Finding a carry load for your 32 acp mousegun

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This past winter I ran across a used NAA Guardian 32 acp pistol at a price I couldn’t pass up. I had one maybe 10 years ago and bought it for old times sake as I always missed my old Guardian. Soon I bought a few other 32s for comparison and was seeking a good carry load for all of them. I found this was not easy, which is why most people just give up and put hot FMJ Fiocchi or RWS ball in their 32 and hope for the best. Years of small game hunting with all sorts of calibers including anemic 32 Long Colt Marlin lever actions taught me that round nose 32 bullets at pistol or slow rifle velocity’s are not good stoppers. They will penetrate but generally pass through the animal without doing a lot of damage or transferring much energy. Way back when the 38 special round nose was a notoriously bad stopper and I can’t see the 32 FMJ being any different. Flat nose lead bullets are much better and hollow points that expand (but also penetrate enough) are better still. Basically for a carry load I wanted:

At least some degree of consistent expansion
Adequate penetration, the FBI says 12 inches, which is probably a good ballpark figure
Rounds with long enough OAL to prevent rimlock
Something that won’t pound my little pocket guns to death

About the only load that fits the bill that I could find is the Fiocchi Extrema XTP. Many thanks to ljutic1 on Youtube for testing this load in Sim-Test material through two layers of denim. He found it manage to penetrate 11 inches while expanding to about .43 caliber! The XTP bullet is well designed, with a soft hollow point nose that expands easily and a rear portion that holds together and penetrates deeply. 979 fps from his Kel Tec and my chronograph showed my gun performed the same. This Extrema stuff is about .940 OAL, which is long enough to prevent rimlock in all the guns I tested. For my testing I fired all rounds through a heavy bath towel draped over a large plastic barrel filled with water with the top removed. I figured the heavy towel would simulate clothing to a degree, and water will give the bullets a chance of expanding similar to Sim Test material/ballistic gelatine, and should show any real “losers” that just won’t expand.

Seecamp with bullets (left to right) expanded Silvertip, expanded XTP, unexpanded Gold Dot. Gold Dot just to the right of muzzle that is fully expanded was handloaded to 925fps. This proved to me that the Gold Dot bullet would expand readily if pushed a little harder than the rather anemic 800 fps (out of the Seecamp) or so Speer loads it to. Silvertips go a little faster at around 840 fps or so, and they do expand. In the Seecamp they are probably the best choice in factory ammo, as the magazines won’t accept the Extrema load due to length.

NAA Guardian with expanded Silvertip at muzzle, two expanded XTPs. Again, the Silvertip expanded, but those XTP’s performed consistently too.

Kel Tec P32 with expanded XTP and unexpanded Gold Dot. Again the XTPs performed consistently, while the factory Gold Dot failed to expand.

Taurus 732 with expanded XTP and unexpanded Gold Dot.

Expanded XTP bullets, fired from (left to right) Kel Tec, Seecamp, Guardian, 732, and lastly a 380 XTP Fiocchi Extrema fired from a Taurus 738 just for comparision. The XTPs performed almost identically regardless of what gun I fired them from and I never fired one that did NOT expand.

Gold Dot 32s, Fully expanded hand load on left, fired from Seecamp, unexpanded factory load on right fired from Taurus 732. I couldn’t get the Gold Dot factory load to expand no matter which gun it was fired from, but if pushed just a little faster it would as you can see.

Gold Dot 32 handload on the left, 380 factory load on the right, not as much size difference as I thought there would be.

The 32 acp is not a 380 but Fiocchi has done a lot to narrow the gap. I hope this info might help others deciding on what to carry in their 32’s.

UPDATE:

Brassfetcher from youtube was nice enough to correspond with me about the Gold Dot 32 acp. He did get expansion with the Gold Dots from a Kel Tec P32 in BARE 10% ballistic gelatine and 7.2″ of penetration. I fired my Kel Tec into water with NO barrier and finally did get expansion:

My barrier, 100% cotton bath towel, one layer, was enough to prevent expansion of the factory Gold Dot load from all my test guns. The bullets are, left to right, factory gold dot with no barrier, my handload @ 935 fps through the towel barrier, and then factory gold dot through the towel barrier (no expansion).

What I gather from this is the factory Gold Dot 32 is right on the edge velocity wise for expansion, and if your target is wearing even fairly light clothes it will likely fail to expand. If it does expand, penetration isn’t too great, partially due to lack of velocity. Brassfetcher also told me water is within 1% density of 20% ballistic gelatine so water is actually a pretty valid test medium. If Speer would bump the Gold Dot up to around the Extrema velocity, it would perform much better as you can see from my handload results. I assume penetration would be more than 7″ with this bullet bumped up to 975fps or so, but probably still less than the XTP’s 11″, wish I had some ballistic gelatine to test it in.

Update #2

The Silvertips used for my testing were perhaps 10 years old. I have come across data lately that the new Silvertips have a thicker jacket and no longer expand like the old ones do at low velocity. This really sucks as the old Silvertip had a great street record and is what the Seecamp was designed around. I’m trying to find out more, but if they changed the jacket thickness it was a dumb move.

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