dot, AA#2, Universal, Unique, Trail Boss, Black Horn 209 (BH209) Swiss 3Fg and Goex 2Fg. I also used Alliant #2400 to see how it compared with the data in older reference material. I had not used AA#2 for this purpose before, but after rereading Ken Waters’ article I decided to give it a try.
Generally, in reduced loads with black powder excess space in the case is usually taken up by wads. As the 32-40 case is bottle necked that is difficult. Based on Farrow (1904) it was decided to try black powder loose in the case and with the excess space taken up with a filler. I had wanted to use Puff-Lon as the filler, but none was available. Instead, I used BPI Original Buffer to fill up that space. I first placed a card wad down on top of the powder and filled up the rest of the space with buffer to the base of the bullet. In some cases where the powder was loose in the case, I put a lubricated felt wad in the case mouth and then seated the bullet which resulted
in the felt wad against the base of the bullet and over the powder, which was loose in the case. This was intended to soften the fouling
rather than protect the base of the bullet. Overall, all three methods worked. Chronograph readings showed that when the powder was loose in the case the muzzle velocities were somewhat higher and the standard deviations were also higher. I take this to mean the black powder was burning faster and with less consistency when loose in the case. As far as accuracy goes, at the short distances, it was hard to tell the difference.
With the round balls, I used them seated in the case neck and seated below the case neck. With Swiss 3Fg I used a .30 caliber seating stem to seat the ball below the case mouth and then placed an over-bullet wad of SPG Lube to fill up the space over the ball. This worked outstandingly well. At 50 feet, 10 rounds resulted in a single hole in the target and no wiping was required between shots. Generally, with other methods of using black powder it was necessary to wipe the bore after five shots to keep flyers from occurring.
Two rifles were used for testing. One is a Thompson/Center rifle with a T/C factory 26-inch barrel fitted with a 1.5-4.5X scope. The TCR is a tip-up (break-barrel) type rifle. An advantage to the tip-up is that it is easy to clean when using black powder. The forearm and barrel come off and the receiver or frame is very accessible without extensive disassembly. This was the primary test vehicle for velocity and accuracy. The other was an original Stevens Model 44 that was re-barreled by CPA. It has a Soule-type Vernier rear sight, a globe front sight and a 28-inch barrel, which was also used for accuracy testing. I cannot hold groups as tight with iron sights as I can with a telescopic sight. With one exception velocity was tested with five-shot strings and accuracy usually with 10-shot strings.
Generally, it was possible to find loads that, at the distance used, were capable of putting all 10 shots in or cutting the bulls-eye. Some loads with the 125-grain Cadet bullet proved to be very accurate out to 200 yards. The Stevens 44 shot very well with the Cadet bullet at 200 yards with 5.0 and 5.5 grains of Red Dot. The 310 Cadet has a muzzle velocity of around 1250 fps and the Cadet bullet performs very credibly when loaded to this velocity in the 32-40. At shorter ranges the 109-grain .321 round-nose performed well with most propellants. This bullet with 3.5 grains of AA#2 performed exceeding well. This load is a favorite for 50 and 75-foot practice. My favorite 50-foot load is the 53-grain round ball with 7.5 grains of Swiss 3Fg and SPG Lube over-bullet lube wad. The same round ball with 2.0 grains of Bullseye performed well at 50 feet. The 124-grain Cadet bullet shot very well with 3.0 grains of Bullseye. With the 180-grain bullet, the pet load turned out to be 5.0 grains of Trail Boss. This load at 50 yards had no problem staying under two inches, which is the bull of the target I was using at 50 yards. Universal powder shot well at 75 feet with 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0 grains. Five rounds of each charge shot into the same composite group. With the heavier bullets (109 grains and heavier), the lightest charges did not do as well as the slightly heavier charges. A sweet spot usually was between 850 to 1000 fps.
Reduced or gallery loadings add to the flexibility and general usefulness of many rifles and are a cheap and rewarding form of practice for any rifleman. Try them in your favorite black powder cartridge rifle and see if you don’t agree.
Sources:
1 UMC 1905 Catalog, page 36.
2 Blunt S., Firing Regulation for Small Arms for the United States Army, 1889 Chapter III Gallery Practice pg. 63-73 Appendix A pg. 319-322
3 Farrow Edward, American Small Arms, 1904 pg. 107-108
4 Sharpe P., Complete Guide to Handloading, 1948 Ed. Chapter XXVI Reduced Mid-range and Target Loads, Reason and Importance pg. 257-263
5 Waters K., Supplemental Chambers and Gallery Loads, Handloader, November 1991, reprinted in Pet Loads 8th Ed. pg. 842-848
6 Mattern J.R., Handloading Ammunition, 1926, reprinted by Wolfe Publishing 1985, Chapter 17 pg. 183-194
7 Mattern, page 188
8 Blunt, pg. 64-65
9 Farrow, page 107
10 Neuschaefer K., The Smokeless Powders of Laflin & Rand and their fate 100 years after assimilation by DuPont, 2007 page 39., Sharpe pg. 160-161
11 Neuschaefer, page 37. Sharpe, pg. 175-176
