Largest Bottleneck Case loaded ?

[.30carbnut]

Hello all, I have a question. What is the largest bottleneck case that you have loaded successfully with black powder and a cast boolit. I should add how did it shoot.

(Edited to add) The reason for asking this is I have a 338 barrel that I thought about building a BP and lead rifle out of. I have a lot of older brass that would be great with the lower pressure BP loads. The lapua case is large (117 gr H2o) and I was wandering if any one had any luck with large capacity bottleneck cases and black powder.

All input is appreciated.

[Don McDowell]

44-77 Sharps.

[Lead pot]

.50 BMG. That is a .50-2.5 along side.
But my regular BN is a .44-2-5/8 BN that is a great shooter.

[martinibelgian]

577-450 Martini...

[Mk42gunner]

.43 Spanish, the pencil necked brother of the 44-77 Sharps.

Robert

[Dan Cash]

.577/450

[.30carbnut]

.50 BMG. That is a .50-2.5 along side.
But my regular BN is a .44-2-5/8 BN that is a great shooter.

WOW a 50 BMG, ok you have my attention!! could you give me some details on the load, how did it shoot and was it very accurate?
I have a .338 Lapua Magnum that I shoot smokeless and powder-coated lead in. The reason for asking this is I have a 338 barrel that I thought about building a BP and lead rifle out of. I have a lot of older brass that would be great with the lower pressure BP loads. The lapua case is large (117 gr H2o) and I was wandering if any one had any luck with large capacity bottleneck cases and black powder. Thanks all for the reply's so far keep them coming.

[BrentD]

Another for the 577/450. That was big enough for me.

[Nobade]

I doubt you'd be very happy with the 338LM and black powder. The fouling would be horrendous. My own 375 H&H works passibly well with BP, but needs to be heavily duplexed or I have to wipe after every shot. If I were to do a 338 and black, it would be a 33-40. (32-40 case on a 338 barrel) Now there's a good BP cartridge!

-Nobade

[Earlwb]

I have owned and shot some rifles in .45-70 using black powder and those are fun to shoot albeit the recoil might bother some people more though. I did try both a 577/450 and the 577 Snider too. Then I helped someone with a Sharps rifle and cartridges for it in a monster .50-140 size. That is 140 grains of black powder and if I remember right we were using 500 to 600 grain bullets with it. With this gun it doesn't take long to empty a one pound can of black powder either. Also it eats up several pounds of lead in short order when casting the bullets too. But it was pretty fun to shoot though. Recoil was a bit stout so you didn't want to shoot it a whole lot in one day. But some of these aren't bottle necked cartridges though.

Oh yeah, I have a rifle chambered for the .43 Egyptian round, but I haven't done anything with it yet. I have to fix the stock first, and then make a chamber cast to ensure it is really in that caliber or not.

[Lead pot]

WOW a 50 BMG, ok you have my attention!! could you give me some details on the load, how did it shoot and was it very accurate?
I have a .338 Lapua Magnum that I shoot smokeless and powder-coated lead in. The reason for asking this is I have a 338 barrel that I thought about building a BP and lead rifle out of. I have a lot of older brass that would be great with the lower pressure BP loads. The lapua case is large (117 gr H2o) and I was wandering if any one had any luck with large capacity bottleneck cases and black powder. Thanks all for the reply's so far keep them coming.

It was a bust. To much powder pushing a lead bullet to hard and to tight of a twist. It wouldn't stay on a SR target at 200.
When I was shooting my .50 he asked me if I would load some for him so I just loaded 20 for the guy that had the BMG.

[Huvius]

The 461 No.2 Gibbs and the 450/400 3-1/4" have pretty long necks and can shoot very well.
I agree that you may be chasing your tail with a .338" barrel and a big volume case but making something off of a 348 Win. would get you a pretty overbore BPE cartridge.

[BRUCE MOULDS]

huvius,
2 most interesting cartridges.
are you shooting them dirty, and if so do you like the long necks to hold some form of wads?
keep safe,
bruce.

[Huvius]

I do shoot them dirty to about ten rounds but I patch to bore.
The Gibbs has Metford rifling and the 400 has Henry rifling. I think these rifling forms let go of fouling more easily than Enfield and modern rifling with sharp lands.
I haven't loaded the Gibbs to full power - don't really know why - but when it was developed, the longer neck was to allow for more powder than the No.1 Gibbs so I did use more wadding than it was originally designed to take. Just taking up space in the neck and I didn't feel the need to compress the powder.
The bullets in the British cartridges seem to be seated deeper than a lot of their American contemporaries too so a lot of neck space is taken up by the boolit.

[Lead pot]

The 577-450 with it's short wide diameter case and long neck looks like it should be a pretty efficient powder burning shell that would increase the velocity of the gases getting forced down like a rocket engine increasing bullet velocity.
My .44-90 Bn has a higher velocity with the same powder load of a straight wall case.
I never has a 577-450.

[martinibelgian]

Actually, something like no.2 musket or .45 Turkish are much better rounds when talking BN cartridges - but in spite of all its faults, the 577-450 is a pretty good round.... It just needs a heavier, larger bullet than original spec.

[mazo kid]

Largest I have loaded are the 45-90, 45-120, 45 Beaumont and 43 Mauser.

[Earlwb]

The largest bottle necked black powder cartridges go back to around the end of the buffalo hunting in the 1860's and 1870's. The .44-77 came out around 1869 and held 77 grains of powder. But later in the 1870's they had the .40-90 and .40-100 Sharps. There were also the .45-90, .45-100, .45-125 too. There were some others in this powder capacity range as well. Thus the biggest bottle necked cartridge with the most powder capacity was probably the .40-100 Sharps but the .45-125 Winchester did have a little bit of a bottle neck to it, so maybe it is the winner.

[Huvius]

Funny, I was stuck on thinking about your .338" barrel and forgot the bigger bore bottleneck cartridges I load for.
The 461 Gibbs is very close to the 500/450 No.2 Musket. Both have a pretty long neck.

The 500/450 No.1 Express is a bit longer with a shorter neck - more case capacity - 90 to 120grs of black depending on boolit weight.

I also shoot 577/500 No.2 which is really the biggest bottlenecked BPE cartridge I own. The original Kynoch load was 130grs of powder and a 300gr boolit. It is a wonderful cartridge with BP or H4198.

[Earlwb]

I had forgotten about the elephant or big game guns in the black powder era. But they were mostly all straight case cartridge guns, just a few bottlenecked cartridges. But the videos are fun to watch. I don't think I have the fortitude to try shooting one myself anymore.

Shooting the big 2 bore rifle (1250 grain bullet with 12 drams of black powder) in a brass cartridge case.