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The .32-20 Winchester Center Fire: History & Performance by DAVE CAMPBELL

Campbell .32 20WCF 1

During the last quarter of the 19th century, as the industrial revolution was flourishing, a great deal of experimentation occurred. The firearm industry was as big a player in this as anybody. Winchester’s Model 1873 rifle had virtually set the American West on fire; its .44-40 Winchester Center Fire (WCF) was the go-to cartridge of the day. Then, as now, there were always a few who sought minimization—a way to use less resources to achieve a similar end.

In 1874, Winchester reduced the neck of the .44-40 to accommodate a .40-cal. (.401″) bullet. Someone must have thought that “.40-40” didn’t have much of a marketing ring to it, so they looked at the bore diameter, .394″. Apparently, that didn’t have the “zing” they wanted either, so they came up with .38-40 WCF. As it did with the .44-40 WCF, Colt would chamber its Single Action Army (SAA) for the smaller bore some four years later.

In 1882, Winchester once again pared down its cartridge to .32 cal. (.3125″), reduced the charge of black powder to 20 grains and called it the .32-20 WCF. Originally touted as a combination cartridge suitable for varmints, small game and deer, the deer component was fairly quickly dismissed, save for shots less than 100 yards in the neck or head.

Two examples of a .32-20 WCF cartridge.

This was when 20 grains of FFFg black powder would generate 1,250 f.p.s. and just 399 ft.-lbs. of energy with a 115-gr. bullet. Compare that to a .30-30 Win.—considered by many to be the “floor” of deer cartridges—with a 150-gr. bullet at 2,390 f.p.s. and 1,903 ft.-lbs. of energy. Having said all that, Paco Kelly, of leverguns.com fame, says he shot some two dozen Virginia whitetail deer with a Model 92 Winchester chambered in .32-20 WCF in the 1970s.

As with its predecessors, it took Colt about five years to chamber its SAA in .32-20 WCF. Still later, it would chamber its double-action Frontier, Army Special and Police Positive revolvers in .32-20 WCF. Not to be outdone, Smith & Wesson chambered its .32-20 WCF Hand Ejector First Model in the Winchester cartridge. Martini chambered its single-shot Cadet rifle in .32-20 for use as a trainer and target rifle. Remington chambered its Model 25 and 25A rifles in .32-20 WCF from 1923 until 1935. With that, the .32-20 WCF remained popular throughout the first quarter of the 20th century.

That popularity is quite similar to the small and lightweight pistols of today. They are usually carried by one of two types, either more-or-less novice types that want some protection but are unwilling to dress around a full-size pistol, or the really savvy, deep-cover, gun guy (or gal) who is cool as ice under fire and can accurately place their shots. The former are more plentiful than the latter. Their logic is that no one wants to get shot with anything.

The .32-20 WCF (left) compared with the .44-40 WCF (center) and .45 Colt (right).

The accuracy of the .32-20 WCF is another reason for its popularity. Small game hunters and pest shooters found the cartridge to be very accurate within its range limitations. Hunters wanting to kill a rabbit or squirrel for the stove liked that the cartridge didn’t tear up too much meat.

By the time World War II rolled around, all three Winchester cartridges, .44-40 WCF, .38-40 WCF and .32-20 WCF were moribund. Winchester stopped chambering rifles for them, Colt was lowering the curtain on the SAA and hunters were becoming more fascinated with magnum cartridges. The general consensus on into the 1960s—even the ’70s—was that you couldn’t kill a prairie dog or a woodchuck unless the bullet was traveling at more than three times the speed of sound.

As with so many things, however, what goes around comes around. The sport of handgun metallic-silhouette shooting renewed some interest in the .32-20 WCF. Winners needed a flat-shooting, accurate cartridge that could tip over a steel target at 100 meters, and didn’t threaten to separate their hand from their wrist.

Older examples of .32-20 WCF revolvers were quickly swept up, and for a while the only feasible way to get one was to build it. More than a few Ruger Blackhawk revolvers chambered in .30 Carbine were converted to—or had another cylinder chambered—for the .32-20 WCF.

 

In reality, these were actually “.30-20 WCF” revolvers because the barrels remained .30 caliber, with a groove diameter of .308″, as opposed to .3125″. As such, in order to retain its accuracy reputation, handloaders had to use .30-cal. bullets. More than a few Thompson/Center Contender barrels chambered in .30 Carbine also got a reaming as well. Even in the stilted world of Schüetzen matches, the .32-20 WCF has made some inroads on the traditional .32-40 chamberings.

All of this resulted in a mild renaissance of the chambering in the Marlin 1894CL in 1988 and Ruger making a limited run of Blackhawk revolvers for Buckeye Sports, of Canton, Ohio, chambered in true .32-20 WCF. Both, sadly, are no longer produced. The .32-20 WCF has been fruitful and multiplied. Spinoffs include the .25-20 WCF (1895), the .218 Bee (1937) and its case has been modified slightly to produce usable ammo for the Nagant M1895 revolver with its 7.62×38 mm R cartridge, as well as the .310 Cadet rifle cartridge of British fame.

Today’s .32-20 WCF shooters are pretty much relegated to handloading the cartridge, though occasionally you’ll find a handful of factory ammo. Since it’s a bottlenecked cartridge, carbide dies are out, and because of its very thin neck and the necessity of being extra careful—read slow—in the reloading process to keep from ruining too many cases, producing ammo for it is not for the impatient.

An example of a Winchester Model 92 chambered in .32-20 WCF.

The first order of business is to determine whether you are loading for a .30-cal. or a true .32-cal. barrel. That, of course dictates bullet diameter, which may or may not limit your bullet selection.

Then you must decide what power level you can load, which is determined upon your gun type. Model 1873 rifles and first-generation Colt SAAs should not be subjected to hot loads. Their design and metallurgical makeup won’t hold up to that kind of abuse. Newer guns like the Marlin 1894CL, Ruger Blackhawk and T/C Contender can take hotter loads. The .32-20 WCF is inexpensive to load, especially if you use cast bullets.

The .32-20 WCF may not set the modern world on fire. It’s not a popular choice in the self-defense world anymore. Small game hunters wanting a .32-caliber rifle or pistol can choose the .32 H&R Magnum or .327 Federal Magnum can get the job done just as well. But for the traditional minded hunter, the gentleman who may choose to hide a short-barreled single action deep in his coat or the man who embraces history, they will find that the .32-20 WCF suit them right down to the ground.

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Well I thought it was funny!

And this is why I hate cats!! Grumpy who is probably going to Hell soon

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War

HUH!

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Anti Civil Rights ideas & "Friends"

News Democrats Propose Bill to Neuter Militias (It’ll be selectively enforced. Grumpy)

A MILITIA LIKE GROUP MAKES THEIR WAY TO A RALLY FOR US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IN WASHINGTON, DC ON JANUARY 6, 2021. (PHOTO BY JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Militias who like to spend their weekends training to overthrow the government could find themselves running afoul of federal law, under new legislation being proposed in the House and Senate Thursday that seeks to curtail paramilitary activity.

The “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act” is being introduced by Senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts, and Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, both Democrats.

The legislation would prohibit publicly patrolling, drilling or engaging in harmful or deadly paramilitary activities, interfering with or interrupting government proceedings, interfering with someone else exercising their constitutional rights, falsely assuming the role of law enforcement, and “training to engage in such behavior.” 

The lawmakers propose different tiers of criminal penalties, depending on whether violations result in injury or property damage. The bill would establish harsher penalties for repeat offenders, and probationary sentences for first-time offenders. It would also create paths for the DOJ and private individuals to seek civil federal lawsuits against paramilitary activity.

This legislation comes almost exactly three years after Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters—many dressed for war—stormed the U.S. Capitol over conspiracy theories about the presidential election results. Leading the charge were members and leaders of the Oath Keepers, a militia, and Proud Boys, a quasi-paramilitary group often described as a far-right street-fighting gang. Top brass of those organizations have since caught seditious conspiracy charges.

“Private paramilitary actors, such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, pose a serious threat to democracy and the rule of law,” Sen. Markey said in a statement. “We must create new prohibitions on their unauthorized activities that interfere with the exercise of people’s constitutional rights. The forces of bigotry, hatred, and violent extremism must be stopped for the sake of our democracy.”

The Capitol riot was the culmination of surging anti-government sentiment and paramilitary activity seen throughout 2020. That year, armed paramilitary groups swarmed government buildings to protest COVID-19 restrictions, plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor over those restrictions, conducted armed neighborhood patrols in response to racial justice protests, and killed law enforcement officers.

The modern paramilitary movement surged in the 1990s, galvanized by new federal gun laws, and by armed FBI raids on extremist compounds such as Waco and Ruby Ridge. The movement has waxed and waned in the decades since. And as the dust settled from the Capitol riot, many asked why these heavily armed, organized groups had seemingly been able to operate with impunity for so long.

Gun rights organizations and anti-government groups have typically argued that paramilitary activity is constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment’s language about “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”

But constitutional experts hold that it is not protected. After the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, a team with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) sought to examine the legality of the kind of brazen paramilitary activity on display that weekend. They found that all 50 states had some kind of laws on the books, but were rarely enforced.

The team, led by Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice’s national security division, also found that the historical context of “militia” did not mean a private paramilitary group that was answerable only to themselves, but an armed group that predated the National Guard, was first established in the colonies in the 1600s and was meant to be deployed at the behest of the governor. Additionally, McCord told The Trace in an interview two years ago, Supreme Court decisions in 1886 and 2008 found that the Second Amendment did not prohibit states from banning private paramilitary groups.

“Our legislation makes the obvious but essential clarification that these domestic extremists’ paramilitary operations are in no way protected by our Constitution,” Rep Raskin said in a statement regarding Thursday’s bill.

How the proposed legislation is received by hardline conservatives in Congress and by Trump voters will remain to be seen. Grievances against the federal government, particularly the FBI and DOJ, have continued to mount since 2021, amid the slew of indictments against Trump and the massive prosecution effort against Capitol rioters. A recent poll found that a quarter of American voters believe the baseless “Fedsurrection” conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the Capitol attack. These grievances and conspiracies have established the false narrative that the Biden Administration is hellbent on persecuting its ideological or political opponents.

(Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.)

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Ammo

What the Heck is a “Dum-Dum” Bullet Anyway

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First shot with the 1870 .577 Snider-Enfield rifle.

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Art

Working The Trapline — Hershel House, Warrior, The Oregon Frontier by JimC

Hershel House, one of the preeminent builders of American Long Rifles and knives of the Long Hunter era, has died. He was a giant in the traditional field, and by all accounts a fine man. He was 82 years old and had a fine run, but his passing has left a hole in the world for many people.

Mel Hankla wrote a really fine piece on House for Muzzleloader Magazine years ago. Read it here.

Hershel Carmen House was born July 4, 1941 and needs no introduction to these pages. His work has been nationally known for the better part of four decades. Hershel and his younger brothers Frank and John are the progenitors of what is known as the “Woodbury School” in today’s contemporary longrifle society. Named for the small Kentucky town on the banks of the Green River in which they grew up. Products made by this family ingenuously express their personalities, exhibit varied artistic talents, and reveal a genuine way of life that has significantly influenced many aspects and countless members of today’s contemporary longrifle culture.

*

Monk scouted up a novel to be released later this year titled Dark Frontier.

A thrilling historical western set in 1890s Oregon, from the author of the critically acclaimed Bernicia Chronicles. An English soldier turned policeman escapes to the American West for a new future, but life on the frontier proves far harder than he ever imagined…

A man can flee from everything but his own nature.

1890. Lieutenant Gabriel Stokes of the British Army left behind the horrors of war in Afghanistan for a role in the Metropolitan Police. Though he rose quickly through the ranks, the squalid violence of London’s East End proved just as dark and oppressive as the battlefield.

With his life falling apart, and longing for peace and meaning, Gabriel leaves the grime of London behind and heads for the wilderness and wide open spaces of the American West.

He soon realises that the wilds of Oregon are far from the idyll he has yearned for. The Blue Mountains may be beautiful, but with the frontier a complex patchwork of feuds and felonies, and ranchers as vicious as any back alley cut-throat in London, Gabriel finds himself unable to escape his past and the demons that drive him. Can he find a place for himself on the far edge of the New World?

I just discovered that the pulpy goodness that is Warrior had a third season in 2023. Lady Marilyn and I will need to catch up on that…

Set during the Tong Wars in late 1870s San Francisco, the series follows Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy who emigrates from China in search of his sister, only to be sold to one of the most powerful tongs in Chinatown.

Warrior came out of an old pitch by Bruce Lee and one of the men at the helm is Jonathan Tropper, who created Banshee (the Irish pub in Warrior is named The Banshee. Nice meta touch there.) We enjoyed the first two seasons on Cinemax, but the show got derailed by COVID and the demise of Cinemax original programing. HBO Max picked it up and delivered a third season last summer. That may be it, although I hear there’s a possibility of Netflix picking it up…

Warrior is pure pulp, but it is exploring a real, international frontier phenomenon.

I ran across a book in the library that takes on The Chinese Question across multiple 19th century frontiers.

How Chinese migration to the world’s goldfields upended global power and economics and forged modern conceptions of race.

In roughly five decades, between 1848 and 1899, more gold was removed from the earth than had been mined in the 3,000 preceding years, bringing untold wealth to individuals and nations. But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over “the Chinese Question”: would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration?

This distinguished history of the Chinese diaspora and global capitalism chronicles how a feverish alchemy of race and money brought Chinese people to the West and reshaped the nineteenth-century world. Drawing on ten years of research across five continents, prize-winning historian Mae Ngai narrates the story of the thousands of Chinese who left their homeland in pursuit of gold, and how they formed communities and organizations to help navigate their perilous new world. Out of their encounters with whites, and the emigrants’ assertion of autonomy and humanity, arose the pernicious western myth of the “coolie” laborer, a racist stereotype used to drive anti-Chinese sentiment.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the United States and the British Empire had answered “the Chinese Question” with laws that excluded Chinese people from immigration and citizenship. Ngai explains how this happened and argues that Chinese exclusion was not extraneous to the emergent global economy but an integral part of it. 

This is outside my reading scope for The Ranger Project, etc., but I will mark it down for future exploration. The Chinese story is an important one, and it ain’t pretty. Oregon was the site of a terrible crime involving the massacre of some 34 Chinese gold miners in 1887.

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All About Guns

I SOLD My Winchester Model 75 22 Caliber Target Rifle

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Personal weapons (#VickersMG ‘reenactorisms’ series)

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All About Guns Another potential ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE Anti Civil Rights ideas & "Friends"

Mexican-American Billionaire from New York Funds ‘Tennessee 11’ to Push Gun Control Agenda via ‘Citizen Solutions’ in 2024

The foundation created by Mexican-American “social entrepreneur” and billionaire Daniel Lubetzky is funding a group called the “Tennessee 11,” which seeks to pass a red flag law and other gun control legislation this year in Tennessee.

The 2024 session of the Tennessee General Assembly is scheduled to convene in Nashville on Tuesday, January 9.

According to his personal website, Daniel Lubetzky was born in Mexico City in the late 1960s and came to the United States with his family as a teenager.

In 2004, Lubetzky is the founded the snack company Kind LLC. It was reportedly worth $5 billion when the company was sold to Mars Inc. in 2020. When the company was under his management, Lubetzky was named a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship by former President Barack Obama and his administration’s Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker.

His foundation received its tax-exempt status in 2017, and a federal tax filing from 2021 indicates the Lubetzky Family Foundation has offices at 3 Times Square, also known as the Thomson Reuters Building, in New York. The Lubetzky Family Foundation spent nearly $3.5 million in 2021, when its eight highest-earning employees were each paid more than $100,000, and collectively were compensated $1,294,410.

Lubetzky’s involvement in Tennessee politics comes through a group called Citizen Solutions, which is a project of Starts With Us, which in turn is a project of the Lubetzky Family Foundation. Citizen Solutions seems to exist to spread awareness of the suggestions made by the Tennessee 11, a group of 11 Tennessee residents affiliated with Citizen Solutions.

The Tennessee 11 apparently met for the first time in September, when the group held a “solution session” in Franklin.

In October, the Tennessee 11 announced eight proposals for new laws, regulations, and initiatives they claim would contribute toward the prevention of gun violence. Among the proposals, according to a press release by Citizen Solutions, are calls for Tennessee to pass a red flag law, which would allow courts to order the temporary suspension of an individual’s right to bear arms, require Student Resource Officers (SROs) be trained in “mental health first aid” and “trauma-informed care,” and create “an incentives-first approach to gun ownership rights and responsibilities.”

Another proposal includes Tennessee investing resources to prevent traumatic childhood experiences that could potentially precipitate gun violence.

The Tennessee 11 also proposed laws or regulations requiring Tennesseans obtain a license or permit to carry a handgun, though the group noted, “the TN11 reached a majority but not unanimous consensus on this proposal and now asks the public for feedback.”

In November, the Citizen Solutions “opened a public feedback platform,” according to The Daily Beacon, which reported the activists “are encouraging [University of Tennessee] students to give feedback on the proposals” made by the Tennessee 11.

On the Citizen Solutions website, the activists claim their gun control proposals were drafted by “Tennesseans with very different perspectives.” Citizen Solutions also bills itself as “an ambitious civic experiment empowering Americans to counteract the extreme voices dominating media and politics by elevating the will of the people.”

However, several of the activists who comprise the Tennessee 11 appear to be partisan, and some worked for the Democratic Party or are former Democratic political candidates.

One of the Tennessee 11, Brandi Kellett, is an Associate Professor at Lipscomb University, and her “areas of scholarship focus on culture, memory and faith as a resistance to oppression in the African disapora across the Americas,” according to her university biography.

Arriell Gipson, a Memphis Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for Shelby County Clerk in 2022, is another member of the Tennessee 11. A profile for her campaign revealed she is “the committee chair for the Mayor’s Young Professional Council, Violence Prevention and Criminal Justice Reform Committee, First Vice President for the Shelby County Young Democrats, a graduate of Leaders of Color, Organizing for Action, New Memphis Leadership Institute, and The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.”

Another member, former Tennessee state trooper Mark Proctor, wrote in a guest column for The Tennessean in August that “stricter gun regulations save lives.” The Tennessee 11 member specifically argued in favor of a “[s]trict permitting process” and new legislation to “[k]eep guns away from the wrong people.”

Therapist Adam Luke joined the Tennessee 11 from Columbia, Tennessee. In October, Starts With Us published a lengthy statement from Luke on social media. Luke lamented, “When we talk about guns, there’s so much division. Either we’re attacking traditions or we want people to be in harm’s way.”

He urged Tennesseans to “have that bigger discussion of recognizing that what you’re feeling is legitimate, but sometimes our feelings alone aren’t the only information we need to be taking in.” While Luke seemed hesitant to support a red flag law in his statement, the group’s proposal to “[a]llow courts to temporarily remove someone’s firearms if they are deemed a danger to themselves or others based on certain criteria showing they are at risk of committing violence” had the unanimous support of the Tennessee 11.

While Lubetzky funds the Tennessee 11 through his New York-based Lubetzky Family Foundation, he is also an Inaugural Board of Directors member for the controversial Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL notes Lubetzky is the recipient of awards from the World Economic Forum, Skoll Foundation, Conscious Capitalism, and Hispanic Heritage Foundation.

It remains unclear if Lubetzsky’s efforts will bear fruit after a significant push for gun control failed in 2023, when Democrats were joined by Governor Bill Lee (R) in calls for restrictions following the Covenant School shooting.

Red flag legislation was unsuccessful during the regular session in 2023, and though Lee called a special session for the Tennessee General Assembly to pursue gun control initiatives, the governor did not back a red flag law proposal for a second time. Ultimately, no gun restrictions were passed during the special session, and Lee recently signaled that he does not intend to push for red flag legislation in 2024.

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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times.