A big storm coming our way tomorrow, so I knew today had to be a range day. I was range testing my .32 French Long loads for the French 1935A pistol. This round is obsolete and the major manuals dont carry data for it. On the blogs I usually see loads with either Unique powder or Bullseye. The most common loads are for unique, with charges ranging from 3.4 grains to 3.7 grains. Ive never had good results with those powders in this cartridge. I think those powders burn too fast. In my opinion, most reloaders use the .32 ACP as their starting point when tackling the .32 French. The .32 French Long case is a good bit longer than the .32 ACP, so I thought it would benefit from heavier charges of slower burning powder...looks like I was right. Today both Power Pistol and Blue Dot performed much better than Unique using 90-grain Hornady XTP bullets. Overall 4.8 grains of Blue Dot was the most accurate load. This picture shows two, two and a half inch groups shot from 25 yards. If it wasnt for the heavy trigger on the 1935A, I think the groups would have been a lot smaller. Accurate, low pressure, just about 1,000 fps. This is going to be my .32 French load going forward. Hopefully Ill get a video up this weekend on it.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 19:41:11 +0000