45 colt-ish wildcat in Judge help needed

[milkman]

I remember this from the depression days here in North America, 1930's, might not be anything you would want to try.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?...ing+shotshells

[cpileri]

Can you post a pciture of the fireformed brass? showing the ridges and grooves you mentioned?
It might be more amenable to 40-70 loads than 45-70, within 410 pressures of course, esp if it more resembles a bottlenecked cartridge.

[victorfox]

Milkman, some guys here still do it in the country for poaching some species... I shot cut shells in a old Rossi 32ga I had as a boy. In fact, the paper shells were so bad they usually cut themselves at the base... LOL

C- sorry for the pic quality. Hopefully you can see the ring and how the base swelled to meet 45 Colt form.

If they went in the right order:
1) close-up of a fired case (not all fire formed the same manner, some were more lightly. You can see and feel the -- slight - neck formed)
2) fired case left, range brass 44-40 center, non fired .410 right
3) .44-40 and 3 fired cases; notice the rings on the .410 match .44-40 (45 colt) length
4) just FIY: left, 9.1x40 magtech berdan brass (9mm shotgun) and .410 brass. I use the smaller brass to seat wads. Sadly the case tapers and can't be cut to fit .38 spl. Ppl here sometimes shoot the .38 in these little shotguns, however.

Thanks guys.

[cpileri]

OK, not as necked as I envisioned.
Looks like you need 45-70 data at 14kpsi or less.
Let me check.

[cpileri]

Sorry abt the delay.
Sharpe's loading guide lists the following that might help you out:

300 grain jacketed bullet:
2400-24 gr=1560 fps & 13500 psi
Unique-13.0 gr=1330 fps & 12000 psi
--------------------------------------
405 gr jacketed bullet:
2400-22 gr=1290 fps & 14000 psi
------------------------------------
500 gr lead bullet:
Unique-11 gr=1020 fps & 11600 psi

Another fast "pistol" powder used un the 45-70 is 4227, but i didnt find any loads (yet).

Anyway, if you use those bullet weights as a reference point, and take your proposed load of 2x.40 or 2x.433 round balls, assuming PURE lead, the 40's weigh 96gr each; and the .433's weigh 122gr each.
and of course, your mentioned 250gr 45-cal bullet weights 250gr.

given the 300gr load above, 13gr of unique would allow you 3x40cal balls or 2x.433 balls; with some wiggle room for pressure (*).
given the 405gr load above, you can do 3x.433 balls by WEIGHT(*).

You do risk bloopers and some people add a card with soft foam as 'filler' (above the powder and below but touching the base of the bullet/balls) to keep the powder down near the primer flame. WHich bring up my next big warning

(*) the multiple balls and any filler adds a variable and can increase pressure. First off, your case is less voluminous that an 45-70, which increases pressure independently all other load data remaining stable. Second, the balls must be tightly touching one another or perhaps tightly with cards in betwen them but in any case they must begin to move as a single unit when fired.

if you have one ball rolling around near the powder it will ram into the top ball durign the firing sequence and produce a bore obstruction. i have seen a blown up a pistol doing exactly that (thank guardian angels no one was injured).

So its a starting point, but do be very very careful with round balls. Loading shot is also risky, better in that it fills the case, but sidewall pressure is increased when subbing weight for weight small shot to buckshot or slugs; all other data being equal.

There is buckshot data for 410's that might be even better.

[Outpost75]

Fast-burning shotgun powders intended for 12-ga. target or light field loads are suitable for reloading pistol and revolver calibers, such as you are allowed to have, .32 ACP, .32 S&W Long, .38 Special. .44-40, etc.

When using these fast-burning shotgun powders, caution is required to determine a safe powder charge.

First the powder must ignite reliably and the bullet reliably exit the barrel. Handgun loads require about 200 m/s to ensure reliable bore exit. Soft lead, lubricated bullets have less bore drag will exit rifle or revolver barrels reliably at velocities approximating the .32 S&W or .38 S&W revolver, while producing very low noise. In loading extreme “Cat Sneeze” loads great care is required to prevent inadvertent double charges! Use a powder measure and visually inspect every case with a penlight ensuring you have not accidentally doubled or spilled charges.

The key to exploiting salvaged powder, recovered by pulling down misfired shotgun or pistol rounds, is to be frugal, and careful. Use the minimum powder charge which ignites reliably and expels the ball or bullet from the barrel, producing sufficient short range accuracy within 20 metres to kill small game, producing a uniform report, and most importantly, in which an inadvertent double charge WILL NOT BLOW UP THE GUN!!!! Subsonic rifle loads with plainbased lead bullets and minimum handgun charges producing good accuracy meet this requirement.

My boyhood mentors grew up using such loading techniques in the US during the Depression years of the 1930s and continued exploiting improvised materials and using simple loading techniques through the WW2 years, because sporting ammunition was unavailable. Outdoorsmen and farmers had to "make do." In postwar Europe this was common practice among peasant farmers, and I expect that current situation in Brasil is much the same.

Powder charges used in assembling common 12-ga. Target and light field loads serve as the baseline for estimating charges for most other common calibers. During the Great Depression of the 1930s until after WW2, any available powder was salvaged from misfired or unuseable swollen paper shotshells. A typical 12-ga. charge used in old fashioned paper shells assembled with fiber wadding, as was common before about 1960 was 1.5 grams (23 grains) using a fast-burning smokeless powder similar in composition and burning rate to modern Red Dot, Green Dot or 700X.

In modern plastic shells with one-piece plastic wads, the equivalent charge is 1.2-1.3 grams (18-20 grains). Powder salvaged by postwar Europeans from WW2-era 60mm mortar shell boosters was a Hercules powder, called Infallible, very similar to modern “duck load” powders such as Unique, Herco, PB, or WSF.

Frugal reloaders determined suitable charges by blending all of their salvaged powder recovered from .22 rimfire, misfired pistol rounds, shotgun cartridges and mortar boosters together! Conducting empirical tests, (these days I would recommend checking with a chronograph!) they would tie a LONG string to the trigger and observe from a safe distance!

Today I offer the following guide for the modern "Lupi di Cavatore."

Small game loads, using plainbased cast bullets of wheelweight metal, of standard weight for the respective caliber:

In .38 Special use 1/5 of the 12-ga. charge, (typically 3.5 grains of “fast burning target and field load powder” or 5 grains of slower “duck load powder.” (Modern era double-check chronograph test firings of the unknown powder for which there is only limited data, against published Bullseye or Unique data from a current US manual to see what it is closest too, treat it like Bullseye at first, then adjust as preliminary test results indicate).

In the .410 all-brass or .44 Magnum use 1/4 of a 12-ga. Charge.

In 20-ga. use 1/2 of the 12-ga. charge.

In 16-ga. use 3/4 of the 12-ga. charge.

To reload common European 11mm black powder cartridge rifles, the firing pin indent of the fired Berdan primer cup is drilled entirely through the solid web of the cartridge case using a 94 Gage (.18mm) drill. The hole drilled in the primer cup then carefully is enlarged with a 6 gage (5.2mm) drill, taking care to not remove metal in the web of the case, other than any radius remaining of the Berdan primer "anvil" formed in the case head.

If you drill too far, take the 6 gage drill entirely through the web of the case, then, supporting the interior of the case with a piece of pipe, swage the primer pocket to shape using a cone shaped mandrel made from the shank of a # 14 flat head wood screw to reshape the pocket to take a 209 size shotshell primer. Select a screw whose shank is of full dimension, then off the threads. With a patience and practice you can chuck the remains of the screw in a hand drill and radius the cutoff end with a bench grinder. This takes some fussing about, but you only need to make one.

To use the mandrel, insert a short piece of pipe into the new hull and drive it over the mandrel with a hammer. Whack it hard enough to allow a new shotshell primer to seat flush with the base of the hull. Berdan 11mm Vetterli or Mauser cases altered this way may be reloaded with a case full of 1Fg black powder, or 3/4 of a case full of 2Fg, filling the rest of the case with Farina or Cream of Wheat to provide powder compression when the bullet is seated. Use soft lead cast bullets lubricated with tallow or lard mixed equal parts by liquid volume with beeswax. Always fill the case to the base of the bullet, so the powder is compressed.

Brass cases fired with black powder are dropped into a jar with a 50-50 of white vinegar and water as they are fired. Upon arrival home the fired cases are decapped with an icepick, then washed again in hot water with a mild detergent, then again in clean water and left to dry.

[victorfox]

Wow men! What a wealth of information.

C-, I'll try the double ball loads only, and will stay on the lighter side (~200gr). I probably made a mistake, the loads magtech gives info are 200gr, not 250gr, for both the 44-40 and the 45 Colt. I was going to load some this latst w/e but the wife wanted some small vacation given the carnival holiday et al. About the foam, I was thinking about sticking some 3/8" styrofoam and a thin card to mimic the bullet depth in the case (I have the .44-40 canelured case for reference), and keep the powder close to the primer as you suggested.

If using birdshot raises the pressures I may very well forget about bloopers, since they occur because of lack of pressure. Or I'm wrong?

Outpost75, you're right. Here they load everything from the .25acp to the .45colt, and from 12ga to 32ga using the same powder. In the case of the .410, they use a slightly slower powder, which is the one I use too, but it's not too slower than the other.

I've seen many powder burn rate tables around and they are to me pretty much useless... However, the listed burn speed for the powders we have are:
Powder-------------------------------burn speed (ms)
250-----------------------------------0,30
216-----------------------------------0,35
219-----------------------------------0,40
220-----------------------------------0,95 (restricted, used to load 357mag, 44mag, .410-1/2oz, put here for comparison purposes)

I use the 216 for 12ga field loads and the 219 for heavier buckshot loads and 3/8oz .410 loads (6.6gr). The recipe for the .44-40, 200gr LRNFP calls for 7.7gr of 219.

Hopefully, I'll starting loading this weekend...

[cpileri]

You're correct, lack of pressure gives bloopers. But if the published slug load is already at 14kpsi and you switch out weight-for-weight to birdshot, you may then be over pressure. Just be careful.

[victorfox]

C-, I understand this. Thanks for your concern. Today I got a little time and decapped those pesky berdan cases (method of choice: Hold the case mouth down and tap a small and old knife to the side of the primer then forcing said primer out. Tried the water pressure method and got a wet table...)The case will hold the two .40 balls in the neck, plus a "nitro" card (homemade with 7/16 punch from old note/diary books) over powder (under which I will put the foam) then one ball, another spacer card wad, ball and over shot card. All went fine, left little space to glue the over shot card.Now I wouldn't be able, I guess, to put much more than 200gr of lead in this thing... Also cut some sleeves of card paper (same thickness of business card or some brands of toilet paper cores...) and they held the balls nicely centered in the case.Since I now have a pretty much good idea on how I'll load, will try to make the first live shell tomorrow then wait another w/e to try then in the range.

[cpileri]

please post results!
Not just the target, but also before and after pics of the case and primer, any recovered components particularly the overpowder card and the balls.
Cool! and good luck!
C-

[victorfox]

You bet I will, sir! This project is being put aside everytime, I got a ton of stuff to solve and my firearms are sadly ranking low in the list (like running the business, prepping to move from this house etc etc etc...).I'll try to recover every component possible. The range I have access is indoor and they have hmmm... Cord wood (lengths of about 1yd of firewood carefully stacked against the dirt "wall") and I'll have to figure some way to try to catch the balls... I'm pretty excited about the possible result (positive I hope) and will post them asap even if it's a total fail.Thanks for the support and help, you all!

[GONRA]

victorfox - don't give up on the "water method" for knocking primers out of Berdan primed cases.
Brazil sounds so screwed up that you may (WILL) need such spent primer cups lateron.....

GONRA successfully decapped 100+ 14.5 x 114mm Soviet lacquered steel cases
(Chicom manufacture) with crimped in 9mm Berdan primers using this method.

Do you Brazil guys have personal machine shops to make such tooling?
ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for U.S.& A. Rabid Gun Crazies...
Don't need to salvage the cups. Make production tools and dies from scratch.

Good Luck. You're one tough nut to put up with all that Commie **** without losing your sanity....

[victorfox]

GONRA, I've been thinking about what you said and have been stock piling "certain" stuff since last year... I guess you're right.

I'll give another try. Unfortunatedly, tools are very expensive here and a simple drill press costs about one's month wage, let alone a lathe. Those 10in or 12in micro lathes cost about the price of a new low end motorcycle and a full size costs the same a new car...

Need to get acquainted to more machinists LOL.

And yes, it's hard to live here if you care about your firearms, very hard. We take lots of risks in supposedly times of peace and "daemon-cracy" just because we need to do "certain" things that can't be done "indoors", if you know what I mean.

Don't know if there's any hope, but they can take from my cold dead hands...

[victorfox]

Ok didn't go to the range yet but loaded the sample shells as explained before...Got the gun out and took another close look at the barrel. The .40 balls with the thin card sleeve goes down the bore very easily (like pushing with a rod) with minimal pressure.The naked balls (eeek!) rattle down the bore and are noticeable smaller than it. I pushed a 7/16" card wad also without effort and any card deformation what means this is probably really a .45 barrel before rifling. Being 7/16" some .437" it's not a .410 neither a .44 or a .45... All my previous slug making efforts would be useless I guess so I'll try these modified shells and see if I can find some round balls around .433 (I found some that are sold as buckshot MG size and they are 11.5mm/.452 which is a bit too big for this barrel). Whenever I can go to the range I'll bring pics and comments. Thanks all.

[sthwestvictoria]

you are doing great work VictorFox keep it up. Tell us if our English doesn't make sense and we say it a different way.

The .40 balls with the thin card sleeve goes down the bore very easily (like pushing with a rod) with minimal pressure.The naked balls (eeek!) rattle down the bore and are noticeable smaller than it. I pushed a 7/16" card wad also without effort and any card deformation what means this is probably really a .45 barrel before rifling.

i think you mean probably a .45 barrel was used but not rifled? One option is to use the undersized balls you have and just treat them like buckshot. Cipleri suggests this at post #25.

(I found some that are sold as buckshot LG size and they are 11.5mm/.452 which is a bit too big for this barrel).

they may be just the right thing if the barrel is closer to .45.

this is a good tutorial on slugging a rifled barrel:
http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinSlug.htm

if you could find a pure lead fishing sinker/weight it would be good to use to slug the chamber and bore, or flatten one of the .40 ones you have. Is there a car mechanic near you that would measure a slug for you for a beer? Or have a set of pin gauges (more likely gunsmith or engineering workshop).
Pin gauges look like this:


I am sure some U.S. Members would measure some slugs for you if postage was not too expensive, I would be happy to.

[victorfox]

Hi there!

1. The same. If my English is too fractured, please ask what I mean and please please, don't get offended if I sound harsh or rude. No way is my intention, but a slight failure to comunicate in a foreign language!

2. Exactly, after pushing a 7/16" wad easily and measuring it at about 11mm with some cheap plastic calipers, I came to this conclusion. I have a real big smoothbore... Yes, I'm doing that. My .40 shot with a sleeve does a nice fit, of 2 stacked 00000-buckshot balls.

3. I will buy some of the .45ish balls and see if they fit. I know they enter the mouth of the .410 case, but can't push them too far. When I get them I'll see if they fit the bore. I'm too chicken to experiment a bore obstruction or worse... If they go tru the bore, I'll load and try them as a single ball.

4. These pin gauges aren't readily available but I'll try to slug the bore then take the slug to measure somewhere. However, I won't be caring too much if the loads shoot fine and this new (to me) ~.45 ball work, I'm giving up any further slug development.

5. I gently dismiss you kind offer, but thank you warmly for it.

Some more stuff:
1. I must be the most idiotic guy in the world. I realized I have a box of 000-BK loads and I can get about 360gr of the slow burning powder. Expensive? Yes, but I wouldn't have access to it otherwise. I can steal some powder and try it in the brass cases, using a decent amount and reload the shells (bigger balls won't fit the plastic hulls and didn't feel much improvement removing the 4 000 and putting 2 .40 naked balls inside the loaded shell, plus it would be a PITA to recrimp the cut shells).

2. I cut some slug loads and removed the little piece of foster slug and replaced it with a .40 ball (same weight and a bit shorter, giving room for some crimp). It's supposed to go around 1500fps from the Judge. Will test it too.

3. There's nothing new under the sun, the reason I'm putting faith in my loads:

4. I think I'll get some books and try to catch the balls with them.

Thanks again my friends!

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Us dudes stateside need to quit whining about component availability.

You are making great headway.

FWIW, I have buckshot molds in the following diameters, and would be glad to send you some if we don't wind up in some legal entanglement.
.323
.340
.345
.350
.375
.389
.395
.420
.424
.429
.437
.445
.454
.457
.490
.515
.520
.527
.530
.535
.562
.575
.600
.648
.662
.690
.735
.740

[victorfox]

Charlie, thank you very much again! If needed I'll ask you some samples of what you got but for now I have to test that MG buckshot (I edited some previous posts because I wrote LG but LG is ~410" or 10.5mm not 11.5mm). Had to work yesterday so had no time to buy those and was silly enough when I had them in my hand the day I bought the brass shells I bought some buckshot and tried the MG size and it fit but would stick to about halfway I the case. This was before the neck loading idea...Regarding to "legal entanglements" as far as we don't put anything clearly firearm related in the box (like a barrel, cylinders, a full set of dies or a press) and don't write the truth the nail heads leave us alone. Buckshot or round balls are "fishing sinkers" and these are freely sold and nobody cares about our "piscatorial efforts"...As for component availability I'm close to Y-man situation. He lives in a country where even buckshot is restricted and he managed to make lots of tests with homemade slugs until he could get some good molds. And he got a rifled barrel for his shotgun. I was inspired on his perseverance to get what he needs to get what I need no matter what the c**p govt thinks. Again I have to thank you all for your valuable help and please keep the fight up or America may become part of this s**t, like Kommiefornia or New Yuck is now (Washington is bad too, right?)

UPDATE 02/29/16: A friend gave me many moons ago one round of CBC .45ACP JHP which was badly rust/weathered so he wouldn't shoot it in his gun. I found it finally in my odds and ends box and thought I could pull the bullet with pliers, since it would be probably .451" or .452" to check my gun. The bullet won't enter the muzzle (didn't try to ram it...) but will almost fit the barrel from the forcing cone (a tapered, choked barrel?). The cylinder throats are a bit oversize to the bullet but the .45 case split in half when I pulled the bullet (the powder was a wet green mess I threw away so you can imagine how bad this thing was -- I had this round for more than a year in a tight container!). Too bad I didn't try it before dissassembling... The bullet won't fit the .410 brass case, but I guess it's allright since metallic cases needs to be "belled" open before inserting bullets, right?
To make things even easier, I just learned one cylinder chamber is a lot tighter than the others, literally scraping the cases when ejecting. All the other 4 chambers extract and eject easy and nicely. Maybe this problem is the source of many complaint about hard ejection in the judge, as I've been reading around...

[victorfox]

Ok. Not range report yet but I tried to slug The bore. Bought a micrometer (metric "analogic" stuff), bought some so-called 11.5mm MG buckshot and voi-la. Never used a micrometer before and said buckshot is very low quality, too many out of size out of round pieces. Many aren't even the named size they're too small and rattle inside the brass case.Well if I'm not wrong my slug measured 11.43/44mm which translates to .450". I couldn't push I inside the .410 brass cases but they fit snugly inside a .45ACP (found another fired case in my trash ops odds and ends box).I believe in this case I'll have to use two or more balls that fit the case and hope they flatten to bore size. I don't think I'll be able to come with a decent slug in these conditions.Seems to me the major complaints about the .45/410 judges come not exactly because of free bore or shallow rifling. I guess it has more to do with the boolit being squished inside of cylinder chamber to meet .410 measurements then being pushed inside an oversized bore (have no proof of this just my personal speculation. If some more experienced could jump in and teach me...). This way I believe the boolit probably can't be expanded enough again.I loaded a full box of magtech brass some with 3/8oz birdshot loads, some with single "ball" (MG buckshot), some with double balls, .40 and ~.44 (MG), seated over a .20 hard card (adhesive tape core), 6gr of fast burning powder, overshot sealed with wife's old nail polish. Ball payload ranged from 200gr to 1/2oz. Wad was seated at 22mm (.86") from case mouth.Didn't shoot any yet as I had to work in the past weekends. Hopefully the next week I can report something.

[cpileri]

Can you trim a 9.3x74R brass to cylinder length, then fireform it to diameter; as in a shortened 450 Mongo wildcat? then just load it like a loooong 45 colt or a shotshell?
that should fit a 45 diameter ball or slug.

or would that leave you w the same problem as your current hulls?