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Martini Cadet in 32-20

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Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby flintlok » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:59 pm

Gentlemen, is anybody on the Forum shooting a 310 Martini Cadet that was rechambered for 32-20. I understand that bore diameters of the Cadet rifles run from 0.318 to .323 or somewhere there about. The bullet was designed as a heeled bullet where the base of the case is stepped to be inserted into the cartridge mouth while the non heel part of the bullet is near case diameter and sits atop the case mouth rim. I have the proper heeled base bullet RCBS mould for the Cadet. I also have the Lee a 32-20 factory crimp die that will crimp the heel bullet as well as liquid Alox bullet lube. I ready to cast and reload however I've read that due to the length of the heeled bullet the 32-20 case length needs to be trimmed a bit in order to chamber. No one says exactly how much. So my question is does and any on the Forum load for the Cadet in 32-20 and if so do you find that's it's necessary to trim the case length and if so by how much.

As a aside. my Martini Cadet is a BSA made that was a training rifle used for the Australian Army Air Corp in the early 20th century. It's a sweet little rifle that's been well maintain with the usual wear and handling marks. Sometimes the Brits get it right. ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby mathspete » Sat Mar 23, 2019 10:55 pm

If I recall, shootist is heavily into the martini rifles. I'm
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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby Shootist » Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:38 pm

Can't give much help I'm afraid. A friend at my shooting club has a .310 cadet he shoots from time to time but I have little info in the modifications you are interested in. I have long wanted to get hold of a .310 cadet with a knackered barrel in order to debarred it to .38 special. Unfortunately, they're not so common.
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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby flintlok » Wed Mar 27, 2019 8:27 pm

Yes, Australia dumped loads of Martini Cadets into the US markets several decades ago and now they are rare a hen's teeth as they are all locked up in private collections. An untrimmed 32-20 case is 1.315 inch long. When using an the RCBS heeled bullet loaded into an untrimmed 1.315 inch long 32-20 case I found that I couldn't completely chamber with the the case. The overall cartridge length was at least 0.10 too long if not longer and I was unable to close the action. I did an internet search of 32-20 converted Cadets and found that the longest 32-20 trimmed case length he fellows used with the RCBS 310 Cadet 120 grain cast heel bullets was 1.150 inch. I had to trim a significant amount of metal. I set my drill press to trim the cases to 1.140 inch. I couldn't coax the extra 0.010 in length to get the 1.50 inch length with my drill press stop set device. I made a few dummy rounds with the 1.40 inch cases with heeled bullet loaded and found that they worked just fine. They chambered with no problem and the action easily closed. I'll trim several hundred cases which be a life time supply for me. I did find that I can get a snug hand pressed fit when inserting the heeled bullet into fire cases with out resizing at all.

I should note that I did fire some 32-20 ammo with the Cadet using normal 32-20 rounds just to see if the action functioned properly. I was just a quick test for function and I found the report and recoil pleasant. Once I get the Cadet squared away I suspect that it will be as sweet a shooter as anything else.
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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby flintlok » Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:48 pm

Okay, I assemble the 32-20 load using small pistol primers and 7.0 grains of 2400 powder and the 310 Cadet RCBS 120 grain lead cast heeled bullets. The load is at the lower end of the recommended powder charge for a 120 grain bullet in the 32-20 that listed in the Lyman Reloading Manual 49th edition. I check my Cartridges of the World book by Frank Barnes and found that the Cadet factory load had a muzzle velocity of 1200 fps. My load should be around 1000 fps.

I used Lee's Liquid Alox for as a bullet lubricant. Typically I resize and lubricant all of my cast bullets with my own home made lube however, since the lower end of the bullet is heeled and of smaller diameter the the body of the bullet, I couldn't size the bullet without making a mess where I would have to wipe off excess lube from the heel. As result all of the bullets were loaded as cast and unsized.

I made about 600 cast bullets. I placed them evenly or so in two thick plastic freezer bags and added a somewhat shy of a tablespoon amount of the liquid Alox to each bag. I rolled the bags a bit in order to let the Alox evenly coat the heads and then place the bags opened outside to let the volatiles evaporate off. Fresh Alox lube smells and it's best left in the open air for several hours to reduce the odor. The lube dried from a wet greasy coating to a somewhat dry light tacky coating after 48 hours or so. That's when they are ready to load. I've never used this lube before and the jury is out as to how the load will or will not lead the bore. The lead that I used was a mixture of approximately 60% hard cast and 40% pure lead. I have loads of hard cast bullets that are poor performers. I always get better results with somewhat "soft" lead loads.

I should note that I used an RCBS 30 Caliber Carbine bullet seating die to load the cartridges. My RCBS 32-20 dies is better at seating flat nose bullets. The Carbine seating die was designed to seat long ogived round nose bullet very much like the RCBS 310 Cadet mould forms. It made the seating alignment worlds easier.

I have a Lee 32-20 factory crimp die. As is and using it as directed by Lee will not work without modification. The crimp die typically is use by inserting the case in the shell holder and rammed in the die compressing the crimping sleeve fixture at the bottom and pushing it upward along die's interior tapered body so that the crimp sleeve will close on and crimp the case neck. This method is set for a factory case length for the 32-20. As I noted before, an untrimmed 32-20 case is 1.315 inch long. I trimmed all of my cases to 1.140 inches.

In order to use the crimp die I dropped the loaded cartridges from the top of the die. I found that it was necessary to insert a spacer of 0.809 inch high to place on the shell holder to get the cartridge positioned where the crimp would close on and crimp the heeled area of the bullet. I made the spacer with a empty 32 ACP pistol case and I inserted and glued a threaded bolt in the case. It took some experimenting the find the correct spacer height. I had to center the cartridges by hand at the top of the crimp die. The shell holder usually does that otherwise it worked great. I now have 260 cartridges ready to shoot. Now, just to find time to get to the range. That's hard part of all of this.
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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby flintlok » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:38 pm

I'm a fair weather shooter and the weather in New England isn't cooperating. I did manage to fire a few rounds of my reloads off hand in an indoor range as 10 yards. I shared the experience with the range owner. We fired about 25 rounds. Once we settled down we got groups where all the bullet holes were touching. It was about 1/2 inch wide and about 1 1/4 inches vertical stringing. I'm out of practice after the winter. The loads are very promising at this point.
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Flintlok, I think you're dead right....."The Dogge"

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Re: Martini Cadet in 32-20

Postby Coldfinger » Sat Apr 06, 2019 8:54 pm

An excellent write-up so far :thup:
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