.38-50 Remington Hepburn Grafs .30-40 brass

[Gunlaker]

Hi,

I'm currently using Winchester .30-40 brass to reform to .38-50 and am considering getting some Graf's .30-40.

Does anyone know if there are dimensional differences between WW and Grafs .30-40 cases? Mostly I'm interested in rim thickness and neck thickness.

Thanks.

Chris.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

In my experience you should buy 30-40 brass wherever it is available. Not easy to find. 303 British may work. It does for my 40-60 Maynard.

[Hiwall55]

In my 38/50 the chamber is cut for remington brass and when I use winchester or grafs I have to neck turn the brass to get it to fit. Rims are OK , if your rifle will shoot winchester brass ,you should be golden.

[Lead pot]

Chris,

This morning I shot the second load of Graff Captech brass it has a head stamp BCC .30-40 Krag in my .38-50 Rem Hepburn.
The first load after annealing the brass I shot it with 12 gr of unique with a full case of Cornmeal caped with bullet lube so it won't spill out.
That blew the necks out to .400" and I had to trim off about .044". I trimmed the cases to just above the roll from the chamber case stop so it's a little long and not too short after the second shot forming. It's a little long for my chamber but chamfering the case mouth sharp and filled it with 58 grains of 3F swiss, .06 wad and the DDPP bullet.
The second shot fired the case is 2.256" long .400" outside diameter at the case mouth and the case wall is .010" to .0103" depending where I check.
The base ahead of the rim is .453"
rim thickness is .059"-.060"
Rim diameter is .537"
The case ended up 2.256" long. Outside diameter is .401"
Chris I annealed the case down 1/2 way from the case mouth to soften the case for better blowing the shoulder out and it worked out perfect doing this.
I also have 500 Winchester cases done but I wanted to see how these Captech cases work. The head space for my chamber is perfect using them both. The Win cases take a little more pressure on the lever raising the breach block and if the primer is a little high it's a tight fit. No coming action on the Hep.

I did have to make a full length sizing die forming both win and BCC. Both cases in my chamber would slide in till about the last 3/16".
First I thought it was the base but putting some machinist die on the case the problem was at the shoulder. It was not bad I could use a pusher to seat the shell.

I could not find any one RCBS, CH-4D or the rest to make a die so I ordered a .30-40 full length die from Lee and cut the die down on my Lathe to below the shoulder and this worked out perfect for a full length sizing die for the .38-50 Hep.

I have 200 Graff cases but I think I will get another 300 if they still have some. I like this brass better than the Win cases. But nothing wrong with the Win brass for this.

The .303 brass is to short for the .38-50.

Kurt

[Gunlaker]

Thanks that is super helpful. Funny enough I realized that I'm actually using Remington brass not WW. My neck thickness comes out right around 0.0105".

Kurt I use a similar method for fireforming but I'm only using 6gr of Unique. I run a 32-40 expander into the neck first though, and FL size with a .38-50 RH die that I happen to already own.

I'll call about the Grafs brass today. Even if I have to neck turn it'll still be a good way to go I think.

Chris.

[Lead pot]

It is good brass Chris.

I did a final form again this morning with 50 more and they came out good with just a slight roll again from the shell top 45º transitional 2.254" again the outside neck diameter is .400-.401"

[Gunlaker]

I managed to get 100 pieces of the Graf's brass this morning. After running through my FL die they chamber in the rifle. Necks are about 0.012" thick before expanding and fireforming. Next week I'll fireform a few and see what the neck thickness looks like it'll end up at.

Chris.

[Old-Win]

Do you know what chamber design is in your rifle? Some are very tight in the neck and right above the rim that will cause you to have to trim your sizing die down in order to size the new brass enough to fit the chamber.

[Gunlaker]

Do you know what chamber design is in your rifle? Some are very tight in the neck and right above the rim that will cause you to have to trim your sizing die down in order to size the new brass enough to fit the chamber.

I haven't decided yet. It will either be Dan Theodore's design, or the one CPA uses. I have drawings for both reamers, and I'm pretty sure that my 1885 was chambered with a PGT reamer that is the same as the one CPA uses based on the chamber casting I've done. It certainly has the same OD at the case mouth and seems to have the same leade angle.

Chris.

[Lead pot]

Chris,

Does your PT&G .38-50 print have a .1125" freebore like the print I have from them?

My Hepburn has the measurements of that print as close as I can measure the chamber cast. It was a little problem with the first loads I shot in it that made me do a cast to see what was going on. It shot tight breach seating the EDDPP bullets but terrible verticals on and off loading the bullet in the case.
Got the problem pretty much solved redesigning a EDDPP bullet that the shank matched the freebore diameter in a seated case, but I do get one that wanders out but those are starting to decline now with the cases fired several times.

[Gunlaker]

Kurt the PGT print that Gail sent me shows a 0.050" freebore of 0.377" with a 1.5 degree per side leade angle. The Dan T. chamber has no freebore.

Chris.

[Lead pot]

That is a move in the right direction to keep it simple loading.
When you have a chamber with .1225 freebore into a 1º30' shallow lead angle that makes it a long free slide of .6151" :D

[Old-Win]

In my 38/50 the chamber is cut for remington brass and when I use winchester or grafs I have to neck turn the brass to get it to fit. Rims are OK , if your rifle will shoot winchester brass ,you should be golden.
Chris, make sure that you buy enough of the same brass that you'll need for the shoots that you are going to. It looks like you'll be shooting grease groove and make sure you figure out what you want the neck of your cartridge chamber to be. You do not want to mix brass as Highwall 55 says, or you will be neck turning to get them all the same. Leave yourself enough room in the neck area so that the bullet can release. I would design my reamer around my brass. Load a bullet into your expanded brass and measure the outside neck diameter and add what you think is the right amount for bullet release.

[Gunlaker]

Chris, make sure that you buy enough of the same brass that you'll need for the shoots that you are going to. It looks like you'll be shooting grease groove and make sure you figure out what you want the neck of your cartridge chamber to be. You do not want to mix brass as Highwall 55 says, or you will be neck turning to get them all the same. Leave yourself enough room in the neck area so that the bullet can release. I would design my reamer around my brass. Load a bullet into your expanded brass and measure the outside neck diameter and add what you think is the right amount for bullet release.

Definitely. That's why I'm looking into the Grafs brass. I want to get as close to a perfect slip fit on a bullet that fits the freebore diameter. The 0.402" chamber on my .38-50 RH highwall is a little fatter than I'd like with Rem brass, but that gun is only shot with breech seated bullets so it doesn't matter too much. This one wants to be just right.

Chris.

[Chill Wills]

I shoot 40-60 Maynard which is a lot like a 38-50 Rem.-Hep., .... with muscles.

It is of course made from 30-40 brass. The Graf product I got years ago may be a different lot than yours or even a different animal all together, so you may not find my info very helpful.
I found my 40-60 Maynard rifles to be very accurate made up with the available R&P brass available at the time. The reamer design (gunsmith) Mike Lewis had made for the 40-60M was created with the R&P brass in hand. He did a good job. I had a lot of the R&P brass from years ago and really did not need more but we heard at the time, all 30-40 brass makers were to cease, (bad info) so I picked up what I could find and only the Graf product was available.

My experience with the Graf brass is that it is heaver with less capacity than the RP by more than a few grains. Also, (having a lathe) post fireforming, I needed to turn the outside back down to seat a bullet. By that, I mean, I found that my loading procedure for the R&P brass, when used on the new Graff brass would result in loaded rounds that would not enter the chamber of my rifles. I ended up having to extensively re-work the brass to make it fit and successfully reload it time after time. I ended up even boring a FL sizing die just for the Graf brass. Basically, it was a pain but I got it to work. Now I have a complete set of tooling, mandrels and lathe jigs I had to make dedicated to the conversation of the Graf brass to 40-60 Maynard.
Like I said, none of this may apply to you if you are using the later lots of brass and /or converting to 38-50. Just passing along my experience with Graf's 30-40 Krag brass.

[Gunlaker]

Thanks Michael. I will know a little more after tomorrow. I'm going to fireform a few pieces of the Grafs brass and then measure the dimensions of a loaded round. Then I'll compare them with Dan's reamer print as well as the one that Gail from CPA sent me. The highwall I have has similar dimensions to the current CPA reamer so it should be a good test. So far I know that the FL sized Grafs brass will at least chamber in my current rifle.

Chris.

[Lead pot]

I just picked up a new DZ #3 DZ .38-50 Rem Hep last January and I looked for .30-40 Rem brass and none to be found but I did find Win brass and ordered 500 cases to get all the same lot and they fire formed very well.
After shooting the formed cases with several loads to make sure they fit the chamber right I started to work up accuracy loads and I got some very fine groups but on and off I got an unexpected flyer I could not explain so I blamed it on the very large freebore of .100" plus this chamber has so I ordered another PP mould for this freebore chamber and it shoots very well but again those unexpected flyers.
I made another search for Rem cases and found Graff had Captech cases so I ordered 200 and got them formed and I noticed that the groups stayed good if I didn't loose one because of my let off. This made me load 10 rounds with the same loads nothing changed for the Bcc and Win brass and the consistent tighter groups were with the BCC (Captech) cases. The photo below is the average between the two brass.
I ordered 300 more to get the same lot. I guess I now have a lifetime of .38-50 brass :D
There is a little difference with the inside capacity between the two but very little.
I can get 63.2 grains of the new lot of 1.5 swiss Lot# 07/04/21 it's a little lighter than the last lot I used and in the Bcc brass I get 63.4 grains flush, but this could be that I screened a few granolas off differently. It only takes 1 or 2 to make a tenth grain.
I took measurements between the two.
The Win cases the neck wall at 4 places runs .009" to .0105" this is kinda hard to get a precise measurement because on how I hold the caliper, it takes a ball mike to do this right.
The Bcc brass was .0085-.009"
Measuring the inside diameter of the fired case in my chamber of .402" diameter the win case was .381 consistent 360º and the BCC was .382" 360º
This is my chamber as close as I can measure the chamber cast.
301856

The left photo was shot with the BCC brass and the right with Win.
This was repeated a couple times between the two at 200 yards.

301854301853

[Old-Win]

Kurt, do you think the group size difference is due because the Graf brass gives you 1 more thousandth for bullet release?

[Lead pot]

Bob, I'm not sure. I would think when the powder is lit the obturation starts and the PP bullet is only in the case .100" it would just about have cleared the case mouth before it was fully expanded. The bullets I use are DDPP with the DD base that is .250" long so it fits the freebore chamber patched to groove diameter and rest of the shank to bore diameter they hold the weight of the loaded unsized case. I haven't checked every case for neck wall thickness just a few of each and the Win brass has a larger variance in thickness than the BCC brass so neck trimming would be a plus for a consistent release I'm sure.
I can feel that there is a difference seating the bullets in the unsized case, some are tighter when I twist them in the case mouth so some are eccentric.

I'm going to work on both brands uniforming the neck walls today, calling for rain again :D

[Old-Win]

Has anybody tried the new Hornady 30-40 krag brass? I wonder how the neck wall thickness compares to Winchester and Graf and Sons?

[Lead pot]

Bob,

I don't know what the Hornady are like for the .30-40 Krag but I found them to be short in other calibers. But this might be good for the .38-50 to keep the trimming the length down :D

The Winchester brass I won't complain about. It has shown very good accuracy despite the long freebore my chamber has that tends to throw a round out if I don't use a proper bullet for this chamber.
Below are some ladder loads using Swiss and Olde Eynsford.

I pulled out the chronograph to see what this .38-50 pushes these 357 gr bullets. I just shot here on my 100 yard range that has been shooting the best on the 200 yard range with a couple different types of powder and loads.
All the bullets were cast with my alloy I use that is a 1# roll of 95/5 no lead solder 95% tin/5% antimony and 18# lead except for the 5 rounds using Arnies WW/Linotype alloy. For some reason I got one round loaded in a 303 British case that got mixed in with the .30-40 Krag cases. The .303 Brit cases are .039" shorter. I would not have thought that they would slow the bullet down about 20 fps, but it did.
The orange dot is 2". I seldom use the chronograph and I was surprised that the groups held tight at 100 yards like they did with the ES spread.
I think bullet release has a lot to do with the ES. I will turn the necks as soon as I make the proper pilot for this caliber.
The left target was shot from the 200 yd line.
I'm starting to really like this little .38-50 Hep. I wish I would have had one sooner now. :D

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