joeb33050
posted this
07 February 2011
In the 80s I had a Stevens 44 with a Douglas best 30 caliber barrel made up. It was chambered is 32 S&W Long, shot ~ 1 1/4” 100 yard 5 shot groups. Worked fine for offhand, not for bench. This went down the road, and I had a Ruger #1 barreled with best Douglas 30 caliber barrel, chambered in 32-20. This had all of the typical ruger ss problems. After not getting it to shoot, it was re-chambered to 30-30, which also didn't shoot. Both these guns were made by Sam Anderson, who knew what he was doing.Sam made me another short cartridge gun that didn't do great. At least I learned the accuracy secret of the Ruger #1.
Today Paul Shuittleworth at CPA is an exponent of the 32-20 in, I believe, both .30 and .32 caliber persuasions. Several other good shooters use the 32-20.
The current 32 MS guys seem to cluster around DeHaas-Miller striker actions with barrels by the (CRS) canadian barrel maker and Leupold/expensive scopes.
For a while I've decided that the small cartridge = more accuracy story is not true, or not very true, because of the good work being done with 32-40 and 38-55 rifles.(J. Louis)
This is hard to prove, one way or the other. But, I did some analysis on the CBA national match groups, with the 30BR in Heavy and Unrestricted guns and 32MS in PBB class vs. .308 Winchester Production guns.
The result was that the short cartridge guns shot groups 71% the size of the .308 Win. Production guns. This means that all the custom actions and barrels and guns and the SHORT CTG. reduced group sizes 29%.
This tells me that the short ctg. doesn't make a great deal of difference.
For the whole story on the comparison, go to the book, UPDATES, in FILES, at
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/CB-BOOK/>http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/CB-BOOK/
joe b.