Nagant Revolver - The old issue with the .32 H&R

[Andy_GSM]

Hello everybody,

I'm quite new to this forum but after reading some weeks I simply had to register

Personally, I'm in my early thirties and enjoy shooting, hunting & reloading.

My latest project is the Nagant Revolver, originally chambered for the 7.62x38R cartridge.

A good friend bought two of these but it turned out that the original ammo is really hard to find. If you have the luck to find some it's very expensive and rather underpowered in comparison to the original WW2 ammo from the russian army.

Taking that into consideration we've tested several standard .32 S&W Shorts & longs with not problems except bulged case which were sometimes hard to extract. The felt recoil was very mild.
The next step was the average .32 H&R Mag. We tested about 50 rounds and again we noticed no problems exept bulged cases & hard extracting. The recoil was ok but felt harder.

Our lastest test was developing our own load with both .32 S&W long and .32 H&R Mag cases, Unique powder, standard primers and 86gr & 100gr JHP:

a) .32 S&W Long case: 4.0gr Unique for 86gr, 3.5 for 100gr
b) .32 H&R Mag case: 4.5gr Unique for 86gr, 4.0 for 100gr

We tested about 35 rounds with each load and notice no problems except the above.

So far! Taking into account that the weapon is of ancient design and not chambered for these substitutions I'm very curious to know what you guys are thinking about

1. Shooting the .32 H&R in the Nagant in general
2. Our developed loads --> good idea or not? Any concerns? Pls be honest!
3. Long-term concerns when shooting (normal & our loads) ammo the gun is not designed for (metalluric problems, will the gun suddenly blow-up, etc.)

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

Regards,

Andy

 

[boodro98]

Go to youtube and lookup Thenagantman. He has alot of videos on the Nagant that are very informative. He also shows you how to reload using 32-20 brass that is a drop in replacement for the Nagant ammo, same length and dia.as original but doesn't gas seal. Lee makes the die sets for using the 32-20 brass.

 

[RandyP]

I reload 32-20 Brass for my Nagant, several folks reload the Nagant brass (non-surplus) PRVI sells newly manufactured, just bought some at Cabelas.

If you want a Nagant specific forum, I often frequent:

http://forums.gunboards.com/forumdisplay.php?18-M1895-NAGANT-Pistol-Collector-Forum

Everything you ever wanted to learn about this interesting bit of firearms history.

 

[fireman 9731]

Here is the good stuff! At a fairly reasonable price...

http://www.jgsales.com/-p-6865.html

I have wanted to start reloading for it, because it is a pretty fun gun to shoot. I have just been too busy with other things right now to start on a tricky round to reload...

 

[Chris-bob]

I have fired several hundred rounds of .32 S&W Long through mine with only bulged cases. Fun to shoot. I did get the .32ACP cylinder for it as well, but have yet to use that cylinder as I am not set up to load .32ACP. Has anyone reloaded the bulged cases and made it work? Up to now, I have been tossing the bulged brass.

 

[hang fire]

Re: boodro98

Looked up The Nagantman on Youtube, he has some very interesting videos on the revolver. That is one long scary firing pin, would hate to get impaled by that sucker.

I used Flingo and flung his videos to "Web Videos" so as to see them on big screen smart TV.

 

[evan price]

The bulged 32 long cases resize and shoot just fine. It's all I'm shooting myself even though I have a bunch of PPU nagant brass set back.

I load a Lee 93-grain bullet as-cast/unsized, water quenched range scrap BHN-12 approx., tumble lubed in Alox, over 2.5 grains of Titegroup. That load works in the Nagant and also my other 32 Long revolvers.

Recently a bunch of Soviet Nagant ammo in 14-round boxes has arrived at the usual surplus outlets, around $5 a box.

 

[Andy_GSM]

Thanks a lot for the interesting info and links. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

But what do you think about our loads?

a) .32 S&W Long case: 4.0gr Unique for 86gr, 3.5 for 100gr
b) .32 H&R Mag case: 4.5gr Unique for 86gr, 4.0 for 100gr

Would you personally use it in your gun in the long-term? Even if nothing happened so far does not mean it is safe. What are your opinions?

 

[fireman 9731]

32 S&W loads sound fine.

32 H&R loads might be a little stout for the ol' war horse. But, if they shoot fine, with nothing but some stiff extraction, I think they would be ok.

I have heard that the original Russian ammo was quite a bit hotter than the factory loaded stuff now, but I have yet to try any. I would shoot some surplus and see how it compares to your reloads, as far as report and recoil and such. Even if its not very scientific, its somewhere to start.