1894 patent winchester reloading tool

[ddykstra]

What bullet style/grains for 45 gov tool?
Also. Decapping pin needed
Good clear instructions for use?

[georgerkahn]

A printing business that reprints many gun-related pamphlets, instructions and the like is called Cornell. Their site is https://cornellpubs.com/ and they have many Ideal handbooks, which give precise directions for tools such as yours. You may wish to check their site -- they may even have a sheet on yours? I have a modest collection of antique loading tools. Several of the tools I acquired also have the decapping pin missing; not a big-ee for me (or you) -- Just find a suitable numbered drill and grind it to length. It will work. If you wish to be OCD ;) -- you can take a small piece of brass, or as I did a couple of times -- use a piece of birch dowel -- to make it even look like the original.
geo

[jrmartin1964]

You will need to locate a Winchester bullet mould marked "45 GOV." on the handles, matching the marking on the die of your 1894 tool. This mould will cast a 405-grain round-nose bullet having three lubrication grooves, virtually identical to the one loaded in factory .45-70-405 Government cartridges "back in the day". These moulds do turn up fairly regularly on eBay and other sites. In a pinch, it would probably be possible to substitute Lyman's No.457124 which has the same profile as the factory lead bullet (major difference is four lube grooves rather than three).

Original Winchester decapping pins are like hen's teeth, but do turn up every now and then. One from a Lyman/Ideal No.3 or No.6 tool would work, but like Winchester pins they aren't often seen in the wild. If originality is not a concern, then a decapping pin from a Lee Loader .45-70 set would make a passable substitute.

FWIW, unlike the Ideal tools and most other types of Winchester tools, decapping with the 1894 tool was not accomplished inside the die. The decapping pin (which was a simple steel rod, just less than bullet diameter, flat on one end and with a protruding pin held by a screw in the other) was placed into the fired case and then struck with a mallet (preferably wood or rawhide) to drive out the spent primer. Curiously, Winchester decapping pins were marked for caliber; those by Ideal (and later Lyman) were not.

The best I have for instructions:
326038 326039
Download and zoom in for easier reading.

Hope you will find this helpful,
Jim

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I have one of those.

[Bent Ramrod]

They were very advanced for the time. You put the bullet into the chamber, followed it with a primed, loaded case, screwed the top on until it stopped turning, squeezed the lever, screwed the top in a little more, and continued.

When you had the chamber screwed all the way in, you had a loaded crimped, full-length sized cartridge with the bullet seated to the proper depth.

The only other loading tools back then that full-length sized the shells as a routine part of the loading operation were big presses at armories.