The Mighty 32's

The 327 Federal Magnum makes this Ruger SP101 a full powered 6-shot force to be reckoned with.

When someone mentions .32 caliber handguns, we often think of small, low powered rounds. The .32 ACP comes to mind, and the .32 S&W Short and Long pop into our minds when considering revolvers. None of these are considered powerful rounds though. Most of us feel they might be okay for casual plinking and target shooting, but they’re generally thought of as marginal, at best, for defense. Having said that, small loaders like Buffalo Bore offer higher “performance” loads in these normally anemic calibers and merit a look if you’re inclined to spice up the performance of your favorite small gun.

In the wheelgun world, we have newer .32 caliber rounds packing more punch. The .32 H&R Magnum was introduced in 1984, bringing more power to the .32 caliber revolver. It pushes 85-gr. bullets to around 1,120 fps, getting it in the .38 Special range. The .32 H&R magnum has a flat trajectory and is very suitable for small game. It also has enough power for defense against human predators.

The king of .32 caliber revolver rounds is the 327 Federal Magnum. Introduced in 2008, the 327 Federal is a “magnum” in every sense of the word. It has a very long case, very high-pressure limit (45,000 psi, which is 10,000 psi higher than the .357 Magnum) and packs a very big punch. It drives a 100-gr. bullet to 1,500 fps from a 4″ barrel. An average .357 load is a 125-gr. bullet at 1,450 fps from the same barrel length. If you doubt the 327 Federal’s power, just shoot a full-powered load. The recoil and muzzle blast will make a believer out of you. This kind of power is more than enough for small game and for self-defense, the original reason for its creation.

A nice feature of the .32 caliber magnum revolver rounds is a gun chambered for these longer cartridges is backward compatible with the shorter rounds because the non-magnum rounds are much lower in pressure. A gun chambered in 327 Federal Magnum can shoot the .32 H&R Magnum, .32 S&W Long and .32 S&W. Ruger currently makes over a dozen revolvers in 327 Federal Magnum.

This Zastava M57 pistol is chambered in the powerful 7.62x25 Tokarev. With 9+1 rounds on board,
it’s a formidable handgun.

Semi-Autos

In the world of semi-autos, there are few choices for cartridges more powerful than the .32 Auto. The .32 North American Arms (.32 NAA) is a little more powerful than the .32 Auto. It’s a .380 ACP necked down to .32 caliber. It pushes an 80-gr. bullet to 1,000 fps. This compares to the .32 ACP pushing a 73-gr. bullet to 1,000 fps, though most .32 Auto ammo is loaded a little lighter than this. The .32 NAA is only chambered in one gun, the NAA Guardian, a very small pocket auto for self-defense. This limits the versatility of the round.

At best, those two .32 caliber semi-auto rounds approach .38 Special ballistics. But hold on. There’s a .32 caliber semi-auto round blowing the pants off them both. It’s the 7.62x25 Tokarev, and it’s in the same power league as the 327 Federal. It pushes an 85-gr. bullet to 1,645 fps getting some serious juice going.

The hot-rods in the .32 category: The 327 Federal (left) and 7.62x25 Tokarev.

Essentially Unknown

This semi-auto cartridge is not well known in the U.S.A. because it was not developed here. It was developed in the land of our Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union. The 7.62×25 Tokarev was developed in 1930 from the very similar .30 Mauser (7.63×25 Mauser) and chambered in a new Soviet TT-30 pistol, which evolved into the TT-33 pistol. The 7.62×25 Tokarev is also chambered in the Czechoslovakian CZ 52 pistol and various clones made by China, Vietnam and the former Yugoslavia (Serbia). It’s also the cartridge used in the famous Russian burp-gun of World War II, the iconic drum-fed PPSh-41.

Some of the TT-33 pistols and variants as well as CZ 52 pistols have made their way into the U.S. being bought by collectors and enthusiasts for their novelty and history. Owners quickly learned the bottlenecked 7.62×25 Tokarev round had very impressive ballistics and produced impressive fireballs with every shot. The 7.62×25 Tokarev is a potent and versatile cartridge, and pistols chambered in this caliber are still around at many surplus gun dealers. Ammo appears to be plentiful.

A few loading manuals in the U.S. (Hornady, Sierra) use .308 bullets for their 7.62×25 Tokarev load data, which would make it a .30 caliber cartridge. But according to the C.I.P. (Permanent International Commission for the Proof of Small Arms, which is the European version of the SAAMI), the 7.62×25 Tokarev uses 7.90mm bullets, converting to 0.311″. That makes it a .32 caliber cartridge.

The 7.62×25 Tokarev is a long cartridge not easily fitting in most pistol designs. The Tokarev has a length of 1.385″, exceeding the maximum lengths of cartridges such as the .45 ACP (1.275″) and .38 Super (1.280″). Thus the 7.62×25 Tokarev is not easily adapted to existing semi-auto pistol platforms other than the original guns. There have been 7.62×25 Tokarev conversion barrels for the 1911, but you can only get 3-4 rounds in a 1911 magazine because of their length.

The .32 caliber revolver rounds: (left to right) .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Magnum, 327 Federal Magnum.

The .32 caliber auto rounds: (left to right) .32 Auto, .32 NAA, 7.62x25 Tokarev.

Last Thoughts

The limited types of guns chambering the Tokarev and the even more limited sources for good hollow-point bullets in factory ammo limits its use as a defensive cartridge. However, handloaders can take advantage of excellent bullets by Hornady, Sierra and Speer to make some very effective loads for defense as well as hunting small game.

This variety of .32 caliber handgun rounds from the mild to the mighty can fill a variety of roles. From plinking, target shooting and small-game hunting to self-protection, these small-bore delights can be both great fun and serious tools. Match the cartridge to the task and you can hardly go wrong.

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