450/577 Martini Henry

[DoctorBill]

I started last night.

One worked - One crimped (folded in). 50%

Today I did Six and two crimped. 70%

Out of Eight tried got six all totaled. 75% success rate so far.

Here is what happens if you go too quickly.



If I anneal them before I start them thru the Die, they crimp like the one on the right.

If I don't anneal, then it is harder than Hell, but they don't fold or crimp.

I turn the case constantly in the shell holder. My elbow is hurting from the strain....

Tried polishing the leading edge with a metal polish (Mother's).

Seems to help (I think) getting that sharp edge going into the shoulder portion of the Die.

If I catch one just starting to fold, I put a large Phiilips Head Screw Driver in my
vice and tap the fold flat with the end of a small wrench.
If you hold it correctly, you can tap a starting fold back out semi-smooth
and maybe save it from folding any more.

I go REALLY slow until the neck just starts to form.

Once the neck is forming, that keeps the folding from occurring.

Then anneal the center of the body as I showed previously and it goes easier. Much.

A lot of time consuming work and noise from the case sticking in the Die - lubed or not.

I grind off the excess Brass down close to the desired length, then use a LEE 45-70 case
length trimmer clamped in a vise and push-spin the case on that to the right final length.



A final chamfering, outer burr cleanup with a file and a spin on some steel wool and the
case is squared off and clean and pretty like the one in the photo above.

Any hints, time savers and work-arounds would be appreciated.

DoctorBill

[Red River Rick]

Doc:

I hate to see you suffer! But I do like to watch someone spend lots of money............on toys!

Invest in a set of .577 Snider dies. Run your 24 gauge brass into the Snider sizing die, then finish them off in your "Zulu" die. I've been down this road, years ago.

Too much reduction is not a good thing, as you've found out.

Good side is, once you have the Snider dies, you can buy yourself a Snider!

Good Luck!


RRR

[DoctorBill]

You know Rick...I am not sure just why I am doing this anyway !

More for the grins of it than anything else.

I bought that damned LEE Die Set and had no use for it since I don't expect to
have more than this one Mark II. All I need is my Taper Crimper now.

So, upon the advice of Martinibelgian and Ragnarok I went off and ordered 50 Magtech cases
to have some reason for having the LEE Die Set....You see - I do listen to you guys !

Soon I'll have 50 577/450 Brass cases that I bought.
30 Jameson and 20 from a private cartridge maker.

If I get 50% out of this reforming project, I'll have 75 cases all tolled.

Have you ever shot 50 rounds in a Martini-Henry in one day ! ?
If so, are you a masochist ? 30 rounds and I'm ready for an arm sling....

If a 577 Snyder case forming die from LEE weren't $45 just for that Die (all I really need !), I'd buy it.
http://leeprecision.com/xcart/SZ-DI-BDY-577-SNIDER.html

But...this "Hobby" is sucking me dry.
It can be a money pit....

So, I'll just work it.
My friend, Gary - the Machinist, is going to try the lathe collet squeeze reduction
experiment soon - maybe that will be a way to reduce the necks & shoulders
down and give me a head start with the LEE Die..

I bet the collet will cause folds and crimps, though.... but, who knows.

I hope these cases I made don't split at the necks when I fire form them !
The new formed cases are .491 neck diameter and when fired in my Mark II, they open
up to .512 !

Thanks for the sympathy, Rick......!

A quote from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snider-Enfield
"A Snider squibbed in the jungle -
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head."

I just donated $10 to Wikipedia via PayPal to keep it going !

DoctorBill

[Lead pot]

When you neck down a case that is quite a bit larger then the neck like your doing or forming .220 brass from 06 do it in several steps not all at once.
I dont know what you have for loading dies but if you have a say .300 Win or .338 then a 50-70-90 before going for the .45 caliber neck use the sizing die to start the first and keep stepping it down. Use a good lube like 1 part lanolin 3 parts Castor oil, I have found nothing that works better for forming wildcat brass.

[Ragnarok]

Go slow...I mean slooow. Barely start the Martini die in the press..run the case up and back down..turn the die an 1/8 turn..do it again slowly. I got where I could make 4-5 .577/.450 cases an hour.

I made all my cases in a couple afternoons..Ruining probably the first three..and then a couple others. The ruined cases will still be long enough to make .577 Sniders..so don't discard them.

I own the Snider dies too..and they don't size the shot-shells very much..I didn't bother after trying the Snider dies on the first few Martini cases I made.

The very crucial part I found was when the neck starts to form..if it starts to buckle even a tiny bit..STOP..either fix the case by working the wrinkle out with a hard smooth mandrel..or grind the wrinkle off and deburr..So go even slower than slow at that point. Once the neck starts to form good..you can take a bit bigger bites maybe.

You know what I did for brass for my first Martini Henry..I bought $119 a box of 20 Ten-X loaded ammo....shot it up like it was .22 long-rifle..and used that..Then bought another box of Ten-X and did the same..I still have these cases and use them. However these are made by Jamison I believe..and I had issues with Rim diameter in my other Martini rifles I bought later....The converted shotshells fit them all..I had to turn down the rims of the solid head brass to get it to work in all three of my rifles.

I was worried about case life with the converted shotshells..but seems they last fine with my loads..They will hold a considerably larger quanity of powder than the drawn brass.

[DoctorBill]

Unless I win the Lottery, and you have to buy the tickets to do that, I doubt that I'll ever own a second Martini-Henry.

I love that rifle, but one is enough. So my fire formed Brass needn't be resized - ever.

The only working it will get is the Taper Crimp when I reload.

There are so many more and different old rifles that I must own !

That voice in my head says, "Get that one....and that one !"

I must obey.....

DoctorBill

[Buckshot]

....................A Comblain !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!







The whole little carbine. Cute little begger, isn't it? Cartridge is the 11.15x42R Comblain, Brazilian contract carbine. Most others used a 52mm to 60mm long case Bore/groove is .465"x.433", at the breech and .454"x.433" at the muzzle, so it has progessive depth grooves. Pretty deep grooves, at the breech, eh?

In photo #5 the 'works' have been removed. Take out one screw and the guts fall out. Remove one more screw and the extractor comes out. Photo #3 shows the shrouded hammer. If you think loading / reloading for the 577-450 is unusual, look up the 11.15 x 42R Comblain cartridge!



LEFT PHOTO: As you can see, there is no neck in this chamber cast. It is a straight taper from the rim, to a definate point. From this point it angles sharply down to the bore. The case ID at the end of the taper is .493" and the groove of the barrel is .465" here at the chamber. The chamber is missing a fairly common feature that's usually there. How about a neck? I've seen ONE drawing of this cartridge, as one would suspect it DOES have a neck. Otherwise how ya supposed to keep the boolit from parting company? RIGHT PHOTO: Via the chamber cast it appeared as 32 ga shotshells were a close fit, so I availed myself of some from Graf & Son. At the time these Mag-Tech brass hulls were Berdan primed and Mag-Tech offered their #56 Berdan primers, which were absolutely worthless. They'd pierce if you looked at them hard. I converted them to take the 209 primer.

After shortening the cases via a tubing cutter (and not too accurately shortened at that) I used a wide and varied assortment of dies, and Nazi war doctor tools to mangle them down to where they'd fit into the Comblain's chamber. Since the chamber was pretty casual about neck requirements, the hard part was getting them into some semblance of size to hold the slug.



The list of dies and odd tools required to create shootable brass was a MAJOR PITA. Not only to keep track of, but the order they were required to be used in was a huge hassel. I was tired of having the reloading bench covered with various diesets and stuff missing out of each, so I finally decided to attempt to make myself a 2 die set and a shell holder. Sometime previously when replaceing the front struts of a '87 Chevy Celebrity, I couldn't throw the old ones away as they featured these magnificent hard chromed 7/8" rods, which were like 10" long. Besides, they were shiney! I decided to utilize them to create a couple dies. Let me tell you that HSS will NOT work for threadcutting on a hard chromed surface. Carbide to the rescue.

I had to guess, and by golly bore the size die into a reasonable facsimile of something that would work. The brass gets worked a whole lot more then I'd like, but they seem pretty tough and the die DOES work, which is the important part.

[Buckshot]

My lathe is setup to utilize 5C collets, which I have by 32nds. Naturally the 32ga hulls were just a smidge too large for a 9/16" collet and I didn't have a 37/64". Rather then ordering one (I hate to wait) and maybe being out of the creative mood by the time it arrived, I made myself an intermediate collet to use in a 5/8" 5C collet. The alteration to the 209 primer could proceed apace.



LEFT PHOTO: Tools I made up for de and re-priming the cases. On the left, the threaded dealiebob threads into the die threads of a reloading press. This is only to place it at a good useable height. The rod assembly next to it de-primes. It is 2 pieces with the smaller rod traveling in a hole bored through the larger rod. The larger rod sets down over the nose of the 209 primer inside the case. The smaller rod is given a mild swat with a light hammer, and drives the spend primer out of the case.

The large OD piece is the base of the re-capper. A primer is set upon the short central post. the case is placed over it. The rod to the right is centrally drilled so it sits down over the primer and actually drives the case down over the primer. Naturally the operation is to de-prime all the cases, then re-prime them all. RIGHT PHOTO: Two freshly formed, primed and loaded cartridges. The reason for the sticky lable paper around the caseheads is to take up a bit of windage. With the paper in place they're a nice snug fit in the chamber. They expand nice and evenly all around. Without the paper they have a tendancy to expand all on one side, which is a bit more then I like to see, while evenly all around is only a couple thousandths.



These are 4 targets of 10 rounds each, fired at 50 yards with new brass process through the new dies, and utilizing 209 primers. The load of Blue Dot only has 7 rounds showing as 3 were used to get the carbine on paper. It really liked the load using SR4759! Considering the casualness of the brass and chamber, plus the fact that the slug was the 292gr Lyman used 'as cast' at barely .460" (.465" grooves at the breech) the groups weren't nearly as bad as I thought they might have been. An interesting item featured by the carbine is it's very fast 16" twist, when you consider the 45 Colt's twist in a pistol is 16" and common 45 cal rifles used a 20" twist. Anyway it's a neat little firearm and magnificently machined, were the majority of martial arms of the time.

..................Buckshot

[martinibelgian]

DoctorBill,

Ever thought of using your seating die for the 1st few steps (without the seating stem of course)? It is a bit more 'generous' dimensionally, so could help you keep the loss rate down.
The reason for the folding usually lies in the case mouths - burrs, nicks, whatever. Make them as smooth as possible, and the will reduce (not eliminate) the occurrence.

[enfield]

I agree with RRR I use the snider die first and then a couple bushings in between that and the 450 die and anneal between each step ( about 5 steps ) I have 3 cases that collapsed out of almost 100 that I made. slow but I hate wastin cases !

[Ragnarok]

The Comblain...I've heard of these..and seen pics(more pics now)...have never seen one in real life!

They look absolutely cool!

[DoctorBill]

martinibelgian - My LEE Bullet Seating Die is almost just a tube with a
sharp shoulder at the top. No taper or shoulder in it.

The only Die with any Taper or angled shoulder in my set is the Sizing Die.

It is very odd in that the bullet seating 'piston' (plug) just falls out the bottom of
the Bullet Seating Die. Is that nominal for this set ?



How the Heck am I supposed to use THAT ! ?

All my other LEE Dies - that piston/plug is too large to go thru the Die....
Slides in and out of the adjuster knob.
The diameter of the outer ring on the M-H Seater Piston/Plug, on mine, is 0.500 inch.



Am I missing something ? Does your LEE Bullet Seater Die act that way ?

If not, I'll drop an E-Mail to LEE Precision about this.

DoctorBill

[Lead pot]

The way your going about this you would be farther ahead going here and get 20 cases and be done with it. You will be money ahead i the long run.
When you get a rifle like the Martini you should take in consideration in what your getting into just to be able to shoot it.
For what little your going to shoot it 20 cases will go a long way.
http://www.rockymountaincartridge.com/Price_List.pdf

[DoctorBill]

Lead pot - I read your advice about using Castor oil with Lanolin.

Didn't know where to find any, then I was in a big Drug Store and asked the
Pharmacist about Lanolin.

"Oh sure, we got that...." - took me to the appropriate isle and showed some to me.

Got it - but I was wondering, Lead Pot, if you had bought it for the specified reason
on the box ? Hmmmm ?



I sure do hope that you don't have that problem.

Wow ! Now mine are soooo slippery ! Works nice ! Castor Oil: Lanolin (3:1)

DoctorBill

PS - "For what little your going to shoot it 20 cases will go a long way."
Yup - But I'll do it until I get bored.
I don't have an extra $100 for 20 cases, though.
Did you buy some ?
Reformed or extruded and heavy ?
When I'm done, I'd sell you 20 of my cases for $100 !

[Lead pot]

I buy the lanolin in a 5# bucket I guess it has many uses, it's even good for a Plumbers split open fingers in the dead of winter.
If I had a Martini I would pitch the barrel and put something on the action that would beneficial for my purpose.

[fred2892]

Doctor Bill, your set looks externally the same as mine. My seater plug is also .5". Looks like bad machining internally on yours as my plug sits up against a step as in conventional dies.


As for forming 24ga magtech brass, there is absolutely no need whatsoever for intermediate dies, forming dies, reamed out sizing dies or whatever. ALL you need is the LEE sizing die, patience and an ability to learn from your mistakes. I am into over 1000 of these now and the more you do, the easier it gets. At first you will lose a few, but persevere and soon enough you will be getting 25 577/450 out of every box.

Fred

[DoctorBill]

Yesterday, I had one almost completely done and it folded right on the shoulder ! Pisanthrocorpus !



Tonight I am trying a new approach.

I am using a piece of pipe as a cheater bar on my Rock Chucker for more leverage.

Also, am trying something with the shoulder as it forms.
I 'dressed up the edge' of the Magtech brass to make it have no defects from the get go.

Filed and chamfered it then polished it with "Mother's Metal Polish".

As I go along, I keep checking for anything that looks like a fold or place where one
can start.

If the edge (looking down on the cartridge from above) has any roughness,
I chamfer again and polish until smooth.
I also polish the case so's things slide as smoothly as possible.
Using the 3:1 Castor Oil:Lanolin sizing lube.





I'm trying to keep any crimp "Nucleus" from forming as the shoulder forms.

I E-Mailed LEE Precision about this Die and expect an answer Monday, maybe....

Been snowing today ! Great !

DoctorBill

[midnight]

Pisanthrocorpus? Never trust anybody? Enlighten me Dr. Bill. The latin in my signature is more easily translated.

Bob

[Lead pot]

From looking at your formed brass the way it is splitting and folding in I would say that your not annealing the brass enough.
I would anneal it again after every pass because it will work harden every time you push the case back into the die.

[RMulhern]

DB

By the time you invest in time/$$$$ trying to form brass....you could have bought a Shiloh!!