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The sidearms chosen by law enforcement agencies usually mark the next stage of handgun innovation.
Just as the military drives rifle innovation, from the ArmaLite AR-15 in the 1960s to the .300 AAC Blackout cartridge today, when police departments start carrying a new type of handgun, civilian ownership is often not far behind.
If you want to know what’s coming down the handgun pike, then pay attention to what LEOs are carrying, because chances are that’s what will be on gun store shelves near you fairly soon.
Here’s the history of police sidearms in America, from the flintlock pistols carried by the U.S. Marshals to the Glocks carried by police departments around the country today.
The Oldest Force and Flintlock Pistols
The oldest law enforcement agency in the United States is the U.S. Marshals Service. It dates to 1789, when George Washington appointed 13 men—one for each state—as part of the Judiciary Act.
These officers were crucial to establishing a federal judiciary system through local ties. The first recorded U.S. Marshal was Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay of the 3d Maryland Regiment.
According to the Society of Cincinnati of Maryland, the Old Line State bought weapons for its militia through “firms like Halbach & Sons of Baltimore, which imported as well as manufactured guns during the Revolutionary War.” The most popular was a flintlock pistol that cavalry units preferred.
The flintlock technology meant that the lock, or ignition mechanism, was flint—a substance able to ignite the gunpowder instantly, reliably and regardless of weather.
While Ramsay’s 3d Maryland was a military infantry unit, it’s reasonable to think that as the first designated federal marshals, Ramsay and his colleagues might also have carried flintlock pistols—which remained the standard sidearm weapon of the day until the mid-1800s.
Second Oldest and Single Action
The Texas Rangers take pride in being America’s second-oldest law enforcement agency, officially constituted in 1835.
They began as 56 men in three companies “retrieving cattle, escorting refugees, and destroying supplies and equipment” as Texas struggled to gain its independence from Mexico.
Not quite military but not quite police either, they were an armed protection force that radically changed firearms tactics. Under Captain John Coffee “Jack” Hays, the Rangers adopted the Colt Paterson five-shot .36 caliber single-action revolver.
With no trigger guard, the Colt Paterson looked pretty slick for the time. It had a folding trigger that unfolded only when you cocked the hammer, which also brought the next cylinder chamber into line with the barrel.
However, it was considered too fragile for the Army; today, one of these antiques in very good condition with its original case and accessories can be worth $150,000 or more.
Nevertheless, the Rangers learned to aim, fire and reload the Paterson on horseback—a huge departure from the practice of dismounting to shoot and one that the Army quickly adopted.
The five-shot Colt Paterson eventually gave way to the famous—and sturdier—six-shot .44 caliber Walker Colt single-action revolver of 1847.
The barrel was 9 inches long, and the gun was 15½ inches in total. It weighed an ungainly 4 pounds—the carry, pommel holsters draped across the saddle.
Reportedly “as effective as a rifle at 100 yards,” it could bring down a horse as easily as a man. It remained the most powerful handgun available until the magnums of the 1930’s.
Law Legends of the West and Colt Six-Shooters
Yes, I have to go here. You’ve heard the names.
These were the legendary lawmen that the U.S. Marshals Service sent out to maintain order in the young territories. They lived and died by the firearms they carried, but Colt six-shooters were staples.
- Former Texas Ranger and Lincoln County Sherriff Pat Garrett killed Billy the Kid with a gun he’d taken from Billy Wilson, one of Kid’s gang members.
- It was a blued steel—or nickel-plated—Colt Frontier Model single-action .44-40 with a 7½-inch barrel that was later returned to Garrett’s widow in 1934.
- Garrett also reportedly carried a .38 caliber long Colt Lightning as well as a .44 caliber Smith & Wesson Russian.
- Three Guardsmen Oklahoma Territory legend Bill Tilghman carried two sidearms.
- The first was a Colt Single Action .38 special with a 5½-inch barrel.
- The second was a nickel-plated Colt .45 caliber with diamondback rattler-embossed pearl grips inscribed by Helfricht.
- One of the Dodge City greats, Bat Masterson laid claim to no fewer than eight single-action Colts.
- His second was an 1882 nickel-plated Colt Single Action Army .45 caliber revolver with a 4¾-inch barrel and ivory grips that went for $85,000 at auction in 2015.
- Another was a gold-plated Colt Single Action Army .45 caliber LC revolver with longhorn grips manufactured in 1899.
The East Coast and the Smith & Wesson Line
Back east, in 1835, Boston was the first city to establish a centralized municipal police department. New York followed suit 10 years later, with many others doing likewise in the following years.
These early police forces were, however, “notoriously corrupt and flagrantly brutal.” Much debate often surrounded their paramilitary missions and whether they should be armed at all.
New York’s police department is credited with being the first to adopt reform through rules and standardization, and sidearms were key to that initiative.
In 1885, then-police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt ordered 4,500 Colt New Police .32 caliber, six-round double-action revolvers with 4-inch barrels. He then instituted officer marksmanship qualifications, standardized weaponry and ammunition, and mandated department-wide training.
Each of the 4,500 guns carried a serial number that matched the officer’s badge number and sported “New York Police” engraved on the backstrap—introducing the idea of official personal accountability.
Those little .32s represented a new breed of revolver: double action, with a swing-out cylinder and a plunger-like ejector to discard empty cases.
For once, with the hammer uncocked, you could fire a gun repeatedly just by pulling the trigger a little harder. For the time, they were state of the art.
Gradually, other police departments started investing in and issuing standard sidearms to their officers.
In Northern, more urban states, law enforcement forces were often involved in breaking up strikes, controlling riots and policing illegal activities like drunkenness and prostitution. The .38 Special Police Positive and Official Police were common choices.
Interestingly, the Mason-Dixon line—the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland—was also known as the Smith & Wesson Line. It was a pronounced nod to segregation, Jim Crow and the Southern preference for large-caliber revolvers like the Smith & Wesson (S&W) Triple Lock.
Also known as the .44 Hand Ejector First Model and the New Century, the double-action six-shot Triple Lock came in .38-40, .44-40, and .45 Colt chamberings as well as the .44 Russian and the 44 Special and its 246-grain bullet.
The Triple Lock part referred to three points of added stability—lockups—that made the revolver able to withstand greater firing pressures:
- One at the rear of the cylinder face.
- One at the front of the ejector rod.
- One locking the swing-out yoke into the frame.
While S&W discontinued production after 1915, the Triple Lock was the basis for future generations of large-frame, big-bore S&W revolvers.
G-Men and Magnums
While first formed in 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the 1930s dealt with the rise of violent crime and notorious personalities like John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, the Barkers and Al Capone.
In 1934, one year after the repeal of Prohibition, with newly awarded arrest powers, the Bureau officially armed its graduating class of agents with Colt Official Police .38 Specials.
Colt’s Official Police revolver was the gun of choice for many police departments—from cities like San Francisco and Portland, to states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut—following its introduction in 1927.
However, the Bureau also subsequently issued S&W .38 Specials as well as Colt Government Model .38 Super Automatics and S&W .357 Registered Magnums, later known as Model 27s.
Marketed as “The Most Powerful Handgun in the World,” the .357 N frame Registered Magnum revolver quickly became a Bureau favorite thanks to its superior power and performance.
While it came in 23 different barrel lengths—as well as assorted front and rear sight, finish and grip options—agent guns typically had barrels of 3.5, 4 or 5 inches.
Many police officers adopted the .357, too. Registered Magnums were shipped to law enforcement officers all across the country, including, for example, the:
- Kansas City Police—4-inch barrels.
- Utah Highway Patrol—6½-inch barrels.
- City of Indianapolis Police Department—5-inch barrels.
- Tucson Police Department—three shipments of 12 considered prewar but likely non-registered.
By 1954, the Model 28 Patrolman had evolved as the economy model, minus the little extras—bluing instead of polishing and a bead-blasted matte top strap rather than a cross-hatched, checkered one, for example.
By the 60s, lots of police departments were issuing 6-inch Model 28s, from Columbia, Missouri, to the Washington State Patrol.
“Luxury” or economic, the magnum revolver had become a preferred law enforcement staple that lasted for most departments well into the 1980s.
Shootouts and The Rise of the Semi-Auto
For a long time, semi-automatics were considered both too expensive and not nearly as reliable or effective—think stopping power—as the preferred police revolvers.
Colt’s M1911 pistol was an exception, but it had its drawbacks. The carry method with the hammer cocked and locked required more exacting training and handling practices.
More popular, the S&W Model 39—a 9mm—was ergonomic and slim, with a single-column magazine as well as advanced features like a double-action single-shot trigger, open top slide and slide-mounted decocker.
It was that flat profile and enhanced unit efficiency that led the Illinois State Patrol to adopt the Model 39 for its officers in 1967.
Noted as prone to jams, the Model 39 led to the 39-2, which had an improved feed ramp and a shortened, narrowed extractor less prone to breakage. Illinois continued to issue the highly reliable 39-2s for more than a decade.
While the shift from revolvers—or wheel guns—to semis was anything but uniform, two factors sped it up. The first was a shootout in 1986 in Miami, Florida, in which two robbery suspects outgunned eight FBI agents.
In the aftermath of the Miami shootout, the Bureau started searching for a handgun that offered more effective stopping power without cumbersome reloads under fire. At that time, the answer came in the form of the 10mm S&W Model 1076.
As Model 1076s proved a bit ungainly and somewhat unreliable, they gave way to SIG 226s and, later, 228s.
However, the real game changer was the Austrian-made Glock. Offering up to 17 rounds, a mere 5-pound trigger pull, lighter body weight thanks to polymers and fully interchangeable parts, the Glock promised firepower, accurate ease of use and affordability.
Visit Glock’s site, and you’ll learn that “approximately 65% of police departments in America already put a GLOCK police pistol in between them and the problem.”
Initially, Glock offered police departments its pistols with significant discounts while also launching movie, music and publicity campaigns. Later, the company encouraged departments to upgrade through trade-in programs.
St. Paul, Minnesota, and Miami, Florida, were the first of the large police departments to adopt the Glock. By 1994, the New York Police Department was issuing 2nd Generation Glock 19s, and many other departments—as well as bad guys—quickly followed suit.
Policing Sidearms Today
Today, federal law enforcement agents with the Department of Justice still favor the Glock. The U.S. Marshals Service; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and Federal Bureau of Investigation have all issued Glock 22s, 23s and 27s, typically with .40 caliber S&W chambering.
In 2016, Glock closed yet another deal with the Bureau worth $85 million. However, this time it was for specially modified 5th Generation Glock 17s and 19s in 9mm Luger.
To boot, the Bureau had reportedly been contemplating that other popular modern semi—the Sig Sauer P320 which was recently chosen as the new US Army sidearm.
Secret Service agents carry Sig Sauer P229s while Air Marshals have P250s.
At the local level, perhaps the New York Police Department is once again a quite accurate example of police departments across America. It allows its officers three options: the Glock 19, the Sig Sauer P226 and the S&W 5946.
Among law enforcement, these represent the big three in sidearms—Glock, Sig Sauer and S&W—and the three cartridges of choice—9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. However, Ruger, Beretta and Springfield Armory handguns remain in the running, too.
Something to note is that while many agencies and departments issue service weapons, mandating their exclusive use, some departments still require officers to purchase their own sidearms.
When a Police Executive Research Forum survey—part of the National Gun Violence Research Center project—examined service weapon policies and practices at more than 50 of the largest police departments, it found that:
- Officers at 73 percent of the departments carried only semi-automatic weapons, with the remainder carrying either semis or revolvers.
- Nearly 70 percent of the departments—69 percent, to be exact—acquire and provide all weapons for their sworn officers to carry. However, that also means that nearly a third don’t.
- More than half had service weapon providers bid competitively while not quite a quarter relied on sole-source agreements.
- Of the handguns purchased in the previous 5 years, nearly 60 percent of responding agencies had purchased Glocks, 20 percent S&Ws, about 12 percent Sig Sauers and about 6 percent Berettas.
- Sixty-five percent purchased .40-caliber weapons.
- Sixty-three percent purchased 15-round magazines.
So, there you have it—the high points, from Colts to Glocks, from flintlocks to semi-automatics. I hope you enjoyed the tour.
Law enforcement weaponry, ammunition, practices and daily challenges have evolved over the decades, and the only thing certain for the future is that they’ll continue to change—perhaps dramatically.
The below is an excerpt from the 1978 book, Olympic Shooting, written by Col. Jim Crossman and published by the NRA. Read Part 1.
1932—Los Angeles: On U.S. Soil, But Problems Develop (Part 2)
By Colonel Jim Crossman
The rifle match consisted of 30 shots with the .22-caliber rimfire rifle, fired slow-fire in the prone position. Telescope sights were not allowed. The target was the rather difficult 50-meter international target, which had scoring rings according to this table (ring value, ring diameter):
- 10-ring*, 20 mm (0.787 inches)
- 9-ring*, 40 mm (1.574 inches)
- 8-ring*, 60 mm (2.361 inches)
- 7-ring*, 80 mm (3.148 inches)
- 6-ring, 100 mm (3.936 inches)
- 5-ring, 120 mm (4.723 inches)
- 4-ring, 140 mm (5.510 inches)
*The 7-, 8-, 9-and 10-rings are black to make an aiming mark.
Highest possible score for the event was 300, but anyone who could keep all his shots in that 1½ inch 9-ring, with most of them in the quarter-size 10, was shooting well. In the tryouts, there were many more scores below 290 than above 290.
This shooting was familiar to the American smallbore rifle shooter. He shot almost entirely prone at 50 and 100 yards on an easier target, as well as at 50 meters on the international target. While the foreign shooter used a very light trigger, or even a set-trigger, the American shooter needed a 3-pound trigger to be within the rules. The American was used to shooting this sort of match (except for a few details) and if it had been possible to select from experienced (amateur!) shooters, the U.S. undoubtedly would have done much better.
Cover of the official program from the Los Angeles 1932 Summer Olympic Games.
The pistol event was something else. It was the “fire of defense” in which the competitor fired one shot each at six silhouettes in a limited time. The silhouette targets each roughly represented a standing man, and were spaced about 30 inches apart, center to center. The targets turned on vertical axes and all turned at the same time.
The shooter stood at 25 meters (27 yards) from the target with his gun pointed down at a 45-degree angle and the targets edged towards him. After he called for the targets, they all turned to face him, whereupon he raised his pistol to shooting position, fired a shot at the first silhouette, swung his shooting arm over to the next target and fired a shot, moved to the next, and so on, until he had fired six shots—or run out of time. The shooter was allowed eight seconds for the string of six shots and this was repeated three times for a total of 18 shots. No great accuracy was called for, as the only score was a hit or a miss. It was only necessary to hit the target anywhere to have it count.
If there were tie scores at the end of the 18 shots, a single six-shot string was fired in six seconds. Those still tied after this stage then fired a single six-shot string in a time limit of four seconds. Survivors of this stage then went to a three-second time limit and finally all those left fought it out to the finish at repeated two-second intervals.
This course-of-fire put the great emphasis on speed, but very little on accuracy, at least by American standards. U.S. courses-of-fire included some quick firing, but called for accuracy as well. The American rapid-fire stage called for five shots fired in 10 seconds at a single target. This was ample time to squeeze off a good shot, but not time to spare. The technique for the American course was quite different than that needed for the Olympic match.
A match which had been (and still is) popular in international pistol shooting—the free pistol event—was shooting as different from the “fire of defense” as could be imagined. The free pistol called for extreme precision with almost limitless time.
The 1932 Olympic “fire of defense” pistol match was similar to the event fired in the 1924 Games in France, except for a reduction in the time limits. The 1924 match was fired within a 10-second time limit, and tie scores were shot off by repeated strings in an eight-second time limit. Generally speaking, the American shooter did not take enthusiastically to either course-of-fire, and there were few ranges with the proper target mechanism for it.
The year 1932 was not one of the best. In fact, it was deep Depression and terrible financially. It was felt impractical to hold shoulder-to-shoulder tryouts for either the rifle or the pistol team, as had been done in the past. Instead, rifle and pistol tryouts were held throughout the country in May and June, and scores were reported to the home office.
The early announcements said that the U.S. Olympic Committee would bear the expenses of the shooting squad, but the U.S. Revolver Association Bulletin for June issued a doleful call for help. It pointed out that the Olympic Finance Committee was having trouble raising money (not surprising!) and had notified some sport governing bodies that it might be necessary to cut back on the number of competitors or cancel the event. The story urged pistol shooters to put some money in the Olympic pot earmarked for the pistol team.
As it turned out, the Olympic Committee should have encouraged bigger and better shooting events, since it made money from them. The record shows that the pistol team cost the magnificent total of $145.30 for clothing, entry fees, transportation, housing and board. Against this was collected $112 marked for the team, so the handgunners cost only $33. But the rifle squad of three officials and three competitors cost the Committee a total of $31.76, against which they collected over $203 earmarked for the rifle team, giving a net profit of $172.
At this rate, the Committee would have been rich if they had included more shooting events. But I am not sure the NRA could have stood it, as the rifle association paid the bulk of the team expenses—amounting to nearly $900.
After the pistol tryout scores were reported, the Olympic Pistol Committee, headed by Olympic gold-medalist Karl Frederick, picked six shooters for further intensive shooting under the toughest possible conditions before making the decision on the final three. Five of them were from the Southern California area: L.K. Roberts, L. McCauley, Cecil Russell, W.B. Morgan and Detective Lieutenant Thomas Carr. The sixth man, Dr. E.E. Tippins, was from Wichita, Kan. After additional shooting and careful study by the Pistol Committee, Carr, Roberts and Tippins were selected to represent the United States.
Read Part 3 of our inside look at the Los Angeles 1932 Olympics. Be sure to subscribe to the free Insider newsletter for the latest updates.
Lead photo: The cover of the official report of the Los Angeles 1932 Olympic Games.
Mexico’s military is allegedly working to cover up its loss of weapons purchased from other countries.
Mexico’s Army (SEDENA) is losing approximately 30 percent of weapons purchased from the U.S., a report from Mexican journalist Carlos Loret De Mola revealed. The report comes as Mexico’s federal government litigates against firearm manufacturers in a U.S. court, blaming them for the raging cartel violence.
Those missing weapons are showing up in crime scenes. Mexico’s military has also allegedly misplaced weapons bought from Germany, Australia, Italy, Romania, Spain, and Belgium.
In Mexico, the Army is the only entity that can purchase weapons from other countries. Further, all weapons bought by federal, state, and local law enforcement, as well as private citizens, are sold by SEDENA. Loret De Mola reports that a national center called CENAPI within the Attorney General’s Office keeps track of weapons found in crime scenes or seized from criminal organizations — but because of the lawsuit, they are suppressing information about Mexican Army guns in the hands of cartels. The CENAPI even denied requests for information about those weapons as a way to protect the military as being partly responsible in Mexico’s illicit gun trade.
The new allegations come at a time when Mexico’s military is plagued by scandals. State authorities in Oaxaca arrested a former general who was a candidate for secretary of defense on extortion charges in December.
Also in December, Canadian authorities arrested General Eduardo Leon Trauwitz on an extradition warrant from Mexico over his alleged role in the widespread theft of fuel, CBC reported.
In October 2020, U.S. authorities arrested former Mexican Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos on drug trafficking charges. Mexico’s government was able to secure his release claiming they would investigate and prosecute, but ultimately dismissed the case.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
[ This guest post was written by Matt Groom. ]
Writer’s note: All views and opinions expressed or implied in this article are purely the crackpot theories of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Firearm Blog or any related parties.
Writer’s note: All views and opinions expressed or implied in this article are purely the crackpot theories of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Firearm Blog or any related parties.
I’m a big fan of the .32-20 Winchester Center Fire cartridge, introduced in 1882 as a small bore offering for the successful Winchester Model of 1873.
It soon became one of Winchester’s third most popular cartridge, and like it’s siblings in the WCF family, it was then chambered in numerous pistol designs, such as the Colt’s Model P (otherwise known as the Single Action Army) and later the Colt’s Police Positive Special, Colt’s Army Special, early S&W K-Frame, and probably several others.
.32-20 Hand Ejector Model 1905, 1st Change, Target Model
.32-20 WCF is a pretty neat little round, and it’s been the inspiration and platform for numerous other successful, and non-successful cartridges alike.
Some spinoffs based directly on the .32-20’s case are the .25-20 and the .218 Bee, and attempts to make a semi-automatic version for the Winchester Model 1905 rifle resulted in the .32 Winchester Self-Loading, which was the inspiration for the much more successful .30 Carbine round used in the US M1 Carbine.
A lot of people will insist that the .32-20 and some of its offspring are far too powerful for small game, and far too underpowered for medium sized game, with a bullet that’s too small for self defense. Eau Contraire, mon frère. It’s all in how you load it.
Back in the day, thirty caliber pistol cartridges were considered more than adequate for self-defense and even military service by a great many.
Witness the use of the .32 ACP by the French in WWI and then replacing it with the 7.65mm MAS just in time for WWII. The .30 Luger (7.65x21mm) was adopted by the Swiss, Brazilian, Bulgarian, Finish, and Portuguese armies.
The Russian’s used the 7.62 Nagant Revolver, and replaced it with another .30 caliber, the 7.62 Tokarev. Some of these countries did a lot of fighting and killing, and sometimes, they even used thirty caliber pistol rounds, and the .32-20 was more powerful than any of those.
“Oh, bull!” says you “Nobody considered those calibers to be serious rounds. They were badges of honor for officers”.
Well, maybe that’s true, but consider this: before the advent of cartridges like the .38 Special, .45 ACP, and 9mm, rounds like the .32 S&W Long and the .32 Colt were considered adequate self-defense cartridges, because then as now, very few people elected to carry a full sized pistol everyday.
When a smaller gun was more concealable, and thus, more practical. .32’s remained popular as pocket guns until the introduction of the .38 Special J-Frame S&W in 1959.
It begs the question of why no one made a ‘magnumized’ version of the .32 S&W Long until 1983 when H&R came out with the .32 H&R Magnum, and until the 2008 introduction of the Federal .327 Magnum, there wasn’t a .32 caliber, magnum length cartridge.
No wait, there was. It was called “.32-20 WCF” and people knew it was perfectly adequate for self-defense. Blues guitarist Robert Johnson even wrote a song about the .32-20 (and a cheatin’ woman):
“She got a thirty-eight special, but I believe it’s most too light… I got a 32-20, got to make the caps alright. Her .38 special, boys, it do very well. I got a 32-20 now, and it’s a burnin’!”
Something tells me that when Johnson wrote that song, he wasn’t referencing a cartridge that many of his contemporaries would have considered underpowered, or one they had never heard of.
He calls the .38 Special “much too light”, which I interpret as being “underpowered”. He wrote that song in 1936, after the introduction of the .357 Magnum.
If he wanted to brag, he could have bragged about the .357, he could have said he had a .44 Special, or a .44-40, or a .45 Colt, even a 1911 in .45ACP or .38 Super, but instead, he choose to write about a gun he probably actually owned, a gun he knew his audience would know and respect, and that gun was a .32-20.
John Taffin, in his article on the .32-20 wrote: “Elmer Keith related how, as a teenager, he broke broncs to get enough money to buy his first centerfire Colt Single Action, a seven and one-half inch .32-20.
Thirty years later, Skeeter Skelton, freshly mustered out of the service at the end of WWII, stopped in Chicago long enough to purchase, yep, you guessed it, a seven and one-half inch Colt Single Action .32-20.
When two gentlemen of such sixgunnin’ stature as these two start with the .32-20, one has to take notice.”
Both of these men were pioneers in the field of magnum pistol cartridges, credited as being the co-creators of the .44 Magnum and .357 Magnum respectively, and one has to wonder where they developed their ideas about loading rounds much, much hotter than they came from the factory.
One reason you can do that very well with the .32-20 is when you have a gun designed for a rather large cartridge like the .45 Colt or the .44-40 WCF, and then you stick a tiny, narrow-hipped little number in there, you have more metal and can load to considerably higher pressures than you can with the larger bores, which come from the factory pretty close to their safe maximum for their intended designs.
Even though the .44-40 and .45 Colt were more powerful than the .32-20 in factory form, they limited you to a large frame revolver, and they could not be hot loaded without endangering the gun and the shooter!
This is because of smaller rounds usually have smaller base diameters, which means if you compared the .32-20 to a .38 Special in the same sized gun, you could load the .32-20 hotter by virtue of the fact that it has a smaller base diameter (.353” vs. .379”) translating to an extra .013” of metal between the chambers, regardless of the gun they were used in.
“Okay. SO?” Well, consider this: according to Glen Fryxell of Handloads.com and http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm, an expert on the history of cast bullets, writes “The first bullet that we might call a SWC that had a separate beveled groove specifically for crimping the case mouth into was the 311316, the GC-SWC for high-velocity loads in the .32-20 rifle.”
That came out in 1906, a similar design didn’t come out for the .38 Special until Elmer Keith designed one in 1928.
You need a crimp groove to keep hot loads from pulling the bullet out, and unless you were carrying a large frame revolver chambered in .44-40 or .38-40, your only option for this a mold with this feature before 1928 was the .32-20.
You simply couldn’t load a .38 as hot as a .32-20 without the risk of jamming your piece!
Suitable hollow point bullet molds were available for the WCF family as early as the 1890’s (31133 for .32-20). Also note that when you wrote to a company back then you could request that your bullet mold be made as a hollow point.
Think about that: In 1906, you could have a target sighted, double action, swing out cylinder, medium framed revolver that fired a high velocity cartridge loaded with Unique or Bullseye powder, firing a 115 grain, gas-checked, SWC-HP bullet at over 1200 fps, generating over 400 ft/lbs of muzzle energy.
That’s [Skeeter’s load](http://www.darkcanyon.net/What’s The Best Trail Gun For You.htm) from an article he wrote in 1977, which you can assume wasn’t nearly the maximum he tried in these old guns.
That load would be considered dangerous in those old guns today (and rightly so!) and it only achieves numbers that would be comparable to a .38 Special +P, but keep in mind that such an animal didn’t exist back then.
The Winchester .32-20 Rifle ammo, from the 70′s, is NOT safe to fire in it!
If you fired your hot .32-20 loads out of a SAA or other heavy framed revolver, you could easily match the ballistics of a .45 Colt! Elmer said that you could get 1500fps in a large frame, SAA.
When the Luger was new, rare, and expensive, when the most powerful automatics looked like the Mauser C96, before the .44 Special or the Model 1911 even existed, there was the powerful, accurate, flat shooting, light recoiling .32-20 WCF.
Do I recommend you load your antique, S&W .32-20 Hand Ejector to 1200 FPS? No! Of course not! Not even the later K-Frames with heat treated cylinders.
Quickload estimates that that load would produce around 26.5kPSI of pressure which those old timers might be able to handle, but why risk it?
Nowadays, we have hundreds of calibers and thousands of models which can deliver better performance, but in 1906, 1200 FPS was really something.
If you must shoot a .32-20 to the maximum of it’s potential, do it in a Thompson Contender, or some other modern design. That way, if you blow it up, at least you don’t destroy an irreplaceable piece of our firearms heritage!
So, why doesn’t the .32-20 get the respect it deserves today? Well, frankly, it has been technologically out classed several times since the early 20th century.
Perhaps all the fellas who knew died in the Great War, or in the Great Influenza (which killed far more Americans than WWI did) who knows?
Then again, maybe all the guys who were in on the secret and willing to experiment blew up their own guns and bought something else!
But it’s my opinion that before WWII, the .32-20 was a round to be respected.