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.395 BACO swaged bullet wrapped with BACO paper. Lube wad of SPG with wax paper on both sides. Tablet backing wad both sides of the lube wad. 2 F Goex 62 grains about .100 compression . Bullet is slip fit neck expanded to .402.
Have not fired any yet, will be wiping between each shot with bore pigs I made. Any suggestions to improve.
40-70 Sharps Bottleneck 2.25.
I am new at BP PP also but you seem to be on the right track. At least you are doing about what I am and I am pleased with my results. I hope you are too.
I wrap with no tail. A small spot of lead base shows in the center of the under fold. But it looks good. Bore riding or groove dia? I wrap bore dia and only set about 1/8-3/16" onto the case mouth. 1 hard wad .060 napa rubber fiber wad .090 grease cookie and 2 tracing paper wads. Compression is a big part of the load.
.408 groove and .400 bore. Run bullets thru .400 lyman size die. If I try to go groove size I will have to inside ream case necks as they will not chamber with .408 bullet. I will soon be trying the same thing with a 40-90 sharps necked 2.6 case. Both in rebarreled 1885 high walls.
I make the grease wads with SPG and wax paper on top and bottom and my wife's pie dough roller with stacked popsickle two high to control thickness. Then cut them out with wad cutter keeping wax paper on top and bottom.
From what you say I assume these are being loaded for target work, you don't really say. If they are for hunting you can disregard the following suggestions.
Like country gent said loose the tail, just a simple fold over long enough to leave a circle of in the middle about 3/16" in diameter is good. When you size the patched bullet, which is a good thing to do, the fold over will iron out nice and smooth and sizing will also help hold the patch from unwrapping.
You would probably have better results with 1 1/2 Swiss or OE.
If you plan to wipe between shots and especially with bore pigs you can drop the lube wad. Unless you are using it to take up powder space for some reason.
Seating shallower would also be good if these are target rounds, more on the order of .090" or a bit less.
One .060" LDPE wad under the bullet is usually good.
Fill the primed case to within about 1/8" of the mouth, seat a .060" LDPE wad and compress to .090". Finger seat your bullet on the wad, using a taper crimp die or a Lee factory crimp die to close up the unsized case mouth very lightly on the patched bullet. This "crimp" should be so light that you can pull the bullet from the case and reseat it using just your fingers, but you should be able to lift the cartridge from your ammo box by the bullet without it coming out of the case. It takes a little adjusting to get it right and your case length needs to be uniform but you should get very good accuracy as a result.
Primer choice should be left up to your rifle to decide. Try about every kind you can find and let your rifle tell you what it like. The primer choice can make a big difference at the target.
I load my .40-65 as I described and it will shoot 10 shots into under 2 inches at 200 meters regularly. It is similar in powder capacity to the .40-70 BN.
Your .40-90 BN may prove to require a little different assembly due to the increased powder capacity of that case. There are others with more experience loading that cartridge than I have and I'll leave the advise on it up to them.
Shoot well and enjoy the journey!