Using .444 Marlin brass cases for .410

[Ban]

Interesting.

Have some magtech hadn't played with yet.

Seems to be some allure to brass shotshell tinkering.

[RKJ]

I saw this thread and thought I may have to get some 444 brass, then while out hunting I recalled I had a few that I found at the range. I've got a box of 20 and 2 extras and they all fit my little 311 just fine. Now I've got to get some wad cups and get busy. I'm kind of excited, I've got a new adventure to embark on. This looks like it will be fun.

[AndyC]

I hope you have fun on the journey

I found that overpowder cards are essential for sealing (I cut mine with a cheap HF 7/16" punch) but everything else is pretty straight-forward; I've cleaned my 5 test-cases and they fit in the chambers again just fine, no resizing needed.

[RKJ]

AndyC, Thanks, I appreciated the way you wrote out each step, it made it seem easy. I'm reading up on this (trying to see which powders to use). I'd like a powder that I can use in my pistols as well, Lil Gun has loads for the .357 and the .44 Mag as well as my shotgun, so I'll see if I can find some of it.

[AndyC]

My pleasure - I cribbed it together from many disparate sources online and merged it all into what I hoped would be a single reference for easy use, once I'd finished experimenting.

I want to try H110 next - I use that for .357, .44 Automag and .300 Blackout too so I always have cans of that.

[besk]

A better way to thin the rims on those cases is to get a ball bearing and chuck it up in a bench vise so the round half is above the vise.
Then you get a round piece of steel that will snugly fit in the .444 case.and the other end to chuck in a drill motor.
Get a small triangular file and hold the case on the mandrel so the empty primer hole rides on the ball bearing when you turn on the drill.
A drop of oil on the bearing and you can hold the triangular file on the underside of the rim to thin it to your specs.
This way you won't thin out the base of the case leaving the primer with a shallow pocket from sanding the base.

In other words remove metal from the other side of the rim where it won't affect the depth of the primer pocket.

From George Nonte

This is the method I use with British .303 cases. Works great.

[deltaenterprizes]

This is the method I use with British .303 cases. Works great.

I am not having any luck with 303 cases . The first 3/4” does not want to expand and they look strange!
I may anneal again and give it another try.
I used Berdan primer cases and made a reamers to allow the use of 209 primers.

[Gunslinger1911]

Ho Ho, this is cool !
I don't have a 410 long arm, but do have an American Arms 45 Colt / 410 derringer.
This will be a way the have "cheaper" (you priced 410's recently ? ) ammo that I can custom load (think "buck n ball").

[Powersgt]

I’ve made something similar with .45 Colt cases for my Blackhawk. Used 7.5 grains Unique, both card board or gas check over powder, something like 145 grains of 71/2 bs then a gas check on top with wood glue. I’ve taken a few grouse at >10 yards with them and hammered a few pine squirrels.

I finally bought an Encore 410/45 and was thinking of a similar type load using .444 or maybe .303 or 9.3x74R if I can find some.

Another project would be resurrecting a .44 shotgun that I believe was rebored to 2” .410.

[Outpost75]

...Another project would be resurrecting a .44 shotgun that I believe was rebored to 2” .410.

I have one of those. Original .410/12mm/36ga. guns had 2-inch chambers. The following info from Pietro Fiocchi in Italy:

The 36-gauge was an "artificial" denomination of a .410 bore caliber.

1 - Official documents from the European Proof houses prior to 1904 make no mention of the .410 bore caliber.
2 - In Great Britain, in a 1855 and some previous documents, official gauges went from 1 (1.669") to 50gauge (.453"). In a later (1868) document, they increased the list to go from A gauge (2.000") to 50 gauge. In British proof documents, 36 gauge was reported as .506" diameter. Gauges were determined with the number of lead balls of that diameter with a British pound.
3 - France, in 1810, try to get away from the British system and kept alive two systems: one was similar to the British (except the French pound was different) and determined gauges fairly similar in diameter to the british system. The other, called the "bore system," used the kilogram (for example a 32 bore, number of balls to a kiolgram, was very similar to a 12 gauge). In 1868, the French killed the "bore" system and tried to rationalize the dimensions and based the determination of gauge on the number of lead balls to a French pound, adjusting the diameters to have 0.2mm steps between gauges. This is probably were the .410 was born (though was not called so; officially it was a 12mm). The French proof house decided that all guns smaller than 10.6mm (roughly .410") had to be tested for pressure in a different way than the larger bore. So, .410 became the divider between serious sporting guns and ladies and children's play things.

4 - In Germany 1800's there is no mention of any gauge smaller than 32 (based upon several different regional "German" pounds, depending where the gun was manufactured)

5 The Austrian system was similar to the English, designating from 4 to 50 gauge. There was a 36 gauge with diameter 12.4mm (different from either the French and English 32).
6 - Italy was a mess: depending on who was the invader (Austria or French or Spain) they changed system.
The presence of more than 30 weight systems in the prior to unity of the provinces enormously complicated the situation. Prior to about 1890 there was no two guns alike in the entire European continent! Things started to change in the 1900's, probably because of the need of having standard arms and ammunitions when assembling armies of different countries.

You now have the back story so to summarize:

1 - The first official reference to .410 bore caliber is in a 1904 document by the Royal british proof house; the same document has a 36gauge (with the "correct" .506 in diameter).

2 - CIP met for the first time in 1914 and managed to get an agreement on the nominal diameter of calibers from 12 to 28 gauge (12, 14, 16, 20, 24 and 28). There was still some resistance on 4 and 8 gauge and other bigger calibers (up to 32 mm, which was an Italian 1 gauge), and French and British 8 gauge and 4 gauge stayed until 1940, along with the official European 4 and 8 gauge. In the 1920's and 30's the 14 gauge disappeared and the 32 re-appeared.

All the other smaller calibers (with the exception of .410 bore) disappeared completely by 1940.

3 - Sometime in the 1920's, someone at CIP (probably a Swiss or a German..) thought up making an ordered and esthetically pleasant set up...since they had 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 and 32, why not calling the next smaller (and only remaining) caliber 36 (a precise 4 step). Later they reversed to using the correct .410, but the industry had already started using the two names.

1920's catalogs from Fiocchi and Dynamit Nobel used both 36 gage and .410 bore to describe the same shell.

4 - In the 1961, CIP officialized .410 as the only correct name, but in 1969 added 36 in parenthesis on the dimensional tables.
Basically, they were acknowledging the situation.

5 - The confusion never died, because the French kept calling the 32 gauge 14mm, the .410 bore 12mm and they added the .360, calling it 9mm (later to become a rimfire, with the name of Flobert...)

In Italy and other European countries used 36 gauge for the shorter .410 (2 and 2 1/2" cases) and .410 for the 3" long, called 36 Magnum.

There is no real technical explanation behind the designators, being the result of trying to get agreement between multiple countries and hundreds arms and ammunition producers, all of them with their history and reasons.

The fact is that 36 gauge and .410 bore refer to the same shell. Some of the best resources on this kind of stuff are in Cartridges of the World by The Gun Digest company. You can find their books in the out-of-print sections of internet booksellers.

My best to you and to all your shooting buddies, in boca al lupo...

Sincerely, Pietro Fiocchi

[Outpost75]

Use Starline 40mm length 5 in 1 blank cases to load shot cartridges for your 36-ga. Euro Garden Gun. Use a .44 expander to expand the case mouths and to reduce most of the body taper. A .45 Colt sizer with its decapping stem removed full-length resizes fired cases. A Lee 7.62x54R seater die with simple modification makes an economical roll crimp die which reduces the case mouth diameter to .460" which chambers in most guns and will roll-crimp the 40mm Starline cases without permanent modification to the die. If your particular garden gun has a tight chamber it may be necessary to use a .444 Marlin sizer to reduce the mouth diameter of loaded rounds to .445-.455" so cartridges chamber and extract easily.

Use large pistol primers. A smokeless charge suitable for Group 1 .44-40 Winchester cowboy guns with a 200-grain lead bullet is correct for .410-2" or 5 in a Game Getter shotshells with a 1/3 oz. shot load. Use 8 grains of Herco, 7 grains of Unique, or 6.5 grains of 452AA, WST or W231, or 5 grains of Bullseye or TiteGroup.

Place a Buffalo Arms .45 Colt or .45-70 (12.5mm) vegetable fiber 1/16” card over the powder, pressing it down firmly with a 3/8” dowell. Insert a Buffalo Arms .45 caliber wool felt 1/8” cushion wad over the card, then overflow the case with fine shot, 7-1/2, 8 or 9, striking the shot off level to the case mouth with a fingertip. Place a .44-caliber Buffalo Arms card loosely over the shot. Carefully feed the cartridge into your improvised roll-crimp die and your rounds will look like they came out of a vintage box.

Improvise a roll-crimp die from a Lee 7.62x54R seating die. Disassemble the Lee 7.62x54R seater, removing the seating stem from its threaded adjustment collar. Substitute for the seating stem a bullet lubricator-sizer top punch from a Lyman 450 or RCBS Lub-O-Matic, which you have inverted, so that its solid end protrudes DOWN. Replace the threaded adjustment collar and adjust by trial to position the top card to the approximate mid-point of the die shoulder. The head to shoulder length of the 7.62x54R case is 1.55.” When the 7.62x54R seating die firmly contacts the shell holder at the top of the rammer stroke, it produces a light roll crimp on 40mm Starline 5 in 1 Blank cases for use in your European “36-ga.” Garden Gun. To roll crimp shorter 1.3" long .44-40 Winchester cases to make snake loads for your cowboy revolver, it is necessary to shorten the die body by ¼” or so.

Adjust the threaded adjustment collar to position the top card squarely about 1/16” below the case mouth as a the roll-crimp is formed. Adjusted correctly the modified 7.62x54R Lee seater produces a perfectly formed, professional-looking roll crimp. For field use and long term storage waterproof the shell by brushing the crimped cardboard top card and also over the primer with brushing lacquer and you are done.

Handgun shot loads assembled in either 40mm length Starline 5 in 1 blank or .44-40 cases, work well at short range in smoothbore 44/.410 Garden guns. Effective range is about 50 feet when fired in a choked-bore shotgun and 20-25 feet in a slow-twist .44 rifle or revolver.

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[cwlongshot]

GREAT info as always Ed!! ♥️��♥️