.44 Caliber Centerfire Mystery Cartridge

[insanelupus]

This lil ol' cartridge is from a small bag of cartridges I bought for $5 at auction today. There were 3 old FA 97 stamped .45-70 cartridges made in 1897 in there that was the last military ammunition produced in that caliber, the main reason I bought the bag of cartridges.

This one has me perplexed. Below is a pic of it standing next to a standard 40 grain round nose .22 LR match round made by Wolf (RSS). The case mouth is uneven, possibly trimmed by hand, so this may be something a person made to substitute another cartridge. There are no discernible stampings on the case head and it is primed with a copper colored primer. The stats are below:

Bullet diameter above lube grooves at case mouth: 0.4272" x 0.4294"
Base case diameter: 0.4600"
Rim Diameter: 0.4832"
Rim Thickness: 0.0479"
Case length: 0.5450" x 0.5612"
OAL: 0.9345"

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j66/insanelupus/44CaliberMystery.jpg

[Horace]

11 mm French Revolver is real close
Horace

[runfiverun]

webley sounds close

[insanelupus]

Horace,

Yes, the 11x17mm French round is close, but the nominal length of case on this one is 0.550" and the French round is 0.710", unless of course it has been cut down and handloaded for some reason.

runfiverun,

It's too short for the Webly round but looks similar to the .44 Bulldog, though it appears to be a smaller diameter bullet (0.429" vs. 0.443").

[JeffinNZ]

I was thinking .44 Bulldog.

[stubshaft]

I had a couple of .44 BD cartridges lying around and can't find them (0f course). They do look like a close match though.

[Bret4207]

I was thinking .44 Bulldog.

Or one of the BD types. IIRC there were several different ones.

[475BH]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Bulldog
When you are measuring the bullet dia. above the case mouth, you might be measuring on the radius.
Maybe causing a small number?