I've been making preparations for dealing with my reproduction Henry Repeater in 44-40 and taking it into the "field"... actually to North-South Skirmish events so I can reload as needed. Most of our postings of 310 Tool kits tend to be of rather grandiose collections with dies for multiple calibers and even several handles, while I wanted to go minimalist with this project. One reason cowboys got rifles/carbines and revolvers in the same caliber was that they only had to deal with one caliber! You could carry a small, simple kit for that caliber in a pouch in your saddle bags, and along with a supply of bullets, primers and powder, and be able to keep on shooting for a LOOOOONNGG time!
There's the background, now I'm this far along; I've found an old steel set of 44-40 marked handles and have almost gotten a die set reassembled. I don't use a horse and saddle bags, rather I drive a small SUV and pull a fiberglass camper. Therefore, I'm looking at a small metal box that has about the same volume as the original cardboard box, along with an appropriately sized box to keep bullets, primers, powder, and loaded ammo together. In this way I can pull out the whole shebang and reload at home, then refill the expendables and be ready to do it all again in the field as needed. Due to the unique need of loading BP ammo for N-SSA events, I'll also have to make room for a container of Cream of Wheat filler as well as measuring scoops or some other means for metering the powder.
I'm sort of at the late "spitballing" stage here... what problems do you see? Has anyone already set up something similar in a single caliber kit for the 310 Tool to be handily carried into the field? If I get any responses to this, I plan to take pictures of my project in progress and post them here as well.
Regards,
Froggie