32 Winchester special introduction date ???

[Trapper243]

A friend of mine mentioned that his Win. 94 would be 100 years old this year and that we should take it out deer hunting, as well as my 94 .32 special to celebarate it's birthday. Not knowing how old mine was I looked it up. serial # 183xxx . Every source I looked up put it at 1900. 112 years old. I missed it's birthday and the last time it went hunting was in its' 90s. Looks like it's time to take them deer hunting this fall. Then for kicks I looked up "32 win. special". Everything I looked at made mention of it being introduced in 1901 or 1902 . Someone is wrong because I have a 1900 .32 win special ?

 

[cliffe]

According to my Hornady reloading handbook . "Introduced in Winchester's new model 94 lever action, the 32 Winchester Special came to market in 1895. It was an original cartridge design, intended from the outset for smokeless powder factory loads. " cliffe

 

[Trapper243]

Thanks , that is kind of what I thought. I just can't seem to find my old reloading book with the 32 special stuff in it. The other info came off the internet, and wikepedia.

 

[boltman13]

While the 32 Win was designed for smokeless powder it was also felt it would work better with black powder than the 30-30. Many shooters still had a lot of black powdwe and led bullets and this was a ploy to encourage those shooters to go for a Model 94.

 

[Trapper243]

While the 32 Win was designed for smokeless powder it was also felt it would work better with black powder than the 30-30. Many shooters still had a lot of black powdwe and led bullets and this was a ploy to encourage those shooters to go for a Model 94.

So I have heard, and supposedly the reason for the 1-16 barrel twist... Never tried, but it might be kind of fun to cast lead bullets and use black powder.