Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 32-20 for deer?

If you handload, and if you can get really close, and if you can shoot, and if you can pass up long shots, and if the .32-20 is legal where you hunt, yes. OTOH, Marlin makes the same rifle in several other calibers, all of which are more powerful and use ammo that is both cheaper to buy and easier to reload.

I guess it's like that sport-cute TV commercial a couple of years ago, where some boys are playing polo in their daddies' hunting cars: You wouldn't, but you could.

Doesn't the 20 in .32-20 represent the number of grains of powder in the original loading?

Regardless whether the 20 grains of powder were blackpowder or smokeless, that loading is below the bottom end of what would be considered a deer load today.

It would have referenced the grains of BP for the load. The .32 could have been the caliber.

VAnimrod is correct...

The ".32" was the caliber (although the jacketed bullet diameter was/is .310 inches) of the old black powder cartridge... and the "20" was the number of grains of black powder the cartridge was designed to use.

With a factory-loaded cartridge's muzzle velocity of only about 1300 fps with a 100 grain bullet, the 1� inch long round (with bullet) isn't a cartridge for hunting deer-sized game in today's world.

However, back when it and it's "little brother", the .25/20, WERE popular cartridges, it was often used for deer with mixed results. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

+1

When I got my (new) mod 94 25-35 last year, I took it out of the box, looked at it, looked a piece of brass for it, and said, "that's an Arizona lion rifle!"

Regards,

Sycamore

The .32-20 was a little more of a round in the early 20th century than in the 19th or in the 21st. The BP round was a small game load, and the present factory ammo pretty much duplicates that load. But "HV" high velocity cartridges were made in the early smokeless era that propelled a 115 gr bullet around 2000 fps. You can make them now, if you handload. The manufacturers dropped the HV loads a long time ago, because they were only useful in strong rifles like a Winchester 92, Marlin 94, and Savage 23. Problem was, people persisted in shooting them in revolvers, Winchester 73s, and the like, with poor result.

Similar HV loads were made for the .38-40 and some others. A .38-40 in BP mode launches 180 gr at around 1200 fps, which is pretty much a pistol round, but bump that to 1750 fps with a load of Reloader 7, and it almost becomes a 100 m deer rifle.

"Cartridges of the World" reproduces part of the 1906 Winchester catalog, with some ballistic data, and it includes both standard velocity and HV loads for several of the old BP cartridges. Also, interestingly enough, some BP cartridges were still loaded. IIRC, the two rounds with the highest muzzle energy were the .50-140 BP round, and the smokeless .30-03.

The 32-20 is pretty close to the 30 carbine in power when reloaded to potential and that would make it a 50 yard deer cartridge in the hands of a good shot. These cartridges were what made the 30-30 look like the latter day super cartridge that in was thought of back around the turn of the century.

Last night I was reading the 1999 Peterson's Hunting Annual and I found that article that you mention. Craig Boddington lists the 32-20 as the perfect round for hunting cougars. I know that lots of people used to use a 22 pistol but now in Colorado they put a minimum caliber on cats to stop that practice. I think that the minimum now is a 22 Hornet.

"back "then" an all around cartridge was one that you could shoot either a deer or a rabbit "

True. Rickt. another part of the all-around thing was that the cartridges could be used in either a saddlegun or a revolver.

My Grandad used a 32-20 for deer and my Mom claims most of them were shot through a knot hole in the wall of the barn... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Shootin' out, or shootin' in?


<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Sycamore

good one, syc. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The 32-20 is not a good deer cartridge by today's standards. It was OK years ago when deer were plentiful and your conscience did not bother you about wounding a deer! Today, you have to put the deer down quickly!

Especially if you hunt on public game lands!

Larry Koller shot his first deer with a .25-20, the same rifle he had been hunting rabbits with, so he could hit with it. He upgraded to a .30-40 when he got the chance tho, and never looked back.

the caliber of deer are the same . the caliber of rifles are the same. but the caliber of hunters are different. thats why the 32-20 is no longer a deer cartridge...un skilled hunters...

Can a 32/20 kill a deer/? Yes. Is it a good deer cartridge? No

Hubert;

Does that mean that my great uncle who used a .22 Short for deer was the greatest hunter in modern firearms history?

No, it means he shot them in the head, off a horse, wagon, or truck, and sometimes at night.

Saying that the .32-20 is no longer an adequate deer cartridge because hunters today are unskilled is pure, unadulterated BS.

The .32-20 is not an adequate caliber for deer. It wasn't then, it isn't now.

The ONLY reason that it was used on deer back then was: 1) it's what the guy had, and all he had, and 2) it happened to use revolver ammo, so the guy who owned a rifle/carbine and a revolver only had to remember to buy one type of ammo.

thats only your opnion and it don't count.. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Neither does yours... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BTW - I'm still checking on things down here for ya... things move slow in the south, ya know... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />