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Thread: Info on 43.Spanish cases/reloading

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    Info on 43.Spanish cases/reloading

    I am considering buying a pretty nice .43 Spanish, Remington roller, Argentino model in pretty good shape, some minor pits but very good bore overall, solid wood, and blue/brown patina overall. Only place I can find brass is Buffalo Arms, and the price break is at 50 rounds, $2.18 each. Does anyone know of a cheaper alternative, can it be easily formed, or do I need to bite the bullet an buy the brass, all replies appreciated!

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    I have several Rollers in 43 spanish . some new cases will work in some and I found some will not. most if not all Old rollers use original cases with Large Balloon type rims. New Brass will or will not fire because of Headspace.. This is No fault Of any new case or Rifle . this is just old style cases.. I have been using Original Brass and ammo that I have reclaimed. using new berdan primer and loading . I have purchased new brass and made some From 45/90 case. they will work but not great. . This case is undersize but like i said will work .with lite loading. . Gun shows are my prime source for old original brass or cartridge. I have been getting 3-5 loading per case then they split.. I.m sure new brass will be better but you will have to make adjustment with your roller.
    Like I said If i bring all 3 Argentine to the range some will work in one but not the others and Vice versa
    NRA Endowment Member
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  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    The brass listed was specifically made with the appropriate head thickness, from what I can find out. Thanks for the reply

  4. #4
    Boolit Master



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    Mustang

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  5. #5
    Banned bigted's Avatar
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    So I will chime in again here. Fill the throat, fill the throat, FILL THE THROAT!!!

    My 43 is a tease just like they all are [the rem military rollers]. At forst glance, my groove diameter is .439 inch. So one would guess that a .440 or .441 soft cast should do the trick ... but wait ... we are considering a old military rolling block where the powder was BLACK POWDER and the need primarily was to keep shooting and wounding as many of the enemy as possible. In order to accomplish this tadk it became imperative that you could continue shoving shells into the breech of a rifle that has no camming action to ensure seating so you could shut the block tight enough that the hammer would fall and fire. Thusly the chamber is a bit large to accommodate and the neck/throat area is also on the large side.

    Now then here we come some 130 years later and we buy an old MILITARY roller and try to make it a sniper rifle with groove size boolits but alas we suffer split cases very soon along with groups that equal patterns instead.

    So the trick here is to fill the throat (hmm maybe an echo in here). Yes if we fill a fireformed and unsized brass with SOFT lead, then load this larger then groove SOFT pill that FILLS THE THROAT ... magically we find fair to good accuracy and no split brass anymore. This expensive brass now works pretty fine and walla they all fire and hitting stuff is very likely now.

    Nother lil trick with our roller ammo is to load these SOFT lead pills so they are less than .005 from the rifling to touching them when chambered.

    Black powder loads may gum up a bit so as to require a swabbing every once inna while. I find a duplex load with a very small bit of 4227 or such in under the smaller by a bit black powder load. Works for mine. My throat inside my fired brass is .454 so this is the size i load in the brass, the revolver boolits do pretty good in reduced loads. My custom mold from Accurate molds works very well cast from soft lead in .454 inch.

    Now as for the original question ... bite the so called bullet and buy 30 or 40 pieces, they will last as long as treated rite and keep from working them too hard by sizing down to the bore size boolits.

    Good luck with your very fun roller in a poor mans 44-77 sharps necked ... the esteemed 43 SPANISH in all its glory .

  6. #6
    In Remembrance



    curator's Avatar
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    Check the various gun-auction sites regularly and you will find .43 Spanish brass reasonably priced every now and then. You can make brass from .348 Winchester cases but these will need to have the heads swaged smaller and the rim modified for proper headspacing. The .43 Spanish case has a rim thickness of .080, not .064. Buffalo Arms brass is better in my experience than Bell or Jamison in that it lasts much longer. BigTed's advice is very good. Soft boolits sized to fill the throat work best. I shoot the Lyman .439 slug cast from 1 in 40 tin/lead over 25 grains of SR4759 and dacron filler in my two rollers, both of which seem to have nice tight (.440") throats.

  7. #7
    Boolit Buddy Remmy4477's Avatar
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    Try GB, theres a few listings for brass.
    I used bell brass for a old roller I had. It held up fairly well, 3-4 loadings before it would split.

    I got tired of buying brass so down the road it went and replaced it with a roller in 45-70 and have not looked back!

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy Argentino's Avatar
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    A poor manīs way of obtaining brass for .43 rollers is by getting .300WM cases (or any other parent cases such as .375 H&H ones), trimming them to proper length and removing the belt (by using a lathe or just filing it down).

    Only problem is the absence of a rim for extraction, but this can be solved by several ways. Simpler of them is by just placing an O-Ring -of the proper size- in the extractor cannelure of the case. This will work as a rim but you will need to take them out for sizing the cases with a proper .300WM shell holder.

    Maybe not the best or more elegant solution but Iīve used several cases that way and once you get the proper O-ring size the cases will extract every time and will last a long time before needing to replace the O rings.

    Other way of adding a rim is by silver soldering a brass washer on the base of those cases. This will be more difficult to do, but once perfomed, they will last a long time.

    This may look like a lot of effort to get .43 spanish cases but is a very common practice when some better parent cases (such as .348 Win) are really hard to find .

    Argie.
    "Skill is acquired not alone through practice but through the combination of study and experience" - P. Sharpe

  9. #9
    Banned bigted's Avatar
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    Bertrim!!! Bite the bullet and just buy some, great brass AND has 43 Spanish engraved in the base.

    Just load soft lead boolits that fills the fired case neck. Never have to size em, never get split cases, always fires and has the proper rim and thickness.

    These military rollers are very accurate when fed the rite stuff. Take the leap ... the water's fine.

  10. #10
    Boolit Bub gavlan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigted View Post
    Bertrim!!! Bite the bullet and just buy some, great brass AND has 43 Spanish engraved in the base.

    Just load soft lead boolits that fills the fired case neck. Never have to size em, never get split cases, always fires and has the proper rim and thickness.

    These military rollers are very accurate when fed the rite stuff. Take the leap ... the water's fine.
    Yup I bought 100 Bertrum( spelling ?.) for my 43 mauser and so far they have been great, of course I don't shoot it every time I go out either.

    That 100 will probably last me my shooting lifetime,, buy good brass and be assured you have done it right the first time...
    Keep breathing , it's good for ya...

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    Ok thanks for all the feedback guys. Is the .43 Spanish that great of a cartridge to justify the expense and headache to load for, I am all about keeping things simple! I recently bought a Husqvarna roller in 12.77x44, bought the brass and loaded two different slugs with great results right out of the gate thanks to you guys on this forum! I have 2 more rollers in 45/70, a original 1884 trapdoor, a Pedersoli 1874 Sharps, a wessington and Richardson buffalo hunter all in 45/70 that I shoot on a regular basis, how does the .43 Spanish stack up to a 45:70, with smokeless or blk powder?

  12. #12
    Banned bigted's Avatar
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    It will not stack up to the 45-70 cartridge, 458 to 461 boolits buck wind better, stabilize at long range better, carry more smack down, way cheaper to load for, rifles are way better suited for reloading on the cheap, more American history, ect ect ect.

    The 43 spanish is prolly a good round but a person needs to exorcise the "vintage" bug to really get into the way more expensive to load for Spanish round. They are a hoot but i feel for practical use in a good sound rifle , you would have some time of it trying to get over on the 45-70 which is everything the old Spanish aint.

    That being said, nostalgicly speaking, nothing speaks to my inner quest for that "FEELING" setting holding the old roller and wondering what life experience it holds secret.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
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