Need help crimping Lee 405 grain HB boolit for my Trapdoor Springfield

[mgillespie]

Hi folks-

I'm a newbie to boolit casting, but I am sliding farther and farther down that slippery slope.

I just purchased a Trapdoor Springfield and am casting some 405 grain boolits using the Lee hollow base single cavity die (Lee Item #90268). No problems casting the boolits, (well, nothing that a 30 lb fire extinguisher couldn't fix) but I have a question about seating them.

The boolit has 3 grease grooves, and above the last grease groove their is a small ring, not a flat or a crimping groove or cannelure.

Should I crimp this above the ring, or below it in the third grease groove? I tried crimping above the ring, but did not get much of a crimp.

I have attempted to attach a picture.

Any help would be much appreciated. I hope to shoot the old girl on the 4th of July.

[MT Chambers]

That bullet does not have a crimp groove, I'd crimp it in the top grease groove if that length will chamber.

[MtGun44]

No need to crimp in a single shot.
Forget about it.

That is THE boolit for the Trapdoor, I had great results over 10-14 gr of Unique.

Bill

[Scharfschuetze]

MG,

I use that bullet in several Trapdoor rifles.

As mentioned above by Mtgun44; no need to crimp with smokeless, but it's a different game with black powder. Do you plan to use smokeless or black powder?

Those big lube grooves carry a lot of lubricant and with an SPG lube (or facimilee) you probably don't need to lube the top lube groove when using smokeless. With BP, you'll probably want to fill all the lube grooves and crimp over the top rim. With smokeless powder, I've had good luck using an NRA 50/50 lube with the bullet cast pretty soft.

[dromia]

No need to crimp in a single shot.
Forget about it.

That is THE boolit for the Trapdoor, I had great results over 10-14 gr of Unique.

Bill

Concur.

Why do you think that you need to crimp the boolit?

What are you trying to achieve by doing so?

[dromia]

BTW, welcome to Cast Boolits mgillespie!

[mgillespie]

Thanks for the help guys.

I thought the 45-70 needed to be crimped. The only experience I have with it is some of the Hornady lever revolution factory ammo, and it has a roll crimp. Of course, that is designed for a lever action. I didn't know a crimp would not be needed for the single shot.

I'm going to load with smokeless for now. I'm planning on my first loads being 26 grains of IMR 4198. I have that powder and I have read several recommendations for it.

Off to the loading press tonight.

Thanks again to all for the help.

[44man]

No need for crimp at all. Bill told you right.

[Larry Gibson]

As mentioned, no need to crimp with that load.

Larry Gibson

[sharab85]

MtGun44,

Do you use any filler over your charge of Unique, if so what do you use?


Thanks

[MtGun44]

No filler needed with Unique. Even in the cavernous case it burns nicely
and he groups are good. Strongly recommend the fast powder to bump
up the boolit for these large bores with shallow and wide rifling.

Bill

[mgillespie]

I had time yesterday evening to load up a few rounds and shoot my trapdoor.

I loaded the 405 grain hollow base boolits with 11 grains of Unique. No wadding or filler. That little bit of powder looked awful lonely in that big ol' case! I used Hornady cases primed with CCI large rifle primers. Pan lubed with a mixture of beeswax, paraffin, Vaseline and STP.

I shot about 1.5" groups at both 100 feet and 50 yards. Not bad from a set of homemade shooting sticks coupled with my poor shooting skills.

I do have some sight problems. With my Buffington sight set all the way down (200 yards), I shot 6" high at 100 feet and 12" high at 50 yards. I ran out of daylight and never got to shoot at 100 yards. (Well, that and my shoulder was getting a little sore!)

I've read that some of these old rifles need a taller front sight to zero in. I'll try to shoot a few more rounds from 100 yards and see where I am at.

My first time to shoot an original trapdoor Springfield, and it was sure a lot of fun. Now I'll have to think about some black powder loads.....

[dromia]

Well done sir!

Those Trapdoors are nearly as much fun as the Sniders!

For the shorter distances I use 5 gns of FFG with a 0.457" ball seated on top of the powder in the case.

Holds the 9 ring at 25 yrds off hand easily and irritates the sh!t out of our club secretary when he as to score my 10 shot targets in the club competition.

[Scharfschuetze]

Glad to hear your load and Trapdoor are endearing themselves to you! They really are great fun.

Yes, you heard right. For my shootin' Trapdoor (1873 with the 1870 sight) I have a taller front sight to bring the zero down.

We can do the math for how much taller a front sight you'll need, but we'll need the sight radius. Is it a carbine, rifle, cadet rifle or a modified and cut down barrel of different length to the standard Trapdoors?

If you've got the rifle, sounds like an 1884 or 1888 given the Buffington sight, you've got about a 27" SR off the top of my head. Given that, one MOA is worth about .0079 so lets round it up to .008. As you're 12" high at 50 yards, then you need 24 MOA to raise the sight about 12 inches to zero at 50 yards. That should work out to:

24 MOA X .008 = .192 inches higher than your current sight for 50 yards.

Of course if you zero at 100 or 200 yards, the figure will change. Also you might want to start with a sight a little higher than the predicted .192" and then use a file at the range to get your final zero. While generally accurate, formulae will sometime miss the mark and that will give you a little "fudge" factory in getting zeroed.