Baby Dragoon Cartridge Conversion

Just finished converting my Armi San Marco 1949 Pocket to .32 S&W, and thought I'd post some pictures.

Shown with a 3" K-frame for size comparison.

5 yards using super-light gallery loads.

Heir Kommt Die Sonne said:

I like it. Would make a nice range gun.

Or you could go Elmer Keith style and push that cartridge and the revolver beyond what you expect it to be able to do.

Click to expand...

Nope- not gonna push it. Going to be a range toy... but it might go small game hunting at some point.

Jim Watson said:

Details, what did you buy and what did you make?
Is the barrel close to .32 dimensions or are you having to load Funny Bullets?

P.S. I'm glad you didn't saw this one off.

Click to expand...

The barrel slugged at .314, only a couple thousandths over the standard .32 at .312, so soft lead bullets will be fine. Basically I 'bought' the gun. The rest is my own work.

bannockburn said:

Tinker

Nice, clean lines; very stylish with that barrel length! Pretty accurate too! Now for some custom grips and a new holster for it!

Click to expand...

Yes indeed! This will definitely happen.

wagonburner said:

I guess back in the day people had “deep” pockets.

Looks like the barrel is north of 6” ?

Click to expand...

5-3/4", and yes, men's trousers had surprisingly deep pockets.

whughett said:

One can get .315 round balls. A gallery load with black powder might be interesting if possible. Nice work BTW.

Click to expand...

Balls would be easier. Last night I used some swaged 58gr HBWCs over 1.0gr. of Red Dot. Really quiet, but as you can see in the picture in the OP, they were sufficient to firmly em,bed the bullets in the wood. The picture below shows the loaded cartridge with a bullet recovered from the wood. Not much distortion in the fired bullet. I can't help but think that bullet, loaded backwards over a decent powder charge, might make a hell of a small game load!

I went ahead and chronographed two different gallery loads, a 58gr Hollow-base wadcutter and a very soft lead 64gr Wadcutter. Both have an identical slightly domed point. Results from this gun's 5-3/4" barrel were as follows:

58gr HBWC, 1.0gr Red Dot, Federal #100 Primer

478 fps. 29 ft./lbs ES: 40

65gr. LWC, 1.2 gr. Red Dot, Federal #100 Primer

412 fps. 24 ft./lbs ES: 38

The 58gr. HBWC are about BRN12, the 65gr. Wadcutters are super-soft. I experimented with making HBWCs out of the soft lead using the same swaging die as got the 58gr. HBWCs, and test fired them. 3 out of 5 blew apart in the barrel. I could make a shallower hollow-base, but since the regular wadcutters work fine and are easier to make I think I'll just stick with them.

Accuracy at five yards was comparable with both bullet types. This group was fired using the 58gr HBWCs-


Moving forward the 64gr. LWCs will be my gallery load. I'm going to develop some higher velocity loads for the 58gr. HBWCs; I think these might have promise as a small-game bullet.

WestKentucky said:

Curious, why 32sw instead of 32 long? I realize 32sw is lower pressure, but if use long wad cutters I would think the 32sw to be almost too small of a case.

Click to expand...

The cylinder is too short for .32 S&W Long. I simply don't seat wadcutters full depth.