After some rookie mistakes, I'm finally shooting the Vetterli .41 weekly.
I formed the cases from .348 Winchester brass. I used a Lee .430310 bullet mold and a .44 mag expander die. I used the 10mm socket bit as a seater. After loading powder (approx. 47 gr FFG Goex) and seating the bullets, I resize the necks (removed the decapper pin from the die). I came across a used Lee .429240 mold, so I made up 15 of each size bullet to compare.
The smaller bullet (.429240) is easier to seat and uses less lead. From what I can tell, it's just as accurate as the .430310. There might be a little less recoil form the smaller bullet, but since this rifle doesn't kick much it's hard to tell.
After every 2 or 3 shots, I spray the barrel with the vegetable spray PAM (this will drive the traditionalists nuts), then run a dry patch through a few times. Or I'll spray the patch with PAM and run it through. I have quite a few cap and ball revolvers, some repros, mostly originals, and some of them love the PAM as a lube. Some don't. I figured I'd try it in the Vetterli. I gotta say it works great. The barrel stays clean and lubed and the range smells like burnt popcorn. I make sure I wash it all away before putting the gun up for a week.
I don't use the magazine because I cut the cases too short for these bullets, but that's OK because I remove the bolt to clean the barrel every 2 or 3 shots. I also did not cut the cases at a uniform length, which causes problems with seating and resizing. They're all approx. 1.60" but slight variations make a difference.
I annealed all but two cases, using the molten lead method. The two cases that I did not anneal were streaked with black after shooting, and one split when I expanded the mouth. Annealing is a good idea.
Great gun, fun to shoot.
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