I recently bought a 44-40 SA pistol and some time later, a lever gun, both in 44-40. I bought some cartridges with some used brass and started loading it as if I had been loading 44 Special/44 Magnum (and a lot of other pistol cartridges. I new the 44-40 has a thin wall, so I have been careful not to crush the brass. After tumbling, I deprimed and sized the brass. I hen checked it in a "Cowboy Chamber Checker" and they all fell in and out nicely. I ordered some 200 grain cast bullets from Meister (which specifically says they were made for the 44-40). They are sized at 0.429, which is what my Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook says the bullets were sized at for the test loads.
Once I loaded the cartridges with powder and placed the bullet on top and seated to the crimp grove on the bullet, they looked great...just like I expected them to do. I am uing a Lee Turret press and brought the adjustment all the way up and applied the roll crimp to remove the belling for seating the Bullets. I then went to the range and a number of them would not fit either the revolver or the lever action. I checked them in the Cowboy Chamber Checker and they would not go in all the way. They would stop about 1/8 to 1/4 of from going all the way down.
I then checked the 100 or so that I had loaded and found that only 1/3 of them passed and the remainder failed the chamber check. Ok...so my thoughts were that the sizing die must not have been adjusted all the way down. I disassembeled them and resized them. They now all pass the chamber check with no bullet attached. So I started to reload the resized brass. Primed, put in powder, very lite flair, bullet in top and seated them to the grove line. Tried one with the seater removed to apply a roll crimp. I also tried a Lee factory crimp die, and one with no crimp and neither of the 3 passed the chamber check. What am I doing wrong? My thoughts are that the brass neck is the right size before putting the bullet in, but the bullet expands the case so that it can't go down enough. Thoughts? I need help from the brain trust here....Thanks in advance.