Original Remington Rolling Block in .43 Spanish - How do I develope loads?

[DonMountain]

Maybe 25 years ago I bought an original military model Remington Rolling Block in .43 Spanish, a 20 round box of .348 casings converted and loaded with black powder to .43 Spanish, and an RCBS 43-370 FN mold. After casting maybe 300 of them and reloading the casings a few times, my interests drifted to more modern military bolt action rifles. But now I am gaining interest in reloading this rifle, and would appreciate some guidance to this project. I would like to use these RCBS 43-370 FN boolets, and the cases I already have. So, how do I build these loadings? I read about wads and grease cookies and all sorts of things added to these cartridges that I haven't used since most of my loading experience has been with smokeless powders.

[curator]

Check out the book: "Shooting the .43 Spanish Rolling Block" by Croft Barker (Cistern Publishing Co.) SR4759 and AA5744 both work well in this cartridge with 370 grain boolits.

[Mk42gunner]

Don,

It has been a few years since I messed with my Argentine Rolling Block, but here is how I loaded it with a Lee two die set:

Components:

Reformed .348 Win brass from Buffalo Arms.
Lyman 439186, 20-1, SPG lube, sized to .439".
over powder wads cut from soda twelve pack boxes.
FFg powder to fill airspace.
Winchester LR Primer.

I ran all the cases through the sizing die first. I did break a few of the Lee shelholders, by pulling the tops off. Others have not had this problem. I finally found an RCBS #22 shellholder and haven't broken it, yet.

I flared the case mouth by bumping it with the case expander from a RCBS .45-70 die set. Now I would buy or make an M-die type expander, but at the time I didn't know about them.

I filled the case with ~75ish grains of FFg, using a drop tube, (~2 foot piece of 3/8" soft copper tubing, flared to fit over the powder funnel and the case mouth.

Then placed a cardboard wad and seated the bullet, crimping just enough to straighten the case mouth.

They worked fine for plinking in the desert in Nevada, I don't remember if I ever even shot it at a paper target.

If you want smokeless loads, do a search. I remember Buckshot posted quite a few of his results.

If I were doing it today, I would try one of the various recipes for Emmert's or anther home made BP lube.

Good Luck,

Robert

[Bent Ramrod]

My .43 Spanish is a Peabody dropping block. I started with Bertram cases and the Ideal 439186,sized to 0.439". Filled cases to the neck bottom with Goex 3F (don't recall if I used a wad) and was rewarded with a weird whizzing sound as the boolit tumbled end over end in the general direction of the target.

Then I found a mould for the Bailey boolit, Ideal 451112. I sized all the bands down to 0.439 except for the front one, which I left at 0.451, loaded the cases with 85 gr of Elephant FFG, one .45 caliber cork wad and the above boolit. Cleaning every shot, I got a 5 shot group of 4-1/2" at 100 yards with 4 in 2-1/2". The military sight put the group 11" to the left of the bullseye. I paper patched my remaining 439186 boolits to .451, but haven't tried them yet.

I've kind of put the .43 Spanish on the back burner now that I have a .44-77 to mess with, but I would advise you to cast those RCBS boolits soft, lube them up good (a grease wad might well be in order here) load through a drop tube at least enough powder to fill the case to the bottom of the neck. You might do well with Swiss 1F or 2F, whatever is quick enough to upset those boolits to groove diameter.

I must confess that with black powder I have a good handle on groove diameter "naked" boolits, and a fair handle on bore-diameter paper patched boolits, but the bore diameter "naked", i.e., grease groove boolit is pretty much terra incognita to me. This, of course is what the .43 Spanish is all about. A lot of people on Line have complained that this caliber drives them crazy, but a few report they have done well with it. One guy reamed out the neck portion of his chamber so the cartridge could hold 0.450" diameter boolits, and reported very good results thereafter.

Good luck in your own experiments, and please let us know how they go.

[John in PA]

Slug the bore. Peabodys actually often run .446 or larger. Remingtons can vary somewhat also. Dead-soft lead to no more than 5% tin, with no antimony, Blowtube or wipe between shots. Soft lube: 50-50 beeswax and olive oil is simple and works well. If making up fixed ammo, the milk carton wad over powder, then lube wad, then bullet. Compress powder so bullet can be seated without undue pressure. If loading and shooting at the bench by de/re-priming fired case and dropping powder charges, finger seating bullet, then no over-powder wad is needed.

BTW, if bore and chamber are oversize, you may do better with .44-77 dies and bullets (nominal .446")

[bigted]

So here is my primer on the old rifle!

Always fill the neck/ leed with soft lead. Doing so will give you every opportunity to do good with the old girl.

My effort looks like this;

Flair the mouth of the FIRED case so getting the proper measurement from the case neck is easy. With a caliper , measure the inside diameter of the fireformed case ... Now fill this with the same diameter of lead boolits. Cram in as much BP as will fit under the seated boolits and remove the flair on the case mouth.

Now hold your left elbo as high as it will go and sneering at the target with a temperamental stare ... Yank the trigger and smile at the results.

[jonp]

With my 43 Argentine Rolling Block I use homemade Emmerts lube hand applied (messy but I only shoot a couple at a time). Powder/lubed fiber wad and then push in the dead soft boolit with my finger. It's the same mold your using. I also have tried duplexing to clean it up. Smokeless/toilet paper/BP/Lubed Wad/Boolit. Nobade was a big help in this as I wanted to treat the old gun gently and avoid smokeless in it.

The brass is new 43 Spanish from Jamison/Captech http://www.captechintl.com/products.php?cat=18&pg=2

Now hold your left elbo as high as it will go and sneering at the target with a temperamental stare ... don't forget to squint while sneering and you will not smile when you yank the trigger. You will probably giggle like I did although you might want a nice cackle to go with the sneer and squint

[justashooter]

don't forget, you should be chewing on an old nasty hand wrapped stick skinny c-gar while squinting.

[trails4u]

I am currently developing a love affair with my newly acquired .43 Spanish...a Remington roller as well. I'm still working on it, but have a good friend, and a better shooter than I'll ever be, advising me. He's the real deal, having competed and won internationally in BPCR. His suggestion is drop-tubing a case full of 1.5 Swiss, compress, then add card or fiber wad, M-die to expand, and seat bullet (439186) with SPG lube. Sounds easy, huh?? FWIW - My friend is really keying on the wad as being one of the most important parts of this. His suggestion is to experiment with materials, but to make dang sure each and every one is perfectly consistent with the last. This seems to be working well for me using cardboard...although much more testing is needed. BrassMagnet was extremely kind in sending me some boolits to test with, and some additional great advice,....unfortunately a hip surgery has all but stopped my range work for awhile. :(

[jonp]

You can buy a compression plug for your Lee die body to make sure the powder is exactly the same each time from Track Of The Wolf. I bought one but I'm not going to use it much as I doubt I'll shoot the distance needed for it to make a difference.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Search.aspx?search=43%20Spanish

[Bob Busetti]

I bought 20 Jamison 43 Spanish cases, I found that their brass is too thin at the neck . You can push the bullet in with your fingers. However .348 cases hold the bullet tighter but not too tight.

[bigted]

I bought 20 Jamison 43 Spanish cases, I found that their brass is too thin at the neck . You can push the bullet in with your fingers. However .348 cases hold the bullet tighter but not too tight.

it all depends on what the throat says. if your goal is to fill the fireformed case neck/throat then maybe the new brass is going to work out just fine. i know that when i used the case neck diameter after fire forming ... it all came together. the original loads were to have the ability to load many rounds without swabbing out the bore/chamber/throat. for my buck ... the throat filling trick works on about everything i have tryed it on.

[Argentino]

I did break a few of the Lee shelholders, by pulling the tops off. Others have not had this problem. I finally found an RCBS #22 shellholder and haven't broken it, yet.



Same problem here. I´ve broken mine (a brand new Lee SH) yesterday while trying to size down some original Argentine made cases (1894 dated and though as nails even after annealing). First couple cases ran OK through the sizing die under considerable force. The third one snapped off during the downward stroke. I´ve initially thought that case rim had collapsed until I notice the shell holder top was missing; it was still holding around the case rim (case remained stuck in the sizing die). :confused: