.45 Romanian Peabody (alias 11.43X49mmR)

[John in PA]

Well, I just started working with this one. It took 4 different dies to rough out some cases for fireforming from parent case .50-90 Sharps. Final case length 1.92" I did a chamber cast. Bore mikes around .462" just ahead of the chamber on the casting. Fireformed with 60 gr Scheutzen 2F under a .459 405gr HB (original trapdoor bullet from an NEI mold). Reasonable accuracy (roughly 6" group for a dozen shots mixed bench and offhand at about 75 yards) considering cases were not fully pre-formed. The rifle is a Providence Tool Co. Romanian Peabody, dating from 1868. Excellent bore with a couple very small areas of light pitting. Arsenal load supposedly is 77gr bp with a 380 gr grooved bullet. I'll probably stick with the 405gr as I like the small hollow base to assist bump-up to bore diameter.
I'm impressed with the "modern" nature of the design. Minimal body taper yielding lower rearward thrust, short sharp shoulder, reasonable neck length for good bullet support (compared to the 1870 Italian Vetterli 10.4mm, a near contemporary, with almost no neck and a greatly-tapered body--just worked with that one recently) Hard to see why this cartridge didn't have more contemporary imitators. AFAIK, never chambered for any other firearm anywhere in the world. Prov Tool made 25,000, though apparently not all were delivered to Romania.

Here's a pic of a couple cases and the chamber cast.

111217 111218

[sthwestvictoria]

That looks very interesting and rare! When I typed "11.43x49mmR" into google, there are only four results and your forum entries are the first three!


Here is a link to some photographs of rifle and ammunition with comparisons to Egyptina .43 and .43 Dutch Beaumont:
http://www.militaryrifles.com/Romania/RomPeab.htm

[John in PA]

Yep. That "militaryrifles" site is probably the most comprehensive treatment of military Peabody's on the web. Excellent info for model identification and differences in breechblocks, sights, etc. Unfortunately, there's almost NOTHING on the rare Peabody sidehammer sporting rifles. Maybe as few as 65-80 total by authoritative estimates, making them some of the rarest of American sporting arms. Heck, even the Peabody Martini sporting rifles only number a bit over 400 total. Astounding considering that the military guns sold several hundreds of thousands!!
CH-4D actually makes dies, and I've got a set on the way. I'll do some more formal shooting soon and report results back.