Of Cardboard Tubes

[JohnH]

Was reading the recent issue of "Rifle" magazine and in Mike Venturinos article on the military rifles between the Model of 1861 and the 03-03. In addressing the 1873 Springfield, he makes mention of the 55 grain loading of the 45-70 case used by the cavalry. That was no big news in itself, but that they used a cardboard tube to reduce the case volumn for the 55 grain charge was quite an eyeopener. For those who may not know, black must never be loaded with an airspace between the powder charge and the bullet base, else a bulged or burst barrel is sure to occur. While I had known of the reduced charge for the cavalry for many years, I had always assumed that this was done with the use of some kind of wad material. Not so. It was done by inserting a cardbaord tube into the case prior to charging. The hard evidence is cases found at the Little Bighorn with the tube still intact.

Hmmmmmm..... went my little brain; I put down the magazine, went to the loading bench, pulled out a new 444 Marlin case, got out a small hole guage, measured the inside case diameter at mid-length, did a little math, made an educated guess of the shoulder length of a 375 JDJ case, cut out a peice of cardboard from a cracker box (.023" thick) rolled it up and stuffed it into a shot out case. Threw some charges into a 38-55 case I had used in that rifle, compared them to the same charges in the sample case......

Made up ten cardboard tubes and inserted them into preped to load cases and loaded 'em up.

Went and fired 'em

Was rewared with 2 vertical strung groups about 3 1/2" tall, with 8 of ten shots in 2". Not one of the tubes blew out, and each opening of the gun reminded me of the paper shotshells I had fired so many of. How sweet it was :)

Well, I've now got five of those cases reloaded for a second firing, this time with a tad more powder. In doing this I've ended up with a case not unlike a long 38-55 in volumn, the expander button just drangs on the cardboard in resizing. I'm using 4895 to experiment with. I don't think the tubes will be useable for more than 2 firings, but I could be wrong. They survived the first firing much better than I thought they would have. They look sandblasted for the upper 1/3 of their length, but are not torn, and not even singed in appearance, though I know some material was affected, I could smell it.

At ten shots it is much too early to make any judgements about this method, but it is at least as good as any other type of filler I have used, though it is more time consuming to make up and it does create a very different case volumn. This ain't at all like stuffing a ball of dacron atop the powder.

Not sure what else to add at this point, just entering this experiment, I'll post more as I go along.

[bfoster]

FWIW,

A.C. Gould in his Modern American Pistols and Revolvers, Bradlee Whidden, Boston, Mass., ed. 1894, mentions the sucessful use of pasteboard tubes to reduce the capacity of revolver cases in loading less than full power ammunition.

Bob

[Buckshot]

..............The original drawn brass cases for the .577 Snider used a cardboard tube to reduce their volumn. The original Boxer multi-part brass foil cases had a smaller volumn, so when they went to drawn brass it was about thier only option as the Snider had a very mild neck section.

..............Buckshot

[Bret4207]

I believe it was Jim Carmichael who did an article many years ago on reducing 308 case volume for cast shooting be fitting a 222 case insdie the 308. It was a Handloader article I think.

[wills]

I wonder if heavy cardboard tubes (cores?) like the ones adding machine paper is, or used to be rolled on would work.

http://www.acepapertube.com/p2.htm
http://www.paper-tubes.net/

[JohnH]

I wonder if heavy cardboard tubes (cores?) like the ones adding machine paper is, or used to be rolled on would work.

http://www.acepapertube.com/p2.htm
http://www.paper-tubes.net/

I was thinking about the cardboard tubes that end mills for milling machines were once sold in, these days they use square plastic tubes for this.

[jhalcott]

only tubes I see around here are Charmin or Saran wrap ones! I'm gonna need a BIGGER gun!

[redneckdan]

only tubes I see around here are Charmin or Saran wrap ones! I'm gonna need a BIGGER gun!

just slit the side and trim until it will roll tight enough to fit.

[Char-Gar]

I am going on some very old memory, but I read many years ago, that Frankford Arsenal used two 2 (jute) wads on top of the 55 grain carbine load to take up the space. Jute is a coarse fiber.

[rebliss]

I'd like to see some pictures if you can do so.

[wills]

I think track of the wolf has veggie fiber wads up to .50" in .45. Wonder if they could get some in .429.

[JohnH]

Fired another 10 rounds this evening using a higher powder charge. The 2 groups were decent, the first had a cold shot flyer 2" high, and put 4 into a 1" horizontal string. The second group ha no obvious flyers, and made a group 1" tall and 2" wide. The combined group was 2 x 2. This at 50 yards. Not bad at all for this rifle, but I've several loads that do that well without fillers or tubes.

On the second firing, 3 of 10 tubes had begun to show significant wear and tear in the top 1/3 of their length but I'm sure could have been fired again, 7 of the ten were in good shape overall. It was a bit of a trick removing the tubes, they were ironed onto the case wall and took a bit of persuasion to give up an edge I could grab with the tweezers.

Next test is to fire some of this same loading inplain cases to see how it groups. Then it will be on to a little faster power and tubes again.

Overall my impression after 20 rounds is that the idea is better than the result, but it would be foolhardy to jump to a hard conclusion as yet.

[Antietamgw]

I've been shooting reduced loads of FFg with filler in my 1868 Allin conversion .50-70. I believe if I used a tube of the correct length I could just shoot cases as fired without neck sizing or crimping, just a correct length tube to keep the slip-fit bullet where it belongs in the case. Believe I'll give it a try if I ever get my paying work and farm work done. I had thought of turning some everlasting cases as my supply is slim and tired. This is easier and has a chance of getting done right now. Thanks for the thread!

[guninhand]

A very interesting thread. This suggests to me "use one time only" material, such as solid core foam caulking rope or things similar, and cheap, that you could drill out the solid core to get a custom volumne for a particular load. Might even be able to stuff it in a bottleneck case. Or maybe try vinyl tubing?

Also suggests multiple firings if using copper tubing inside straight walled cases. The experiment already mentioned of putting a .223 case inside a .308 case involved expanding the .308 to get the .223 in, then resizing the neck down, correcting for the resulting uneven case neck thickness, and fireforming the .223 case to the inside of the .308 case. IIRC

[Dale53]

For reduced capacity cases Rocky Mountain Cartridge will make you some. They are a bit pricy, but I get good reports from them:
http://www.rockymountaincartridge.com/index.html

Dale53

[doc25]

If it is a one time use filler can you not just use the dacron as filler?

[JohnH]

If it is a one time use filler can you not just use the dacron as filler?

Dacron won't change the effective volumn. On firing, the dacron compressesand you are left with essentially the same volumn you began with. We use dacron to hold the powder charge form shifting in the case to improve ignition, vasstly different from actualy reducing the case volumn.

Dale53, I had considered such cases in the very recent past, but cost keeps me from persuing it, not that I'm so cheap I wouldn' pay for them, just my outgo exceeds my income most paydays.

[waksupi]

I do believe there are fireworks making suppliers, that may include various size cardboard tubes, if one wanted to experiment with this idea.