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#620632 10/13/22 12:06 PM
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I have owned quite a few Martinis, including a few Cadets. I hadn't owned one for a while; sold the last one because I got frustrated trying to load it. I happened to see one a few weeks ago that was a nice looking but was marked on the top of the action as one of the 32-20 rechambers. I got it for a song, and when it arrived I was amazed. It was a BSA in absolutely pristine condition with a Ser # in the 50000 range. It looked like a gun that had been handled a while in a showroom but not used. Everything fit, worked and looked un-worn. I suspect it was an early import that was rechambered, marked and sold in the early 60's.

I went through a lot of effort to get ready to shoot it. No one has any cases in stock, and I had to look to find some cases, finally locating some primed Remington 32-20 brass. Loaded some moderate 32-20 loads and they wouldn't chamber and lock up. A lot of fiddleing and measuring revealed that when the chambers were cut to 32-20 with the extractor out of the gun and remained cut for the Cadet round, which is too shallow for the 32-20. I ground the extractor recess enough to close and proceeded. I tried the 32-20 loads and they chambered, but pulled the bullet if ejected unfired. The gun was new enough at least so that the ejector had a lot of power. I went on and fired 5 of the rounds to function test, and got high pressure signs and sticky cases from the very moderate loads. This surprised me since I have had numerous custom cadets with much higher pressure rounds.

Examination of the cases showed that the chamber neck was too short and the case neck couldn't expand and was impeding the bullet release.

More investigation. I discovered that Remington cases are generally a little longer than the Winchester and Starline cases. Apparently, I had a minimum chamber that wouldn't work with the Remington cases without trimming. I cut a couple of cases off to 310 cadet length, loaded with cadet bullets and found that the bullets still jammed in the rifling, even with the much shorter case. At that point, I cast the chamber and bore and discovered that the Australians are correct. In the US the Cadet is accepted to have a .321-.322 bore. This is the excuse givenfor poor accuracy with the 32-20 bullet. The Australians, and one very famous expert that is knowledgeable in this area, says this is often not true; that the BSA's have much tighter bores than the Greeners and other makers. My rifle has a bore of just under .316, explaining the bullets jams with Cadet bullets.

I thought this all over, considered the rechamber and the bullet/case options, and decided to lengthen the chamber neck to accept any case and allow for a little case stretching. I then freebored the barrel with the same reamer and reamed until a 32-20 Remington case with a cadet bullet would seat without interference. My thinking is that the gun has already been rechambered, the tight bore may work reasonably well with a 32-20 bullet, and if not the cadet bullet will fit the chamber properly and give a good bore seal. The beauty of all this is that I have a lot more useful powder capacity than with a stock cadet case. The difference in length all becomes powder space, and the heeled bullet takes less case volume than the 32-20 bullet. I am getting ready to load some new rounds and try these to compare the new loads and see how much increase in performance over the standard Cadet.

I have not been able to find any instance where someone loaded the Cadet bullets in a full size 32-30 case and shot them in a 32-20 chamber modified to take the heeled bullets. Any of the rechambered guns would fire normal 32-20 loads if the cases are trimmed to fit (not necessary with Winchester and Starline cases apparently) but would only shoot 32-20 bullets and accuracy may or may not be there. The freeboring would seem to open up the possibility of accurate loads with more bullet weight and more velocity potential. Wanted to check if anyone had tried this or seen data for this.

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AGS #620641 10/13/22 01:36 PM
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I've done much like you described, and it worked. I would start with very mild loads and a very soft bullet, say 1:30 or 1:40 tin:lead alloy.

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AGS' story is very interesting. I have several Cadets in various calibers, one of which was given to me in the 1990s by and old friend that was moving most of his guns due to his age. He was quite generous with "stuff" his children/grandchildren didn't want. He had been a dealer when the cadets were commonly on the market. The one he gave me was a very nice .310 in original form. He kept another one, even nicer, that he had converted to 32-20. He didn't rechamber it though, rather, he ground/polished the face of the breech block back enough to make up the difference in rim thickness. Since the .310 cartridge used a heeled bullet that was outside lubricated and about the same diameter as the case, the throat was long enough to chamber a 32-20 cartridge. I speculate that the forward part of factory 32-20 bullet (he handloaded but didn't cast bullets) could enter the rifling. He claimed fine accuracy, but I don't know if he had a .316" or .323" barrel. It might be that AGS' rifle was converted the same way and the .310 heeled bullet makes the 32-20 cartridge long enough to "jam" the bullet into the rifling. My cadet in .357 Mag. has a similar problem in that a .357" SWC bullet seated to the crimping groove won't chamber. I speculate that when it was rebored and chambered a pistol reamer was used, rather than a rifle reamer. I just seat the bullets deeper but mostly just use 38 Special ammo. BTW, my cadet in .310 shoots great with the .310 bullets, self-modified 32-20 cases and Unique. Before I had the correct mold, I used the LYMAN# 32359 bullet by overexpanding the neck, seating the bullet, then running it back into the sizing die (I was using 32-20 dies at that time). This swaged a "heel" onto the bullet. They shot well, but the cases didn't last long.
Mike

Last edited by Der Ami; 10/14/22 10:54 AM.
AGS #620670 10/13/22 11:50 PM
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I have a Cadet that will chamber and fire factory 32-20 ammo, but the accuracy is poor. The barrel is stamped 31-12-120.

What I did:

Shorten Starline Brass to 1.100"
Fire form using the COW method
Use correct Cadet healed bullet RCBS .310-120-RN (P/N:82023), tumble lube with Lee Liquid Alox
4.6grs Universal Clays powder, small pistol primers
I don't use dies, just hand seat bullets, and I don't resize the fired brass, just decap

Excellent accuracy and long case life

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Originally Posted by Der Ami
AGS' story is very interesting. I have several Cadets in various calibers, one of which was given to me in the 1990s by and old friend that was moving most of his guns due to his age. He was quite generous with "stuff" his children/grandchildren didn't want. He had been a dealer when the cadets were commonly on the market. The one he gave me was a very nice .310 in original form. He kept another one, even nicer, that he had converted to 32-20. He didn't rechamber it though, rather, he ground/polished the face of the breech block back enough to make up the difference in rim thickness. Since the .310 cartridge used a heeled bullet that was outside lubricated and about the same diameter as the case, the throat was long enough to chamber a 32-20 cartridge. I speculate that the forward part of factory 32-20 bullet (he handloaded but didn't cast bullets) could enter the rifling. He claimed fine accuracy, but I don't know if he had a .316" or .323" barrel. It might be that AGS' rifle was converted the same way and the .310 heeled bullet makes the 32-20 cartridge long enough to "jam" the bullet into the rifling. My cadet in .357 Mag. has a similar problem in that a .357" SWC bullet seated to the crimping groove won't chamber. I speculate that when it was rebored and chambered a pistol reamer was used, rather than a rifle reamer. I just seat the bullets deeper but mostly just use 38 Special ammo. BTW, my cadet in .310 shoots great with the .310 bullets, self-modified 32-20 cases and Unique. Before I had the correct mold, I used the LYMAN# 32359 bullet by overexpanding the neck, seating the bullet, then running it back into the sizing die (I was using 32-20 dies at that time). This swaged a "heel" onto the bullet. They shot well, but the cases didn't last long.
Mike

Thanks everybody for the responses. I will have to say that this gun I am certain has been rechambered. It was stamped as such and measurements of the rim recess of the barrel and the extractor are different by the difference in rim thickness. I am convinced it was one which was part of a batch import and they removed the barrel for rechamber, but didn't do anything to the extractor. Also, the "crimped" section on the Remington case neck was close in measurement to the excess length I have seen quoted for those cases.

I think the bore is the reason for the jammed cases. The bullets were .321 120 gr Cadet bullets (soft lead), and bullets seated into full length 32-20 cases were jamming into the lands. With a more common larger bore, the leade would likely have allowed seating the round.

I wanted to relate this in case someone with a smaller bore is having a problem. Using a proper necking reamer to provide freebore may yield an accurate rifle.

I will report the tests if the wind ever stops here.


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