That interesting .32/.327 caliber…

I came across an interesting discussion of the .32 H&R over on TFL, and added these comments:

I’m intrigued by the caliber, as well. We’d tested the H&R Mag in our first series of tests, and just recently completed doing the .327 Mag tests (data should be available on our site in 10 days – 2 weeks). I had been very skeptical about the .327 but the tests were impressive.

and

Hammer It, I’m not at all surprised by those numbers. I just pulled the data sheets from our chop tests for the .327 Mag and they are all in excess of what you got. We tested the following ammo: Federal Hydra-Shok 85 gr, American Eagle 100 gr JSP, and Speer GDHP 115 gr. At the full 18″ barrel the velocities we got were all in excess of 1900 fps (with the AE almost 2200 fps). At 6″ all were in the 1700 fps range, at 4″ they were 1450 – 1600 fps. And, as noted on our site:

One note: in every case with the T/C Encore the length of the barrel was measured from the end of the barrel back to the breech face. This is how semi-auto pistols are measured, but revolvers are measured as the length of the barrel in front of the cylinder gap. Take this into consideration when comparing calibers using our numbers.

So the numbers for a revolver with a 2″ barrel would fall approximately in that 4″ chop test range.

Yeah, I am very intrigued by the .327 magnum. Certainly, you’re not going to get the same kind of performance as you would with a .357 magnum throwing a heavier bullet at similar velocities, but the 115 gr slug is considered a good 9mm round – and those velocities for the .327 are significantly higher.

Impressive.

Jim Downey