.32 cherokee by TC

Found a 32 cherokee today at a gunshow. Never got to dealing, but managed to find one good concern. The barrel is brown. At first I thought browned, but havent been able to confirm. Did TC make a browned barrel? Could this just be well oiled rust?

A T/C barrel would be blued.

In case ya hadn’t noticed, a lot of blackpowder enthusiats brown the barrels of their factory blued guns.

FWIW, browning & bluing ARE rust - controlled, but rust all the same.

That said, I agree with bubba - a previous owner most likely changed the Cherokee's finish from bluing to browning.

mudcreek said:

Found a 32 cherokee today at a gunshow. Never got to dealing, but managed to find one good concern. The barrel is brown. At first I thought browned, but havent been able to confirm. Did TC make a browned barrel? Could this just be well oiled rust?

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Yes, it's possible that the factory blue turned brown over time due to age and not being properly maintained with oil.
Someone equated the brown patina of an old gun as being similar to aluminum oxidation or silver tarnish, a natural process that can occur.
Some cold blue solutions can also turn brown rather quickly after initially looking like hot blue.
Without being able to see it makes it more difficult to say if it was intentionally browned or if it's simply a brown patina due to age or storage conditions.

Opinions, please on .32 cal for turkey. I keep reading they are vlose to .22 rimfire. Seems alittle light for me.

I don't remember T/C selling any complete rifles with browned barrels but a Cherokee kit might have ended up with one.

Jeff

The .32 caliber rifles are a lot more than a .22 rimfire.

Not only is the diameter of the .31 diameter ball these guns shoot 41% larger but the velocity is usually higher.

This 41% increase in size amounts to a 98% increase in the area of the hole it will make when compared with a .22. In other words, the area of the .31 caliber hole is about equal to two .22's hitting the same spot.

The ball weighs 44.7 grains so it's just a bit heavier than a .22 rimfire but when it comes to killing power that 98% increase in the area of damage amounts to way more killing power.

The "Lyman BLACK POWDER HANDBOOK & LOADING MANUAL" shows several powder loads for the .32's shooting patched roundballs.

A 30 grain load of GOEX FFFg delivers a velocity of 1940 fps. This is the smallest powder load they show but doing some fancy math I calculated the estimated velocity of smaller powder loads.

10 grains = 1754 fps, 15 grains = 1805 fps

As far as using one for turkey I have no doubt that it would do an excellent job, except for the amount of meat it would destroy.

The Game & Fish department however often has different ideas about what gun can be used for turkey hunting so by all means, check out what calibers and types of guns your State says is OK for turkeys.

(edit to add) The little .31 diameter roundball does slow down pretty rapidly so I ran the numbers for velocity at 30, 40 and 50 yards to see what it would be doing.
I used the estimated 1800 fps the 15 grain powder load should give and found that at 30 yards the ball would be traveling at 1278 fps. At 40 yards it would be going 1157 fps and at 50 yards it would be going 1075 fps.

A .32 rifle makes a terrific turkey, varmint and small game rifle.

Zonie said:

A 30 grain load of GOEX FFFg delivers a velocity of 1940 fps. This is the smallest powder load they show but doing some fancy math I calculated the estimated velocity of smaller powder loads.

10 grains = 1754 fps, 15 grains = 1805 fps

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Believe when I clocked 32 RB loads 12 grains of fff was giving around 1000 FPS. Found 2000 FPS somewhere between 40 and 50 grains. Going off memory here, don’t have my shooting notes in front of me. Pretty much only shoot 12 to 15 grains today. Center of squirrel head at 25/30 yards with an under chin hold (about an inch above front sight) and maybe less than an inch low at 50.

bubba.50 said:

In case ya hadn’t noticed, a lot of blackpowder enthusiats brown the barrels of their factory blued guns.

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Yes I I had a Seneca, that I polished the blue from, removed the sights and replaced them with primitive sights and browned the barrel. I also refinished the wood.

In my .32, I used 20 gr. of FFF....with the .32-20 in mind. Made a nice crack and very accurate.

the one thing everyone forgets about the Cherokee is the twist rate in 1/30 as apposed to 1/48 like everyone else. it shoots better than the others on the market.

here is a very good article on the TC 32 http://www.namlhunt.com/mlsmallgame2.html