Marlin 1892 upgrade to 32 S&W

[Rutgerssmith]

The Marlin 1892 rifle in 32 colt is almost the perfect woods rifle for small game. Its light slender and a joy to handle and shoot. Most are reasonably accurate but black powder rotted out bores are not uncommon.
Rifles with poor bores can generally be had cheaper and can be relined for a reasonable cost. This also solves another problem with these guns, bore/groove diam. In nearly 40 years of gunsmithing I have encountered 92s with groove diams. of .309 up to .315 Redman 32-20 liners are a nice consistent .312
Also by selecting a 92 in rougher condition, you won’t get as much flak from the collector elites about messing with it.
32 long colt is no longer made and 32 short colt is only occasionally avail. Fiocchi makes it as the 320 courto and I think Winchester or Rem, I don’t remember who, makes a run every few years or so. No one I’m aware of produces the 32 rim fire round anymore
The early 92s would feed either the short or long colt in centerfire or rim fire (they came with 2 firing pins. One RF and one CF.) The selective feeding was accomplished thru a complex interaction of the carrier rocker and the lever. The surfaces that provided that interaction were prone to wear and most early 92s you encounter today will not feed short colts. Marlin recognized this defect and added a magazine cartridge cutoff that was activated by the bolt around 1906 I’m not sure of the exact date but the earliest one I have encountered with the mag cutoff was a 1906 gun. It’s easy to tell if a 92 has the cutoff as there is a screw in the middle of the left side of the receiver. The post 1906 guns with the cutoff will feed short colt rounds reliably.
You can reform 32S&W long cases to 32 long colt and load your own ammo but you will need special heeled bullets and is more of a pain than I’m willing to put up with.
32 S&W and 32 S&W long ammo is readily avail, nearly identical in dimensions and pressure to the colt rounds. Rim diam is only .001 different and the s&w rounds are about .020 thicker making reaming the chamber out a fairly straight forward proposition.
The most common loading of the 32 S&W long is a 98 gr round nose bullet that is about .020 longer than the 32 colt round. In order for the longer S&W round to feed, you need to lengthen the shelf on the carrier by cutting back the rear wall where the cartridge stops to allow the longer round to come all the way out of the magazine and the hole in the front of the receiver or the carrier will jam as it tries to lift the round into feeding position. Feeding of 32 S&W shorts can be accomplished by fitting a small piece of 3/8 drill rod and epoxying it into the carrier. If you have a pre-1906 92, extra carriers are sometimes avail on ebay and Wisner’s makes new ones for around $65 with the rocker, spring and screw. That will also solve the feeding problem with 32 shorts colts if you don’t want to alter your rifle. The carrier has a curved surface at its front where the bullet nose sits. You need to cut the drill rod to a length that the nose of the bullet is located in that curve. The round coming out of the magazine stops against the back of the carrier/or the insert and as the carrier pivots upward, that curve pushes the rim of the next round trying to come out of the magazine back in and allows the carrier to raise to the feeding position. Even if you have a post 1906 gun with the mag cutoff, you will still need to lengthen the shelf on the carrier to feed S&W long factory 98gr rounds. 32 shorts will feed no problem in a rifle with the cutoff.

Another advantage to a less nice candidate for conversion is I don’t feel bad drilling and taping holes for peep sights, scope mounts etc. My 60 year old eyes need all the help they can get.

The conversion is safe and takes an old girl from safe queen to range and field queen again. I have read several flames from folks about doing this will encourage some idiot hand loader to try and eek a little bit more out of the 32S&W and come to ruin as a result. Ironically that was in a thread about making 32 colt out of S&W cases and hand loading for this rifle. If some idiot is going to do stupid things loading 32 S&W longs for a 100 year plus old rifle, I suspect they might also be as stupid loading long colt ammo………..