Any .327 Federal Magnum fans here?

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Phaedrus/69

Phaedrus/69

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I've had a couple of Ruger LCRs (one x 2" in .38 Special and the LCRx 3") but am really starting to think I'd like to replace the .38 with the same gun in .327 Federal. It holds six rounds instead of five, has less recoil and the ballistics seem acceptable. Granted there's not a lot of variety of ammo but the round looks appealing.

Anyone here a fan of the round?
 
I have a single seven in 327 federal with the 3.75in barrel and the birdshead grip. It's a great little gun although since my primary purpose for it is as a light trail gun with a bit more punch than a .22 I prefer to carry it with .32's loaded to around 850-900 fps with .85gr bullet. I rarely shoot the 327 cartridges through it but it's nice to have that upward mobility if I should want it.
 
il.bill said:
Does a revolver firing .327 Federal Magnum have less recoil than the same size frame firing factory .38 Special?

I like the idea of six shots instead of five, though.
Click to expand...

No. The 327 Federal has less recoil than a 357 magnum, but more than a 38 Special.

However, you can shoot 32 H&R magnum, 32 S&W Long and 32 S&W in a gun chambered for 327 Federal. So, you have many options for less recoil.
 
I am a fan of the cartridge, but I haven't purchased anything that chambers it yet. It's on the short list.

I haven't nailed down which revolver it will be yet. An 8-shot 4" 686 would be nice. If they made one, I'd be all over it (as long as the MSRP wasn't $1200).
 
Yes, even though I'm not wearing the rose colored glasses of .327 anymore, I'm still a fan. Most of my issues relate to Ruger's manufacturing of them and the lack of bullet selection.

I could probably write a book on the .32 and it's place in the modern revolver and rifles too, but I'll keep it short here. If you want me to go into deep details, I will.

In the LCR, I think that's a great choice to put .327 in. The Single Seven is good too. I do wonder tho if in the LCR 9mm isn't better. Idk, maybe that's dangerous thinking, rimless cartridge and all.

Hmm... Dangerous Thinking...

 
I like the round and have the Ruger SP101 and GP100 in that caliber. Also the disc Smith 632. I shoot the Fed Mag only in the GP100 and the other 2 get 32 H&R. Reloading gives a lot of options with bullets.
 
I have been carrying the LCR 327 as a primary for well over a year now. I am a huge fan of the LCR 327, as well as the 32 H&R Magnum and the Federal 327.

As you've owned a couple LCR's and know about the 6 round capacity of the LCR 327, I won't waste words on those aspects. Suffice to say as a very concealable, very robust, very reliable, very flexible and very light weapon it scores high on all those things. In fact, as a carry pistol, for the "average person" living an "average life", I'd say it was the best of all worlds an unbeatable, and that includes going against subcompact semis.

I will talk on the round because that is your question. The 327 Federal is powerful. It's also loud - I think louder than the 357 but I have no data to show one way or another. I've read that it's actually packed to a higher pressure than a 357, so if snap, crackle pop is your thing it delivers. And there is a lot of muzzle blast and recoil. If power is what you are looking for in a small package that holds 6 rounds, the answer is federal 327.

The H&R Magnum, physically almost the same size as the Federal 327, isn't as powerful, but it is a very capable round non-the-less. It's also less noisy and less blast. And more controllable.

I once posted in defensivecarry.com if anyone thought split loading the LCR 327 was a good idea, to a poster (there was many of them) they all said no.

But I disagree. So I load the 1st three rounds in my LCR with H&R Magnum, and the second with Federal 327. As a lot of gun exchanges are over and done in a few shots, I figured using the more controllable less deafening 32 H&R Magnum could take care of business but if I ever had to shoot the 4th, 5th and 6th bullet, I'd welcome the 327's despite the issues I mentioned.

I did a video on the LCR 327, and still stand by everything I said.

 
I own an SP101, a GP100, and I proposed to my now wife with an LCR (yes, instead of a ring) in 327 Fed. Yeah, I'm a fan. I keep begging Ruger to come out with a 3 inch barrel LCRx in 327 Fed.

More energy than a 38 special or 9mm in guns of equal barrel length while being significantly more manageable than a 357.

Great little round.
 
SPW1 said:
I have a single seven in 327 federal with the 3.75in barrel and the birdshead grip. It's a great little gun although since my primary purpose for it is as a light trail gun with a bit more punch than a .22 I prefer to carry it with .32's loaded to around 850-900 fps with .85gr bullet. I rarely shoot the 327 cartridges through it but it's nice to have that upward mobility if I should want it.
Click to expand...

This is my interest in the round as well, though with a bullet closer to 100gr at about the same velocity.

I believe it's a great pistol/carbine combination round, the new .32-20 as it were.
 
TTv2 said:
In the LCR, I think that's a great choice to put .327 in. The Single Seven is good too. I do wonder tho if in the LCR 9mm isn't better. Idk, maybe that's dangerous thinking, rimless cartridge and all.
Click to expand...

A buddy of mine struggled with the 9mm LCR for a couple years before giving up and selling it. Crimp jump was awful and he never solved the issue; factory ammo, reloads, didn't matter- the cylinder routinely got tied up. Since he bought it for defensive use he decided he didn't want to die while trying to figure it out. Now he has an LCR in .38 Special, the Talo edition with the copper-colored cylinder.
 
Phaedrus/69 said:
A buddy of mine struggled with the 9mm LCR for a couple years before giving up and selling it. Crimp jump was awful and he never solved the issue; factory ammo, reloads, didn't matter- the cylinder routinely got tied up. Since he bought it for defensive use he decided he didn't want to die while trying to figure it out. Now he has an LCR in .38 Special, the Talo edition with the copper-colored cylinder.
Click to expand...
I've seen people have issues with crimp jump and those that haven't had issues with crimp jump. At this point, I'd have to believe it's just a QC issue. Were I him, I'd have called Ruger and had them replace the cylinder or the entire gun.
 
Rodentman said:
Reloading gives a lot of options with bullets.
Click to expand...
Not as much as you'd think. Casting your own bullet you would, but the effective bullet weight for the .32's it seems is anything 90 grains or more. When I shoot anything under 90 grains (the 85 grain JHP's being an exception) the accuracy is dreadful and that's not limited to just .327 either.

So, at 90 grains or more there's a few jacketed bullet options, two are Hornady XTP's, two 100 grain Rainers, and a 90 grain Sierra soft hollow point. As for lead, there's a couple 94-95 grain flat nose options that I like, the 100 grain wadcutter is a standard bullet for .32, several 115 grain flat nose that also shoot really well, and a few 120 to 125 grain options from Mattsbullets.

That's it. One of my original goals with the .32 centerfire was an ultra light, subsonic load that mimicked .22 LR as much as possible, but the issue I ran in to was that once you went below 90 grains, the accuracy went to crap. The only light load I haven't tried is a 50-ish grain round ball in the Henry rifle, mainly because I know it won't feed and I'm afraid the ball will get shoved deeper into the case in the tube magazine as there's no crimp groove. I've tried it in a revolver and I loaded it too light to the point I got a squib. Nice thing about that was round balls are really easy to punch out of the bore.

So the options are mostly 90 to 120 grains. For a revolver, I think 100 grains is just fine, for the rifle I would go as heavy as possible with the projectile. Trajectory will suffer, but the .32 seems to prefer heavy bullets.

The issue with the lead bullets tho is Ruger makes all their .327 revolvers to be used with jacketed bullets and the throats of the cylinders are big, very big. Leading will occur with enough shooting. So, unless you like crap accuracy and cleaning out lead from a bore, you're stuck with jacketed bullets in which there are only 5 options.

This is the problem with .327, I can't speak to .32 Mag and more modern .32 S&W Long revolvers as I only have a Heritage .32 Mag and an H&R top break .32 Long to compare. In a rifle, there's no issues and that's the main reason I see .327 and the shorter .32 calibers future in rifles, be them single shots, levers, bolt action, or maybe semi-automatics if Ruger would ever make an updated Model 44 design for more than just the .44 caliber.

The market for .32 is too small that the industry will not go out of their way to offer more bullet options, factory ammo options, or guns and because the market is so small people who are not interested in .32 for the reasons of the lack of industry support will not buy .32 as a result. About the only way out I see is if more women get into carrying guns for self defense and choose the .32 caliber, namely the LCR.

I was glad to see Charter offering a 7 shot .32 Mag they're dubbing "the Professional" because I hope to see that trend continue. If S&W and Taurus and/or even Rock Island would get into making .32 snub revolvers, that would only be beneficial in getting the .32 caliber out there and more popular. Hell, even NAA could get in on the action and bump up the size of their mini revolvers to fit a few rounds of .32 S&W Long would be a help.

More rifles in .327 would be great too. Why Henry beat Ruger to making a rifle in .327, I do not know. Ruger could put this in the American (along with .357 and .44 Mag) and with a sub $400 price tag never be able to keep up with demand. I wrote to the CEO last week about bringing the Model 44 back in a variety of calibers, but with an updated design (I'm hung up on having one with two full length mag tubes like the KSG has so the total capacity would be something around 14+1) and I haven't heard back from him, nor anyone else with the company

When I wrote to Anthony Imperato of Henry about making a .327 rifle, I got a response from him the very next day confirming it was already in the works. I'm just led to believe that Ruger doesn't give a crap about the .327 anymore. They've offered it in all the guns they wish to make it in, they haven't pressured the ammo manufacturer's to make more ammo for it,

The bottom line is even with reloading, it doesn't solve the issues the caliber has.
 
I got a 327 Fed Mag barrel for my Bond Arms derringer. I load a pretty good shot shell that works well in the derringer.

I have a couple revolvers chambered for 327 Fed Magnum and I enjoy shooting them. I load and shoot mostly target level wadcutter loads in 327 Fed Magnum cases these days.
 
Never really warmed up to the .32 H&R Magnum but when the .327 came out I was impressed with the ballistics...

Was about to buy a Single-Seven but while trying to decide between the 5.5" and 7.5" barrels a deal came up on a Freedom Arms with a custom length 6.5" barrel and bought that one instead...and it is a great shooter.

upload_2019-4-20_6-15-18.jpeg


Picked up several more over the years:
Ruger LCR
S&W 632-2 PRO
Ruger SP-101 (old model with small adjustable rear sight)

The PRO was a very nice gun but one of those cult guns too valuable to carry...traded it off for a S&W 16-2 4" .32 H&R that is just a joy to shoot. Also picked up a Ruger Single-Six stainless birdshead in .32 H&R...another gun that is a joy to shoot and shoots right to the sights with 85-95 grain bullets.

Final .327 is a S&W Model 53 .22 Jet that went to Jack Huntington and came back a .327... Just wasn't using the gun any more in .22 Jet and have gotten a lot more use out of this caliber...

upload_2019-4-20_6-22-39.jpeg


Hopefully more manufactures will make guns in this round and more ammo makers will bring out more ammo.....

Bob
 
Most of the talk about having 327 guns is referring to not actually using 327 Federal Magnum ammo except in theory. The smaller guns that one might want to carry would be damaging to ones hearing and focus, if actually shooting defensively. Very much like 357s actually used as 38s, the small 327s travel well loaded with 32 H&R or subsonic loads in 327 brass. I have had Single Sevens and carry an older SP101 in 327. The gun I think is best suited to full up 327 Federal Magnum is the Ruger GP100 5.5" Lipsey's special holding 7 rounds. That double action is better than the Single Seven, which was a bust in my book, a force fit in a .22 LR platform. A Blackhawk in 327 would be okay, I guess. They tried that in 32 H&R and went nowhere with it. I think that was a six shooter. I don't think Ruger should make any single action that doesn't index on the loading gate. We make excuses for the ones that do not. Free spin is not helpful either. The gun should load like a Colt, or I will look elsewhere. The light frame Flat Top would come closest, I think, maybe kept at 6 rounds to simplify indexing.

The 4" SP101 I owned in 327 was pretty nice for the caliber. I just shoot better with more gun to fill my hand, which isn't very big.
 
TTv2 said:
Not as much as you'd think. Casting your own bullet you would, but the effective bullet weight for the .32's it seems is anything 90 grains or more. When I shoot anything under 90 grains (the 85 grain JHP's being an exception) the accuracy is dreadful and that's not limited to just .327 either.

So, at 90 grains or more there's a few jacketed bullet options, two are Hornady XTP's, two 100 grain Rainers, and a 90 grain Sierra soft hollow point. As for lead, there's a couple 94-95 grain flat nose options that I like, the 100 grain wadcutter is a standard bullet for .32, several 115 grain flat nose that also shoot really well, and a few 120 to 125 grain options from Mattsbullets.

That's it. One of my original goals with the .32 centerfire was an ultra light, subsonic load that mimicked .22 LR as much as possible, but the issue I ran in to was that once you went below 90 grains, the accuracy went to crap. The only light load I haven't tried is a 50-ish grain round ball in the Henry rifle, mainly because I know it won't feed and I'm afraid the ball will get shoved deeper into the case in the tube magazine as there's no crimp groove. I've tried it in a revolver and I loaded it too light to the point I got a squib. Nice thing about that was round balls are really easy to punch out of the bore.

So the options are mostly 90 to 120 grains. For a revolver, I think 100 grains is just fine, for the rifle I would go as heavy as possible with the projectile. Trajectory will suffer, but the .32 seems to prefer heavy bullets.

The issue with the lead bullets tho is Ruger makes all their .327 revolvers to be used with jacketed bullets and the throats of the cylinders are big, very big. Leading will occur with enough shooting. So, unless you like crap accuracy and cleaning out lead from a bore, you're stuck with jacketed bullets in which there are only 5 options.

This is the problem with .327, I can't speak to .32 Mag and more modern .32 S&W Long revolvers as I only have a Heritage .32 Mag and an H&R top break .32 Long to compare. In a rifle, there's no issues and that's the main reason I see .327 and the shorter .32 calibers future in rifles, be them single shots, levers, bolt action, or maybe semi-automatics if Ruger would ever make an updated Model 44 design for more than just the .44 caliber.

The market for .32 is too small that the industry will not go out of their way to offer more bullet options, factory ammo options, or guns and because the market is so small people who are not interested in .32 for the reasons of the lack of industry support will not buy .32 as a result. About the only way out I see is if more women get into carrying guns for self defense and choose the .32 caliber, namely the LCR.

I was glad to see Charter offering a 7 shot .32 Mag they're dubbing "the Professional" because I hope to see that trend continue. If S&W and Taurus and/or even Rock Island would get into making .32 snub revolvers, that would only be beneficial in getting the .32 caliber out there and more popular. Hell, even NAA could get in on the action and bump up the size of their mini revolvers to fit a few rounds of .32 S&W Long would be a help.

More rifles in .327 would be great too. Why Henry beat Ruger to making a rifle in .327, I do not know. Ruger could put this in the American (along with .357 and .44 Mag) and with a sub $400 price tag never be able to keep up with demand. I wrote to the CEO last week about bringing the Model 44 back in a variety of calibers, but with an updated design (I'm hung up on having one with two full length mag tubes like the KSG has so the total capacity would be something around 14+1) and I haven't heard back from him, nor anyone else with the company

When I wrote to Anthony Imperato of Henry about making a .327 rifle, I got a response from him the very next day confirming it was already in the works. I'm just led to believe that Ruger doesn't give a crap about the .327 anymore. They've offered it in all the guns they wish to make it in, they haven't pressured the ammo manufacturer's to make more ammo for it,

The bottom line is even with reloading, it doesn't solve the issues the caliber has.
Click to expand...
You and I see things just about the same way. I’ve had a passing interest in the 327 Federal for some time. Acquired a good used on on GB last month. Bought 1000 rounds of new Starline brass and 1000 Hornady 100 grain XTP bullets. After reading the notes in the Hornady manual, my conclusion was that the 85 grain XTP, with its blistering velocity, would result in groups that looked like a drive-by shooting. Thanks for confirming that, as I would have gotten around to giving it a try sooner or later. Thanks for saving me the time and money. Like you, the big restriction with the caliber is bullet selection. What we have out there today is just not tough enough to stand up to 1400 fps velocities...the bullets explode on impact at higher velocity ranges. This is undoubtedly why Hornady cautions people to back off on velocities if you want your bullets to stay together. Probably not an issue if you’re slinging rounds at coyotes. Edible small game would tend to be less edible after taking a hit from a 100 grain XTP doing 1400 fps IMO.

The entire premise of the 327 Federal was an interesting one: “Let’s build a 32 caliber round that will duplicate the ballistics of the 357 Magnum with less recoil in smaller frame handguns”. I kind of like the idea myself. Too bad that no one in the mix stopped to consider whether or not any of the currently available jacketed bullets could stand up to that velocity. It may duplicate the 357 on paper but down range performance is entirely another matter.

A word of caution to reloaders. I haven’t seen any 327 Federal reloading dies out there. Thought I would start small, read that cheap, as I intended to reload this round on a single stage press rather than investing in the tool head, powder die and shell plate to reload this on my Dillon. Didn’t work out very well. That long expander plug in the RCBS die and the heavy Starlne brass was a bad combination. You end up running that brass up so far on the expander plug that it will get hung up...”hung up” as in pulling the rim off the case, tearing the brass in half and having to use a hammer to get the neck of the case off the plug. Now that’s what I call “hung up”! Dillion’s 32 caliber powder / expander plug is short and works just fine. If you’re going to go with RCBS, you’re gonna have to chuck that expander plug up in a lathe and modify it.

Overall, the 327 Federal in an interesting proposition. I enjoy mine. My GP100 in 327 is a 4.2” (gotta love how Ruger caters to the Canadian market...4.2” indeed.) Think I’ll look for a good, used 6” GP100 in 327 too.
 
I'm a fan and probably biasedly so. I use Lee 32 h&r dies to reload and they work great on my LCT. If you don't reload and never plan to then don't bother with the 327 unless you really like ordering in ammo online or have a LGS that will stock it for you. I've had difficulty finding full power 327 in Omaha NE, I can't imagine trying to get ahold of it in a smaller town. I haven't experienced accuracy issues but I stayed with heavier bullets as I prefer them as a general rule. I find the recoil less with 327 in my LCR than 38 +p in a rental LCR but the noise can offset that quickly if a shooter is sensitive to that. So far I carry 32 h&r but only because I haven't found 327 defensive loads on the shelf yet and I've been obstinate about ordering ammo. Underwood just came out with one of their screwdriver rounds loaded in 327 that will change that once I don't have other bills to take care of. After all the detractions I still feel 327 and the 32 family is a great mix of power, capacity, and controllable recoil for me and intend to keep adding guns in the chambering to my collection. Definitely excited to see what a rifle will do.
 
Dunross said:
This is my interest in the round as well, though with a bullet closer to 100gr at about the same velocity.

I believe it's a great pistol/carbine combination round, the new .32-20 as it were.
Click to expand...

I would agree that the 100gr bullet is better than the 85 grain bullets on average in the 32 long and the longer 32's. However in my case i have been using a 85 gr cast bullet because I'm loading 32 S&W not 32 S&W longs in my 327. In the short and tiny 32 s&w the 85 grain bullets are a better fit for the case capacity. I find I get very decent accuracy with "hot" loaded 32 s&w and 85 gr bullets. On the order of an inch and a half or so at twenty yards for 7 shots out of my 327 single 7 birdshead. The reason I am loading "hot" 32 s&w loads in a 327 comes down to my purpose for the gun. I wanted a light load with .22 like recoil but a bit more punch for small game. It has been my experience over the years that on average a given cartridge performs better when it is loaded near the upper end of its potential. Loading a 32 s&w with a 85 grain bullet at 850-900fps enables me to achieve a a nearly full case with a fast burning powder(full enough to prevent the possiblity of an accidental double charge) while still having a light load with extremely minimal recoil, modest muzzle blast and yet generating enough pressure to give acceptable accuracy and soot free brass. If I had a firearm actually chambered in 32 s&w I would do something else as most of the guns chambered for that round are pretty weak and are generally not safe to shoot with loads exceeding 600-650 fps and a 85 gr bullet.
 
I don't really care that there aren't a lot of ammo options. In all the years I've owned .38 Special revolvers I've only ever used a couple of loads. Light wadcutters for plinking and 158 LSWC from Remington make up about 90% of all my .38 usage. Five loads for the .327 Fed would probably be two more than I'd use.:rofl: Some Buffalo Bore or Doubletap heavy hard cast would be my woods load and whatever cheap .32 stuff I could find would serve me as plinking ammo.

I'm primarily an auto guy (particularly an HK guy). So really I don't ask a lot of my wheelguns.
 
Phaedrus/69 said:
I Five loads for the .327 Fed would probably be two more than I'd use.:rofl: Some Buffalo Bore or Doubletap heavy hard cast would be my woods load and whatever cheap .32 stuff I could find would serve me as plinking ammo.
Click to expand...

A reasonable plan except that there really is not any cheap, plinking 32 caliber ammunition out there. At least not like 38 Special.

It is too bad, 32 S&WL would be a good centerfire alternative to 22 LR if only it was more popular.

I understand that reloading is not everyone's "cup of tea" but it does add lots of options to cartridges such as the 32 caliber revolver rounds.

Phaedrus/69 said:
I'm primarily an auto guy (particularly an HK guy).
Click to expand...

Semi-autos are fun to shoot as well. I like my M1911's but my SD pistol is an HK P30SK.
 
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