44-40 Brass

[foesgth]

Well, I got a bunch of 44-40 brass and a set of Redding dies from an estate sale. You know what that means...I now have a SAA clone in 44-40. I am sure that the rules for this forum require you to buy a gun when you get brass.:kidding:

My question is about resizing 44-40. Do I need to treat it as a bottle neck case? That is lube, resize and trim. May I treat it as a regular pistol case? Or, perhaps there is a super secret treatment you would care to share with a 44-40 beginner?

[stevenjay1]

44-40 brass is around the mouth is very thin, I lube mine and resize them slowly if that makes sense. They are easy to damage just go slow and you'll be fine. Also, be sure to bell the case just enough to seat the bullet. Steve

[TNsailorman]

I love the .44 WCF/.44-40 but you do have to go slowly on the resizing and loading. They load just fine if you remember this. I would recommend a carbide sizer die also. I never crumpled a case but I ALWAYS lube each and every case with Imperial die wax. Those cases are not easy to come by and it just makes sense to treat them right. james

[Walks]

.44WCF is a bottleneck case.
HAS TO BE LUBED, when resizing.
If there are carbide sizing dies, I've never heard of them. And If there are, due to case shape they would still require lubricated cases to release the tapered case from the die.

You need to use as much care when expanding case mouths as you do resizing.

Same goes for seating bullets.

The case mouth is THIN, even starline.

[Texas by God]

All of the above and it's just a fun cartridge!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Randy Bohannon]

I use a dowel that fits with enough room to take out any distortion in the case mouth, any deformity when brass enters the die will ruin the brass . You will have lots of distorted case mouths with new brass and you can have zero failures fixing them up before sizing.

[foesgth]

Well, I was thinking of setting up to do this on a progressive press, looks like it is going to need a bit more attention to detail. When all else fails the RockChucker always makes good ammo!

[ACC]

Well, I got a bunch of 44-40 brass and a set of Redding dies from an estate sale. You know what that means...I now have a SAA clone in 44-40. I am sure that the rules for this forum require you to buy a gun when you get brass.:kidding:

My question is about resizing 44-40. Do I need to treat it as a bottle neck case? That is lube, resize and trim. May I treat it as a regular pistol case? Or, perhaps there is a super secret treatment you would care to share with a 44-40 beginner?

I have a good buddy who is handy capped and he shoots a 44/40 and can shoot the backside off a fly with it at 30 meters. He reloads his own and says that 100 cases take him two days to size but if you take your time you won't lose any cases.

I believe him.

ACC

[ACC]

BTW he loves unique but I don't know how much he uses.

ACC

[Cast_outlaw]

Well, I was thinking of setting up to do this on a progressive press, looks like it is going to need a bit more attention to detail. When all else fails the RockChucker always makes good ammo!

Just personally I would not do this cartridge on a progressive press single stage is best as more attention can be paid to what your are doing the case neck is week and easy to ruin with speed and not easy to replace not too many manufacturers making it any more it is a 147 year old cartridge now I sure like my win m92 and Dakota buntlines in it

[country gent]

I load 44-40 for a Henry original reproduction. Its a great round as mentioned sizing and bell in are critical But not a big deal when done right. ALso watvh crimpig as it will buckle necks quick with to much crimp. Watch bullet dia some are chambered for .427 some for .429 dia bullets. Neck wall thickness on 44-40 is around .007-.008 and modern cases are .011-.012

I decap by hand and straighten by deformed mouths necks with a mandrel by hand. Clean brass. lube with imperial sizing die wax. Size, prime and expand bell mouths. I then drop charges into cases. ( mine are black powder) start the bullet and seat. I then crimp in a separate step. Normally enough to remove the bell.

[Walks]

I use a pair of good size needle nose pliers with a long nose, for .44WCF & .38WCF. And a smaller pair for .32WCF.

Or the nylon plug from the magazine tube of a Marlin 1894CB w/24" bbl. It's just handy to have on the bench, been there for going on 24yrs.

[foesgth]

" I use a pair of good size needle nose pliers with a long nose"

Mr. Walks,
This works like a champ. Thanks for the tip!
My mold should get here today so I should have ammo by the weekend. Now I only need to have the Gubbermint let me go shooting!!!

[Outpost75]

A .30-'06 fired case also works well for ironing out ejection dings from the case mouths.

[Gray Fox]

I used to load a lot of .44-40 and .38-40 ammo for cowboy action shooting friends of mine using a Dillon 650 progressive press with minimal problems. I used Starline brass and the Midway lanolin based spritz bottle lube. Lay a bunch of brass in a cardboard Coke flat, spray them roll them around a bit, spray a bit more and then let the brass dry a bit according to the bottle instructions. I inspected all my brass after tumble cleaning them and used the long needle nose plier trick to iron out bent necks. Taken care of, the Starline brass lasts a long time. I used Redding dies for both calibers. GF

[rintinglen]

This is one cartridge that really benefits from the use of the Lee Factory Crimp die. At the very least, you want to seat and crimp as separate steps, but I have found that the FCD will pay for itself in cases saved. Before I got one, I was losing one or two cartridges per hundred due to the shoulder collapsing while crimping. That thin case neck collapses easily if you apply too much force on it. Trimming cases is a necessity, IME. At the time I was experimenting with the 44-40, I was working full time plus and simply did not have time to fiddle with babying cases.

I finally gave up on the 44-40 and had a 44 Special cylinder fitted to my S&W 544, which cartridge is a lot easier to work with.

[Oyeboten]

Well, I got a bunch of 44-40 brass and a set of Redding dies from an estate sale. You know what that means...I now have a SAA clone in 44-40. I am sure that the rules for this forum require you to buy a gun when you get brass.:kidding:

My question is about resizing 44-40. Do I need to treat it as a bottle neck case? That is lube, resize and trim. May I treat it as a regular pistol case? Or, perhaps there is a super secret treatment you would care to share with a 44-40 beginner?

I have never re-sized any Hand Gun Cartridge Brass.

Why bother?

Do the empties chamber alright as they are?

If so, then no reason to re-size.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I loaded some 44-40 for a marlin.
I never had problems during FL sizing, but Seating was a Bear!
I've found the R+P brass is much more prone to crushing or bulging during seating, even with a properly belled case mouth, than other brands of brass. I was using Lee 200gr RF boolits cast with a soft alloy and sized to .429

[yeahbub]

When I started loading .44-40, the dies came with a sloppy-loose shell holder which caused some crumpled cases due to being slightly misaligned with the die. I found one which controlled the cases much more closely and the problem went away. Just make sure the cases are all the way in the shell holder. If they stick to case lube on your finger as you pull away, they'll get crunched. As regards sizing, the chamber in the carbine is pretty snug, so I can get away with not running the case all the way into the die. This sizes most of the neck and leaves the tapered part alone. Given tight headspace, cases will last a long time. In a revolver, this is generally not a problem, but could be. You'll just have to see what you have. Most carbines I have examined have widely varying headspace. The one I had stretched cases .008" with each firing. Two loadings and that bright ring of incipient case failure would be there for sure. What to do? Considering that .44-40 data generally keeps pressures mild and repro Rossi '92 carbines are proofed to much higher pressures, I settled on lubricating the cases so they would slide to the rear on firing rather than stretch. My case stretch went from .008 to .0005-.001. This is doable in revolvers as well, but maybe your SAA clone is pretty tight. You'll just have to give it a try and see.


This is one cartridge that really benefits from the use of the Lee Factory Crimp die. Amen! With the thin neck and shoulder, it's very easy to collapse the shoulder a bit when you crimp. If your cast boolit doesn't have much of a crimp groove, you can distort the shoulder and make chambering impossible - and it doesn't have to be much to end up that way. Get the collet crimper and even cast boolits without a crimp groove at all are not a problem.

Another little factoid that is applicable to actually any case being reloaded for the first time is to use a "chip knife" (from Enco, MSD or other machine tool supply place) to remove the wire edge inside the case mouth hat comes from the pinch-trim operation when they're made. Lightly done by feel, the chip knife will introduce a small radius on the inside lip of the case. Sufficient belling is still necessary, however you prefer to do it, but there won't be any wire edges which become stress risers leading to case mouth cracks with repeated loadings. Spinning them on the LEE case trimmer lock stud thingy in a drill and using some medium-fine steel wool on the case mouth is very nice, but an extra step I save for when I trim brass.

As for stout cases, Remington and Starline have pretty stout necks and are easy to deal with. Winchester cases have necks thin enough to pinch flat with my fingers. These are delicate, but in some cases they may be needed, such as a tight chamber in which the only way to chamber a boolit that's throat diameter is to have a case with a thin neck. For those who have chambers necks so narrow where even this will not work, Accurate has a mold with an oversize ogive. Given a soft alloy, this will seal the bore and the driving bands will obturate up to throat diameter as it exits the case. Some are tighter yet. I had a Vaquero with tight chambers and throats, .425 throats, .430 groove diameter. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, but it'd take reamer work to fix that problem. Accuracy was dismal. May you be blessed with properly dimensioned chambers!