The 43 spanish and long cases

First off I want to thank whoever it was who turned me on to using 44-90 sharps cases in my 43 Spanish rolling block rifle! Those are perfect to get the case out to the end of the chamber so the boolit doesn't have to go through such nasty distortions on its way to the rifling. The Lee dies set the shoulder back enough so the cases would chamber easily, and I trimmed .090" off the end to take them just to where the chamber tapers into the rifling. Oh, I did have to bore out the end of the die so the case wouldn't hit it. The cases are nearly as long as the die.

These cases also make up some kind of powerful loads! I shot .5cc 5744+85gr. Fg, still had plenty of room for a card wad, .250" grease cookie, another card, and .100" for the boolit. For that I used the same casting I use in my Swiss Vetterli - 320gr. round nose slick, .425". Patched to .433" it is a nice slip fit in my roller's bore. I have 20 cases so that's how many I fired without wiping. Still shooting great at the end, holding right at 2MOA at 100 and 200 yards. The rifle is one of the little Argentine carbines with its crude sights and 25lb trigger pull, so I don't feel that is too shabby. Sure is worlds ahead of what it does with the normal length 43 spanish cases and grease groove boolits! (Those are more like 8 - 10 MOA.)

At any rate the switch to 44-90 cases has allowed this rifle to be much more useful and enjoyable, and it's going to get used a lot more in the future!

-Nobade

Where'd you get the 44-90 cases? 43 Spanish seems to be OOS everywhere except Midway has Bertram cases at a stupid price.

nobade...very cool with the luck with the 44-90 cases. which 44-90 cases did you get? my bertram...[expensive]...cases meassure thusly...

rim thickness = .086 inch
rim diameter = .624 inch
body diameter just ahead of the rim is =.515 inch.
length of my cases = 2.247 inch.
neck brass thickness = .010 inch.

these cases work fairly good but like you i think id like to fill the complete chamber length with brass. i looked on buff arms and they have several kinds of 44-90 cases for sale so thought id ask which one you puirchased so they would work in my roller as good as my bertram's do... just maybe a bit longer.

thanks. Ted

The cases are Jamison brand, I got them from Buffalo Arms. They have several, I got the ones with the thick rims (still not thick enough) for Shiloh and C.Sharps. I see they also have them available at Captech, though they are slightly cheaper from Buffalo. Both places have them in stock at this moment.

You do have to rig up something to trim them with. The rims are bigger than the opening in the Forster trimmer, so I set up a 5C collet closer in the milling machine and used the cutter from the Forster trimmer in the chuck. That worked slick and I trimmed all 20 cases down in a matter of minutes. 2.533" was what they ended up needing to be, I believe. Right to the end of the parallel section before it tapers into the rifling.

-Nobade

thanks...just meassured my chamber last nite after posting here and my chamber needs are 2.336 inch so my gap is a bit shorter then yours it sounds like. however my boolits have to try to jump that bit and im bettin that this is some... if not all the reason my rifle does not shoot bp well. i think it is doing the same as my first 45-120 in the jump dept...the bp blast is driving the base to fill that void and then trying to squeeze back down thru the lead...such as it is...and then into the rifling.......just too many changes too fast is what im thinkin. this rifle does very well with smokless 5744 but that is not bumping the boolit like bp does.

my 38-55's dont like short cases either and they really throw a tissy fit when i was loading bp thru them with those short cases. starline fixed my problem with them for the needed length.

thanks and i was wondering if your 44 cases meassure close to my needs? ...rim thickness/diameter/body dia just ahead of the rim.

I don't know what they originally measured, but they dropped into the chamber once I set the shoulder back with the Lee die. (with top cut out) The die didn't touch the case anywhere except to set the shoulder back. I fired them all, so now they are the size of my chamber. They don't look bulged or anything unusual. Once they were fired I could see exactly where they needed to be trimmed to, and I made a chamber cast to verify what I was seeing. If you like I can measure some of the fired ones tomorrow, but it doesn't tell you much beyond what size my chamber is. I do know the rims were dead on .625" diameter, and I think the thickness is .085". I just remembered that Jamison/Captech has the drawings on their web site. Here is the link:
http://www.captechintl.com/proddetai...d=44-90SSharps

-Nobade

thanks. ill check em out and guess im gonna have to order some jamison 44-90 brass to play with and see if i cant make this ol hummer like bp.

just ordered cases from baco...prices diff is a bunch...capteck with shipping came to $75.04 for 20 cases with baco beating the per piece price by pennys and shipping by $30.00 or so. baco delivered price comes to $46.00 so beings as i have a great relationship with baco i went with them as well.

sometimes i get a kick ...[:groner:...[smilie=b:...:killingpc]...outta companys wanting so much to ship to Alaska. i just cast about for a company that WANTS the business and isnt scared to ship to the greatest state in the union...HA !!! ...what a load huh?

Isn't that amazing? I guess Captech only uses UPS? Or passenger pigeon? Whatever the case, BACO is great to deal with anyhow. Keep us posted on how the new cases work for you, hopefully you'll get that rifle singing soon.

-Nobade