JohnH
05-07-2006, 11:06 PM
Was reading the recent issue of "Rifle" magazine and in Mike Venturinos article on the military rifles between the Model of 1861 and the 03-03. In addressing the 1873 Springfield, he makes mention of the 55 grain loading of the 45-70 case used by the cavalry. That was no big news in itself, but that they used a cardboard tube to reduce the case volumn for the 55 grain charge was quite an eyeopener. For those who may not know, black must never be loaded with an airspace between the powder charge and the bullet base, else a bulged or burst barrel is sure to occur. While I had known of the reduced charge for the cavalry for many years, I had always assumed that this was done with the use of some kind of wad material. Not so. It was done by inserting a cardbaord tube into the case prior to charging. The hard evidence is cases found at the Little Bighorn with the tube still intact.
Hmmmmmm..... went my little brain; I put down the magazine, went to the loading bench, pulled out a new 444 Marlin case, got out a small hole guage, measured the inside case diameter at mid-length, did a little math, made an educated guess of the shoulder length of a 375 JDJ case, cut out a peice of cardboard from a cracker box (.023" thick) rolled it up and stuffed it into a shot out case. Threw some charges into a 38-55 case I had used in that rifle, compared them to the same charges in the sample case......
Made up ten cardboard tubes and inserted them into preped to load cases and loaded 'em up.
Went and fired 'em
Was rewared with 2 vertical strung groups about 3 1/2" tall, with 8 of ten shots in 2". Not one of the tubes blew out, and each opening of the gun reminded me of the paper shotshells I had fired so many of. How sweet it was :)
Well, I've now got five of those cases reloaded for a second firing, this time with a tad more powder. In doing this I've ended up with a case not unlike a long 38-55 in volumn, the expander button just drangs on the cardboard in resizing. I'm using 4895 to experiment with. I don't think the tubes will be useable for more than 2 firings, but I could be wrong. They survived the first firing much better than I thought they would have. They look sandblasted for the upper 1/3 of their length, but are not torn, and not even singed in appearance, though I know some material was affected, I could smell it.
At ten shots it is much too early to make any judgements about this method, but it is at least as good as any other type of filler I have used, though it is more time consuming to make up and it does create a very different case volumn. This ain't at all like stuffing a ball of dacron atop the powder.
Not sure what else to add at this point, just entering this experiment, I'll post more as I go along.
Hmmmmmm..... went my little brain; I put down the magazine, went to the loading bench, pulled out a new 444 Marlin case, got out a small hole guage, measured the inside case diameter at mid-length, did a little math, made an educated guess of the shoulder length of a 375 JDJ case, cut out a peice of cardboard from a cracker box (.023" thick) rolled it up and stuffed it into a shot out case. Threw some charges into a 38-55 case I had used in that rifle, compared them to the same charges in the sample case......
Made up ten cardboard tubes and inserted them into preped to load cases and loaded 'em up.
Went and fired 'em
Was rewared with 2 vertical strung groups about 3 1/2" tall, with 8 of ten shots in 2". Not one of the tubes blew out, and each opening of the gun reminded me of the paper shotshells I had fired so many of. How sweet it was :)
Well, I've now got five of those cases reloaded for a second firing, this time with a tad more powder. In doing this I've ended up with a case not unlike a long 38-55 in volumn, the expander button just drangs on the cardboard in resizing. I'm using 4895 to experiment with. I don't think the tubes will be useable for more than 2 firings, but I could be wrong. They survived the first firing much better than I thought they would have. They look sandblasted for the upper 1/3 of their length, but are not torn, and not even singed in appearance, though I know some material was affected, I could smell it.
At ten shots it is much too early to make any judgements about this method, but it is at least as good as any other type of filler I have used, though it is more time consuming to make up and it does create a very different case volumn. This ain't at all like stuffing a ball of dacron atop the powder.
Not sure what else to add at this point, just entering this experiment, I'll post more as I go along.