Here's the 1873 I bought last Saturday.

[Babbott213]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm reading them all.


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[braddonovan67]

Very nice!

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[w30wcf]

You know I'm really only wanting to do BP loads with this gun. I'm a newbie to BP cartridges, so I'll be taking my time with it for sure. Thanks!!

I have found that b.p. residue builds up in the crevices of my 73's less than perfect barrel and accuracy starts to deteriorate quickly. The type of b.p. used also makes a difference. With the standard two lube grooved bullet (lyman 427098 / Accurate Mold 43-210B), Goex fouls out in about 7 rounds......with Swiss, about 20 rounds.

With the Accurate 43-215C / Swiss powder combination, I fired 30 rounds with accuracy being maintained throughout (most I had loaded that day).



By comparison, in a smooth barrel, the two lube groove bullet, with Swiss, will be accurate for 50+ rounds. One user reported firing 120 rounds with accuracy being maintained throughout.

Olde Enysford is another powder that should do as well as Swiss. I use SPG lube.



Have fun!
w30wcf

[ajjohns]

In my 73 38 WCF, I came across a load of IMR 4227. Using 17.2 grs of it and 6.3 grs of poly shot buffer with a 180 gr lead boolit. I would presume this recipe would be a good start point for the 44. It worked wonders in mine as my chamber has a big neck. I had terrible leading in mine otherwise and the buffer works as a gascheck so to speak. I have an average of 1350 fps and very tight groups at 75 yds. If, you want to use smokeless powder instead of black.

[w30wcf]

ajjohns,
Glad to hear that the PSB is working well for you.

Before I found my original '73 in 1999, I bought some Winchester .44-40 Cowboy cartridges in anticipation of someday owning a rifle in that vintage caliber. In addition, I had also purchased some reloading dies and a Lyman 427098 mold which is a copy of the original .44-40 bullet.

Alas, my '73 turned out to have an oversized barrel and those cartridges printed bullets with sideways profiles at 25 yards. Ugh! I thought, now what do I do with the rest of them? I ended up pulling the cast bullets which were a bit too hard at 17 BHN and undersized at .428" and dumped the fast burning powder.

I thought if I could keep the gas behind the undersized bullet that perhaps the bullet would center itself in the bore and at least go through the target point on. At that time there had been some experimentation of using Winchester Super Grex as an over powder filler for the purpose of producing more consistant reduced loads in rifle cartridges.

I decided to try that to see if it would act as a flexible gas check so i resized the cases, loaded 16 grs of H4227 and filled up the rest of the case with Winchester Super Grex (obsolete now) which was a PSB (polyethylene shot buffer) and reseated the pulled bullets. Thankfully, it worked!

Eventually, I had a bullet mold made to cast the correct sized bullet to fit the rifle and no longer need to use PSB.

With the correct size bullets I entered the .40 caliber and over postal match several years ago. Distance was 50 yards.



Those vintage '73's will shoot when fed the proper diet!

w30wcf

[w30wcf]

To continue.....
I am lucky in that my '73 will shoot bullets of the proper size for the bore aok.

That is not always true for some rifles..........

Just recently, a distant friend of mine acquired a vintage 1873 rifle and found that from the muzzle inward for about 1 1/2", the barrel was a bit larger than the rest of the barrel which, when checked, measured .427. He does not know how big the forward portion is, just that the slug tightened up 1 1/2" into the barrel. He has been a bullet caster and reloader for many years and tried .429" bullets of minimum hardness with different smokeless powders and was not able to produce any acceptable groups.

I suggested he try PSB as a flexible gas check. He did and was happy with the result. I also suggested trying just a .06" poly disc which would also work as a flexible gas check as I found in some testing several years ago with undersized bullets. To use the poly disc in the .44-40 though, the neck needs to be a bit longer to retain the poly check. In order to do that, I had to remove .10" from the bottom of the sizing die, which I did and the poly check worked as well as PSB. He is going to give that a try next.

w30wcf

[flyin brian]

I've been working on a load for my 1873 in 38-40, so I am really interested in these types of threads. I plan to do a lot of testing this winter and see what I can wring out of it. So far I am loading a 180gr cast with 6.0 gr unique. I had been using 6.8gr in my Marlin 1889 but it leaded up in the 1873, I guess the bore is a little rougher than the Marlin.

[w30wcf]

Brian,
It could very well be that the groove diameter in your '73 is larger than the one in the Marlin. My '73 has a somewhat rough bore and I have never had any leading issues using smokeless with bullets (10-12 BHN)
that properly fit the barrel.

w30wcf

[w30wcf]

In looking through my notes, I found that several years ago I had purchased these hollow base bullets from Buffalo Arms to try in my oversized '73.

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Detail.as...57241&CAT=4135

They worked pretty well, the hollow base bumping up to fill the groove diameter. They are a bit expensive though at almost .50 each.

Accuracy, although ok (much better than undersized cast bullets), was not quite as good as bullets that fit the barrel.

w30wcf

[Babbott213]

Well just over 6 years ago and many different powder and boolits combinations, I think I have settled on the one that I like the most with this soon to be 144 year old Model 1873. Many Thanks to Mr. John Kort. Even though he’s no longer here with us, his humble helpings still are. I owe a lot to him for getting me where I am today with this old gun.

I broke down a few weeks ago and ordered the Accurate 43-215C mold and bought me a Lee 20 pound bottom pour pot, pure lead and other tools that I needed to get started casting. Once I got started, my second run of casting finally turned out good. Lubed them up with some SPG and loaded them over 35 grains of 2F Swiss. They averaged 1,186fps and held a nice grouping on the steel plate at about 30 yards.

My first run of these boolits was 24 pieces and after I was done I ran my bore scope down the barrel and it was surprisingly clean. For black powder anyway. It took me 5 patches to get the barrel all cleaned up.

Over the past 6 years I haven’t shot her much, other than running some test loads through her, so I’ve only shot her from once to maybe twice a year in these 6 years. But now, that will definitely be changing. I have about 75 more projectiles left to load up, and I’ll probably go ahead and cast another 100 or maybe even 200 or more now so I’ll have them ready to go when needed.

Now to try them out in my other 73 that I bought last year around this time and spent most of the year getting it back to shooting quality. It’s been rode hard and put up wet a lot in its past 130 years. But she’s definitely a shooter now though.

Here is a video that I posted up to my YouTube channel telling more about my soon to be 144 year old Model 1873.


https://youtu.be/KEo77bHNTyY
















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[RadarsRUs]

Hey There Babbott, Thanks for keeping those old Girls alive and showing them that love. I have to be happy with my 44-40 chambered Uberti 1873 24” sporting rifle clone, but I enjoy the Dickens out of the rifle and Reloading that 44 WCF ammo.
I am not casting my own slugs ( I know…shame on me) but I shoot pretty much that same bullet as cast by Matts Bullets. I assume is a copy of the 430-215C large lube you have there. It is very well cast, flat based & accurate.
John Taffin and his apprentice of sort “Savvy Jack” have also done fantastic work on that great American cartridge. I’m sure you’ve already seen all the awesome pressure testing and load development that “Jack” did over the past Half decade.
I get the biggest hoot from driving these boolets at 1350-1400 fps with a Max (but Safe for toggle action) load of 25.7 gr. RE-7 and Knocking the **** out of plates at 100 yards with a Marbles peep while the young ones are pinging away with their AR’s…
They are quick to Oogle and want to fire this “ Old School Cool” beauty!!

[Babbott213]

Absolutely RadarsRUS!! I have AR’s as well, but they stay in the safe most of the time. These old guns are more fun to shoot to me.


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[pworley1]

She looks like she can go for another 100 years. Congratulations.

[veeman]

I'm gonna hafta git me one of them molds!

[GregLaROCHE]

You’ve got a real beauty of a gun there. Thanks for letting others have a look at it.

[KenH]

Some places really frown on posting to an old post. This update to a 2016 thread shows how good it can be. Thank you for the update, by having the original 2016 thread followed by the new posts it gives a good story.

Good thread. I love those old guns. I've got an 1876 in 40-60 that I enjoy. It was made in 1883 that I enjoy shooting. I wrote about it in another thread.

[Babbott213]

Some places really frown on posting to an old post. This update to a 2016 thread shows how good it can be. Thank you for the update, by having the original 2016 thread followed by the new posts it gives a good story.

Good thread. I love those old guns. I've got an 1876 in 40-60 that I enjoy. It was made in 1883 that I enjoy shooting. I wrote about it in another thread.

Yeah, I was really contemplating on starting a new post, but since it was a continuation of a old post that’s just kinda been put on hold, I thought that it would be fitting to kinda pick up where I left off. I had to put things off as the company I have been working for was sold TWICE since 2020. The first was a investment firm and the second was where we can now call home, so the past couple of years I had to put some projects on hold to stay focused on my JOB. Things have leveled off now, so it’s time to get back to my hobbies now. Thanks Everyone for the kind words.


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[missionary5155]

Old Rifles are well beyond just being metal and wood. They are the history of our dreams today what we feel in our hearts about fairness and Freedom. They have already faithfully served generations and stand ready as a good friend to do it all again.

[FredBuddy]

Such a beautiful rifle.

Missionary summed it up well.

The video made me get out my 120 year old
30-40 Krag in 'as issued' condition and fire a few
rounds through it. The cans flew up over the
berm at 50 yards. I feel better now.

[Babbott213]

Such a beautiful rifle.

Missionary summed it up well.

The video made me get out my 120 year old
30-40 Krag in 'as issued' condition and fire a few
rounds through it. The cans flew up over the
berm at 50 yards. I feel better now.

Very Good!!!


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