military roller

[bigted]

as many know I purchased an old Remington roller in military form and chambered for 43 Spanish...[.439 caliber]...with a copious chamber dimension.

the quandary I find myself in concerns this large chamber...I know that before standardization of chambers there were some tight and also some generous dimensions. this was done for a couple reasons and I understand this but my question concerns my decision for loading this peach.

the over length and lose neck area in the rifle were to provide chambering in a hot and dirty rifle in battle....not with the re-loader in mind. which brings me to my slight conundrum.

I have filled the chamber length with 44-90 cases that I cut down and fire-formed to the chamber. the neck diameter is where the rub...[if any]...comes into play in my mind.

my fire-formed brass provides a generous neck ...[inside diameter]...of .454 inch. therefore I load a .452 diameter boolit and they fly straight and pretty true. I also paper patch a .444 inch slick to .450 and they seem to also fly straight.

so now at long last is the question for all nimble minded individuals here...what is the danger point in squeezing down a .452 inch slug into a .439 inch barrel...that's sizing down a full .013 inch to flow thru the barrel.

now my concern in retrospect is wondering how much pressure I am creating doing this...my loads are as follows;

1- smokeless = 22 grains 5744 with c/m filler to the point of having the boolit...[.452 inch x 407 grains]...slightly compress the filler with a cci large rifle primer.

2- black powder = 85 grains GOEX cartridge with the same boolit with a .060 veggie card between powder and boolit...compressed to the bottom of neck leaving the wad and boolit inside the neck area ... same cci prime.

3- smokeless = 22 grains 5744 with the same filler behind a buff arms 400 grain .444 wrapped up to .450 inch wet wrapped and again with the same cci prime and filler compression.

4- same black powder load behind the .444 inch patched boolit.

it all shoots well...[except the bp loads ... they are reluctant to perform without blow tubing vigorously between all shots].

the .439 inch boolits wont perform to my satisfaction hence filling the throat with lead. what say yee...I don't want to create a bomb nor do I wanna ruin a good ol roller .........

[herbert buckland]

I have a 43 Egiptian that has the same problem ,I have been using .458 cst bullets in it for years with BP as it is the only way I can get goof acuracy.I do not belive pressure is a problem using the fit the bullet to the fired case method for BP, as I have used this method with all my BP rifles ,regardless of caliber for years with very good results.But with these old BP rifles I would never try this method with smokless or for that matter do I feel safe with any smokless loads in these large capicity BP cartridges

[missionary5155]

Greetings
My first Roller caliber 43 Spanish (still with me) shoots the .446 boolits nicely. I wondered sometimes what pressure spikes this practice might bring about.
Then when day while reading an account of the German 88 mm duel purpose anti-aircraft - anti tank rifled cannon it was pointed out this fine weapon used a choked bore system. The heavy jacketed projectile started out being a 90mm and was squezzed down as it traversed the barrel to 88mm. The thought occured to me if a very high breech pressure weapon could safely do this opperation I had little worries of squezzing 40-1 (soft) .446 boolits down to .440+ using low pressure 2F powder.
So having fired that Roller easily in excess of 500 rounds and not finding any wear or tear to the roller system... I think you have little to worry about. I do not think I would try line type.. but 40/1 has yet to cause me any grief.
Mike in Peru

[bigted]

cool beans. I was hoping that others would chime in with the same train of thought I have concerning this fine ol roller and its ...[military I guess]...chamber.

if recoil is any indicator then the smokeless rounds reported above will have no problem with pressure as the bp loads really have a bit more recoil then them. I have two books that suggest a 28 and 30 grain load with fill and the 5744 powder so I guess im safe with mine.

[herbert buckland]

Recoil realy has nothing to do with pressure,BP will recoil more for the same velocity and bullet weaight than with smokless,the pressure generated will be very diffrent though,the more I look a the pressure of smokless in these large capicity BP cases the more it scars me.With these old BP rifles the first sighn of too much pressure is usualy very bad

[nwellons]

I've never shot anything but BP in my .43 Egyptian and have no fouling trouble, at least for about 18 rounds. That's all the cases I have right now. So then I put it down and shoot something else.

By the way, I have to use a grease cookie on my .42 Russian Berdan but don't need one on my Egyptian because the boolit has much better lube grooves.

[dtknowles]

Then when day while reading an account of the German 88 mm duel purpose anti-aircraft - anti tank rifled cannon it was pointed out this fine weapon used a choked bore system. The heavy jacketed projectile started out being a 90mm and was squezzed down as it traversed the barrel to 88mm.
Mike in Peru

Mike

I know I am going off topic but do you know if the bores on the German 88's were evenly tapered from breach to muzzle or if they were more constricted at the muzzle. I am asking because "choked bores" on modern air rifles are only smaller nearer the muzzle but I had heard that the Germans did some work with "Squeeze bores" that were tapered all the way from the throat to the muzzle. I think the projectiles for the "Squeeze bores" had narrow bands of material to engage the rifling kind of like some of the monolithic brass and copper bullets we are seeing these days.

Tim