Old 32S&Ws, same load diff. power??

[dartswinger]

As you can see, I have 3 old .32s; an Iver Johnson "I" prefix, an H&R with one pat. date (Oct. '87) and a Forehand Arms that says Pat. 1881 (I've seen other posters being corrected and told the date should read 1891, but this is very clear and sharp as 1881) The IJ has a short cylinder with the 'step' up front, the other two have long cyls. (1 1/4") and are bored straight thru. Supposedly chambered for .32 H&R Long, for which I could find no information. My old Lyman manual says to load 1.1 to 1.4 gr. Bullseye behind 87gr. bullet and states use starting load for old top-breaks. In the IJ that load is quite impressive, almost completely penetrating standart 2x4 at around 5 feet; however, the other two with that load the bullet will simply dent the 2x4 and bounce off! It takes at least 1.4gr. for the bullet to bury itself at least the depth of its length. My question: Is this because of the extra full bore length of the cyls. cause such a pressure loss? I'm sure the H&R and Forehand are black pwdr. era and I tries shooting BP but that is such a filthy mess that just jams and mucks up the works, God knows how they did it in the 'old days'! I probably won't shoot a whole box of ammo from any of these in my lifetime, I just have a 'thing' about guns, they gotta be shootable or they ain't my guns!