Danish Dies?

[Mark Daiute]

Is Buffalo arms the sole source for dies for the 11.7 X 51R?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

[Roundball]

Might try CH-4D. These folks list for 11.7x56R.

[Mark Daiute]

Might try CH-4D. These folks list for 11.7x56R.

I need to profess ingnorance, am not familiar with CH-4D.

Regards,
Mark

[curator]

Mark,

I use Lee .45-70 dies to seat/crimp bullets. Once I have fire-formed my 11.7X51R cases I never resize them simply decap, reprime and load. Using black powder, your charge and over powder wad holds the bullet in the correct position. The Lee .45-70 seating die will put a light roll crimp where you want it. No need to resize and neck expand with a single shot rifle. I have been loading my buffaloarms formed brass since 1989 and I have yet to loose a case from neck cracks. I do neck-anneal about every 8-10 reloadings just to be sure. My best load is a duplex of 3 grains of SR4759 and 55 grains of OE 1.5Fg, a 1/8 card wad, 1/4" compression and the lyman .454-475 bullet paper patched to .462 and seated to touch the rifling's leade when chambered. The Lee .459/405HB bullet also works fine with the above load and no need to wipe or blow into the bore between shots.

[Mark Daiute]

Mark,

I use Lee .45-70 dies to seat/crimp bullets. Once I have fire-formed my 11.7X51R cases I never resize them simply decap, reprime and load. Using black powder, your charge and over powder wad holds the bullet in the correct position. The Lee .45-70 seating die will put a light roll crimp where you want it. No need to resize and neck expand with a single shot rifle. I have been loading my buffaloarms formed brass since 1989 and I have yet to loose a case from neck cracks. I do neck-anneal about every 8-10 reloadings just to be sure. My best load is a duplex of 3 grains of SR4759 and 55 grains of OE 1.5Fg, a 1/8 card wad, 1/4" compression and the lyman .454-475 bullet paper patched to .462 and seated to touch the rifling's leade when chambered. The Lee .459/405HB bullet also works fine with the above load and no need to wipe or blow into the bore between shots.

Thank you! So buy the proper cases and then just use 45-70 dies.

[Mk42gunner]

Here you go: http://www.ch4d.com/

I don't have anything of theirs that is really recent; but what I do have is good stuff, and they usually have whatever oddball cartridge I am thinking of listed.

Robert

[texasnative46]

Mark Diaute,

SOME of the 11.7x51mm Danish RB will happily accept .45 Basic brass cut-down to 2 inches & some of the 11.7x56mm rifles will accept the same brass cut-down to 2 3/16 inches.

.45 Basic brass seems to fire-form in a goodly number of Danish chambers quite well, using a case-full of FFg & your chosen bullet.

Additionally SOME 11.7x51mm rifles will work quite well with standard .45-70 cases, with a wrap or two of Scotch tape just in front of the rim. - The tape seems to "center the case" in the 11.7 chamber, so that it fire-forms properly.

Once formed in the Danish chamber, most people (that I know of), who have either 11.7 caliber are using .45-70 dies BUT are NOT neck-sizing the brass.

yours, tex

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I need to profess ingnorance, am not familiar with CH-4D.

Regards,
Mark

Not only is their quality good, but they are extremely helpful people, and dies are a bigger part of their business than it is for Buffalo Arms. They supplied me with old drawings they had on file, to make sure we had in mind the same version of the .577/.450.

[earshot]

I size my .45-70 cases till about half an inch from the base with my RCBS .45-70 dies.This way my cases keep the slight bulge near the rim without over-tiring the cases from seating. I do use a neck expander as it allows for easier bullet-seating and still slightly gripping the bullet without the use of a crimp.I do not use wads.
Cases last for many, many shootings.....I lost count.

[17nut]

And as Danish bores are all over the place i have found the Lee .459-405HB bullet best by far.



Here is a resume i wrote some time ago to adress the confusion about chamber length:

Danish Rolling Blocks and chamber length confusion

The original Danish RB round was 11.4x41.5R rimfire. Load was 52grains in 1867 and changed to 60 grains of BP behind a 385 grains boolit.
Denmark ordered 20000 rifles from Remington to be delivered within 6 months. That backfired for Remington because Sheffield could not deliver enough barrels.
The Danes got to make their own RB’s without paying royalty as a result.
5 production lines was set up and each of them had a master gunsmith which was in charge of quality. Each smith had to manufacture his own set of Go-No Go gauges and have them certified by the factories master controller. This becomes important later!
All is well and from 1867 to 1878 @78500 RB’s are manufactured.
In 1884 the Danes start to develop a replacement for the RB and at the same time they start to ponder a way to modernise the RB’s. In 1896 they were officially converted to: Smokeless, centerfire and jacketed bullets.
And now comes problems in heaps falling on the arsenal, Because of the 5 different Go-No Go tools it is clear that bores range from 11.25mm~.443” to 11.75mm~.463”. You can’t design a standard round with jacketed and smokeless that will work within those ranges with any kind of accuracy and without huge variations in pressure. So a LARGE long throat is devised to size the bullets for the smaller bores.
That is why some Danes will chamber a 45-90 without problems and why the 11.4x56R thought exists.

In the development of the final cartridge choices in smokeless was dismal and experiments led to the 56mm cartridge. But that meant grinding down the hammer for chamber access and that was dismissed along with slower reloading of the rifle. Only @200 rifles were ever converted and they can be easily identified by the ground down hammer.

[Mark Daiute]

Thank you all for the great info. So clearly we can "make do" with 45-70 cases as well as the
Lee Hollow based mold which I already have.

Be well an happy father's day to the other dads out there.

[Mark Daiute]

Seems to good to be true, both my 500 grain and 405 grain cartridges load fine with no alteration to the case.

Here are some photos of the rifle in question.

170702170703170704

Is it indeed, to good to be true?

170705

[texasnative46]

Mark Daiute,

I've recently emailed back & forth with 2 gents who have had exactly that same experience. - Evidently, though I've found the info in NO other sources, at least SOME 11.7x51R chambers were "undersized" from the get-go & nicely accept unaltered .45-70 cases.
(My treasured 11.7x56R, which was made in 1878, is decidedly NOT one of those. - YES it will chamber & fire .45-70 BUT only with the cases "wrapped with scotch tape" near the rim. - Once that's done, it fire-forms WELL. - The @60 pieces of .45 Basic cases that I was given, trimmed down to about 2 3/16 inches, fit WELL & without fire-forming/modification.)

yours, tex

[Mark Daiute]

The results are in.

My standard 405 grain load, for my 45-70, 100 yards, battle sight, six o'clock hold on the black

170707

Note that I indeed, put a wrap of tape on the base, just because.

There were some ignition issues with the hammer fall being a little week a couple of times

[Mark Daiute]

9 SHOTS 100 YARDS 500 GRAIN SAECO BULLET SIZED .460

60 GRAINS OF WC872.

Have to blow out the bore between shots.

170710170710

[17nut]

Seems to good to be true, both my 500 grain and 405 grain cartridges load fine with no alteration to the case.

Here are some photos of the rifle in question.

170702170703170704

Is it indeed, to good to be true?

170705

Danish twist is 1:28" so 500grainers are a no go!

[17nut]

Mark Daiute,

I've recently emailed back & forth with 2 gents who have had exactly that same experience. - Evidently, though I've found the info in NO other sources, at least SOME 11.7x51R chambers were "undersized" from the get-go & nicely accept unaltered .45-70 cases.
(My treasured 11.7x56R, which was made in 1878, is decidedly NOT one of those. - YES it will chamber & fire .45-70 BUT only with the cases "wrapped with scotch tape" near the rim. - Once that's done, it fire-forms WELL. - The @60 pieces of .45 Basic cases that I was given, trimmed down to about 2 3/16 inches, fit WELL & without fire-forming/modification.)

yours, tex

Simply not so!

The rim on the Danish cartridges is @.582" and the rim om 45-70 is @.608"

And i will bet you $$$ for donuts that your rifle like all others is indeed 11,7x51R chambered and not 56R length.
The 56R chambering was done on under 200 rifles and they all have ground down hammers to aid chambering.

[17nut]

The results are in.

My standard 405 grain load, for my 45-70, 100 yards, battle sight, six o'clock hold on the black

170707

Note that I indeed, put a wrap of tape on the base, just because.

There were some ignition issues with the hammer fall being a little week a couple of times

What might has happened is that the block was not closed 100% due to the tape.
Then the hammer "wedgeds" under the block and that gives slow hammer fall.

[texasnative46]

17 nut,

IF you are even close to correct, then a HUGE number have been re-chambered to "something like 56mm" in the USA. = ALL of the Danish RB that I've ever seen in CONUS, including the example in the Danish portion of The Institute of Texas Cultures, will easily chamber 2 3/16 inch .45 Basic cases without trimming.
(My suggestion: Don't bet $$$$ that you cannot afford to lose. - 2 3/16 inches is slightly over 55mm, btw.)

yours, tex

[Wayne Smith]

Get some cerrosafe and make a chamber cast. Then you know what you have. Send it to Dave and CH4D and he will tell you if off the shelf dies will work or if not, he will make you a set. I sent him a chamber cast from my 10.5x47R and he told me it was different from the other 23 10.5x47R chambers he has in his catalog! He made me a set of dies for mine.

[texasnative46]

Wayne Smith,

I suspect that you weren't too pleased when you found that your rifle needed custom-made dies, given the cost of custom/one-off work these days.
(I know that I wouldn't have been.)

yours, tex

[Tom Herman]

Wayne,

Thanks for the Cerrosafe tip! I've got a nice Danish roller... Will do a chamber cast before ordering dies.

-Tom

[Mark Daiute]

what method are people using to cut the 45-70 cases to length?

Thanks,

Mark

[Mark Daiute]

The results are in.

My standard 405 grain load, for my 45-70, 100 yards, battle sight, six o'clock hold on the black

170707

Note that I indeed, put a wrap of tape on the base, just because.

There were some ignition issues with the hammer fall being a little week a couple of times

After strict trial and due examination I found that the hammer fall issue was related to brass. In the final analysis the rifle likes WW brass does not like BHA or RP brass. It was as simple as that.

[Wayne Smith]

Wayne Smith,

I suspect that you weren't too pleased when you found that your rifle needed custom-made dies, given the cost of custom/one-off work these days.
(I know that I wouldn't have been.)

yours, tex

$125 delivered wasn't a bad cost to get a rifle shooting again. I also designed a Mountain Molds mold for it. Always check CH4D before rejecting an idea.

[twidget]

what method are people using to cut the 45-70 cases to length?

Thanks,

Mark

I used a tubing cutter.

Charlie

[texasnative46]

Mark Daiute,

Everyone that I've been emailing back & forth with has used a tubing cutter and/or a case trimmer. = For the 11.7x56, you likely will need BOTH to trim down .45 Basic brass to 2 & 3/16ths inches.

just my OPINION, tex

[dogmower]

"$125 delivered wasn't a bad cost to get a rifle shooting again. I also designed a Mountain Molds mold for it. Always check CH4D before rejecting an idea."
I can roger that. I needed a sizer for my 43 dutch Beaumont (got tired of the 8mm lebel/45 colt/lyman expander method of case forming).
not only did they have it in stock, they got it from Ohio to Arizona in 2 days, and were an absolute pleasure to deal with.
Great company, great product, worth every penny.