.32 Disc Extreme

After months of waiting and hinting at this build it finally showed up today. Rifle started as a Freedom Series .52 Disc, barrel was cut just ahead of the breech plug and threaded to accept an Oregon tapered octagon barrel. A smaller diameter plug was then made to fit in the .32 barrel. Weight of the barreled action is nearly identical to that of a .45 Mountaineer. When both are held the .32 is noticeably lighter due to its synthetic stock. Hopefully the weather holds out and I can shoot it Saturday.

Mountaineer below for comparison



custom plug on left, factory plug on right

Man, that is cool. We need more info.. and more up close pics! Can't wait to see the range reports

Wow that looks Great! 8) :yeah:

Have you weighed it yet? What finish is on the barrel it sort of looks like a Matte black? What diameter is the barrel at the Action and muzzle as well as barrel length? What ramrod and jag is that? Sorry for all the questions but been dying to see what you were building and I am still trying to decide what I will do for my next .32. :wink:

I will bet that rifle is going to be loads of fun and a great shooter.

WV Hunter said:

Man, that is cool. We need more info.. and more up close pics! Can't wait to see the range reports

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Rick (52Bore) built the rifle. Back in September I asked Garry at Knight if they would ever consider building a .32 and he said no but referred me to Rick. Before that I had played around with other options such as barrel sleeving and the Allen Inline action but decided against them. Rifle is truly a work of art, my phone's camera certainly doesn't do it justice.

ShawnT said:

Have you weighed it yet? What finish is on the barrel it sort of looks like a Matte black? What diameter is the barrel at the Action and muzzle as well as barrel length? What ramrod and jag is that?

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1) I have not weighed the complete rifle but the barreled action weights 4.6lbs compared to a .45 Mountaineer which weighs 4.5lbs.
2) Finish is a black ceramic, 52Bore could probably answer that one better.
3) The barrel is 1" at the action and measures 26" from action to the muzzle.
4) Ramrod was made from scratch as part of the build. It is a work of art in and of itself. Sucks that I can't get a clear picture of the jag, it is beautiful.

Thanks. the coating looks great, I like the Matte look myself. I never handled a .45 Mountaineer as of yet. I sort of thought he might have made the jag & rod as I have not seen one quite like it. It looks great though. Mine started out 7/8" and tapered down to .710 and is about 26 inches too. I had specified mine to be 24" but some wires got crossed and it got finished longer. Do you know what yours measures at the muzzle? If that composite stock it light then it will help. Mine has a walnut stock and it weighed in a tad over 8lb IIRC.

52Bore,

Looks like some great work. :yeah: I remember the .45 1 in 18 you posted up.

Is that new plug also made to use the RFPJ?

ShawnT said:

Do you know what yours measures at the muzzle?

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The plans called for the taper to run down to 13/16" at the muzzle, I didn't check it with a mic but it looks good. Rifle is 31.5" from muzzle to the rear of the action.

I did keep the FPJ set up, that's what the rifle came with and I have a mountain of them I bought for my TK2000 when Knight was out of business.

Thanks. Never thought about using the FPJ. I wonder how those will hold in this set up verses a 45 or 50cal, will be interesting to see. Have you decided what powder do you plan to shoot?

I have a jug of pyrodex p for it. The only place around that sells real black didn't stock 3f when I checked. We'll see how it does. As for the FPJs, only issue I've had with them came back to an eroded breech plug, I don't have any reservations about using them in this rifle.

Nice! What twist and depth did you go with? When I built my first one, I had to look for months to find a guy even willing, and then I was told 2 year backlog. I just said OK, ill wait. I had it in a few months after all. Most smiths with the talent sure dont seem to be looking for work. Makes me want to go out with a 32 next trip. :applause:
Theres a few of us now that have gone and made a .32 inline. Theres no doubt if someone would make one (with a decent quality) There is definitely a market out there. Ive seen stats where squirrel hunting is actually more popular than deer, based on hunter numbers and days afield.

I'm curious to see how the FPJ setup works in that rifle. With light loads and small projectile there may be little to no blowback at all.
Was building a bare primer plug discussed?

WV Hunter said:

I'm curious to see how the FPJ setup works in that rifle. With light loads and small projectile there may be little to no blowback at all.
Was building a bare primer plug discussed?

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FPJ, bare 209 and #11 were all discussed.

Squeeze said:

Nice! What twist and depth did you go with? When I built my first one, I had to look for months to find a guy even willing, and then I was told 2 year backlog.

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Barrel is 1:30 twist to match the old TCs. Joe at Oregon asked me about rifling depth and admittedly I did not know what to say, I had never owned a round ball gun before. I explained what I was doing with it and I believe he said 0.008" but don't hold me to that.

Upper Hand said:

Squeeze said:

Nice! What twist and depth did you go with? When I built my first one, I had to look for months to find a guy even willing, and then I was told 2 year backlog.

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Barrel is 1:30 twist to match the old TCs. Joe at Oregon asked me about rifling depth and admittedly I did not know what to say, I had never owned a round ball gun before. I explained what I was doing with it and I believe he said 0.008" but don't hold me to that.

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That is what I did and he made mine the same. I think as squeeze mentioned in the other post on .32's that round ball depth is around .007 to .008, and seem to recall Joe saying that was normal.

I currently shoot between 15 and 20 grains of Pyrodex P in mine with a Hornady .315 round ball and Pillow tick for patches (JoAnn Fabrics has some good thick stuff). I doubt you will be able to use a .310 in his barrel. I got 2 or 3 boxes and they are too small. So if you are buying the balls get .315's, at least to start. I now have some Swiss 3f that I am trying out in my .36 and plan to try it in the .32 next time out but the Pyrodex P shoots great, and has very little build up in mine with #11caps. The Swiss is harder for me to get though.

I too was thinking that with a cooler 209 (No need for anything hot in that rifle) in those FPJ's with the small amounts of powder that the FPJ will probably have very little blow back and can probably even be reused. I would really like to see the fired FPJ's.

.310 will work, but need a .018/.020 or thicker patch. I use a .315, with a .010 patch usually. the .32 kind of drops off the scale for most typical roundball shooter formulas.
Ill usually get a seven like crud ring shooting real black with a shotgun primer. but probably easier to clean
and swabbing you want about a 1-1/2 patch, maybe 1-3/4 Too much patch easily gets stuck and causes all sorts of headaches

Mine did not like the .310. With Pillow tick I had that was something close to .018, I could start them with my thumb. I had a pack of precut prelubed Pillow tick patches (forgot the brand) and they were the same but I don't think that Pillow tick was prewashed. I got my Pillow Tick from JoAnn Fabric. They had 3 types. One was blue strip but very thin. The other 2 were much heavier, but I think were really the same, but one was Blue strip the other Red. I got a yard of the blue heavy and washed it one time and dried it. I just measured it again and it came out to .025. This fits real nice with the .315 in my barrel. you have to use a short starter but they push down real nice even with the Cain's super rod I started out with. When I tried the .310s with the old ticking and prelubed patches I had lots of fliers that made no sense. All barrels are not the same so maybe his will be tighter.

Squeeze,

The more I thought about this since posting I started to wonder about something. Like you and I had discussed before this caliber is sort of known to be a 30 yard or so caliber. My club range has a 50 yard minimum on the rifle range so that's where I normally shoot mine. I wonder if the tighter patch and ball combo is why mine was shooting better out to 50 than with the .310's. Never tried the .310s any closer. I know a couple of the squirrels I head shot last fall was right at or very close to 50. I know wind is a big factor too with these small calibers, that got me on a couple longer pokes in the woods on windy mornings. Still got close enough to scare the crap out of them. :lol:

ShawnT said:

I would really like to see the fired FPJ's.

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Patch is from wiping the action after about 20 shots

The .32 gave me a lesson in humility today. The first 12 shots were spent figuring out that the windage adjustment wasn't working on the old scope I put on it. Picture is of the last 4 shots I took at 50 yards after I stopped trying to adjust it. 2 3/8" from the farthest two.


I also learned that my TC powder measures funnel is larger than 0.32", All shots were with 20 grains of Pyrodex P but most loads spilled a bit. I was shooting .310" balls with patches made by cutting cotton cleaning patches into 1" squares. I tried some ticking I had but I couldn't get a ball to start. While I figure out what to do about scopes I need to figure out my patch situation, either I have a tight bore or I need some thinner cotton. Also worth noting that this rifle is QUIET. After the first shot none of us even wore hearing protection, the noise level was significantly less than the 2 primers I popped on an empty bore to clear grease and oil before shooting.