Maynard carbine

[Racing]

Yeah, ok. So i bought this at an auction recently and expect delivery end of the week. As you guys might be aware the Maynard of said vintage uses a brass shell sans a primer, these shells looking rather odd IMO.

Anyways. Living over in Sweden since ages i spoke to our go to guy about brass and from the looks of it it first up is rather expensive and second of all about nil as far as available. Due Covid i guess.
That had me thinking, asking a friend that owns one for the dimensions of the cartridge...

I do own a machin shop (lathe, bridgeport, TIG et al) and as i searched the net it SEEMS that brass for the 50 Beowulf could be had to work.?
Has anyone else gone down this route? IF it indeed is on the money the 50 Beo shells would be approx 1/6th the cost of ready made brass so.. fabbing up a 100 would be doable in a heartbeat.



The rear "culot" of the case, cut off. Just a brutal delete. Then of course shorten as needed to fit the Maynard chamber.
Need be in turn add "washers" to the base of the case to resemble the OEM Maynard jobbies, to get that "flange" the originals got, just out of regular brass. In that case fab a simple jig to braze the two together.
At least my current thinking.

[Battis]

What caliber is it?

[Wayne Smith]

Probably need to wait until you get the gun and do a chamber cast. Cerrosafe if you have or can get some. Then you know the actual dimensions of your chamber and can plan the best way to make brass. Yes, if I remember correctly those had a very large rim on them, probably folded in the making of the case. Brazing on a washer to fit your chamber recess is your most likely way to fabricate that.

[Bigslug]

Look for my "Any Maynards Here?" thread over on the single shots subforum. The brass gets discussed somewhat there. I assume you're dealing with the same .50-52 Civil War percussion gun? My father was able to obtain the brass for his readily enough. I have to figure that your time spent trying to fab a rebated rim case with a standard primer pocket into something that might work will incur a higher cost in blood, sweat, and tears than the act of simply buying the right brass for the job.

We're early stages still, but the profile of the Accurate Molds 52-390S turned out to be an absolutely perfect fit based on our chamber sluggings. We tweaked the diameter slightly based on the slugging diameter, but otherwise left Tom's blueprint totally alone (details documented in that thread)

We're using Triple 7 instead of true black, so Dad's opening up the flash holes slightly to improve speed and reliability of ignition.

Initial results are EXTREMELY promising. The rear sight is drift-able for windage, but the hammer sits very close to the line of sight when zeroed and crowds the sight picture. We're probably going to see if the front sight is also moveable in it's dovetail (hopefully not soldered), and try moving BOTH sights to so as to unclutter the sight picture while still shooting to desired POA/POI.

All that said, we had enough close and near-cloverleafs with those rudimentary iron sights to have fairly confident it's a 2-3 MOA rifle without feeling like I'm talking out of my butt while saying it. It's a NEAT gun!

[Nobade]

I'd buy some of these...https://www.lodgewood.com/Maynard-Br...city_p_26.html
and then write a lathe routine to make yourself more.

[ndnchf]

This is an interesting project. I've not played with a Maynard, but if one fell my way - I'd be all over it. But I'm currently taking Starline .56-50 centerfire brass and converting it to reloadable .56-50 rimfire cases for my Remington split breech carbine. Great fun.

[bedbugbilly]

As Nobade posted - check with David at Lodgewood

https://www.lodgewood.com/Cartridge-Cases_c_8.html

I don't know as far as issues with shipping to Sweden - but if caliber/casing is the same - a sample would allow you to take measurements to turn and machine your own - or perhaps there is a machinist on here who could get one and take measurements for you?

[Nobade]

Way more money than I have to play with but a really nice example of a Maynard...
https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categ.../493/1/AAS-361

[Racing]

Thx guys!





The thing showed up and i ripped her apart, to check. As it turns out.. all in good working order. Absolutely nothing to bitch about.
Yeah, even that pitted old nipple/cone is usable as it turned out.



The rear sight i have to say is the best i´ve encountered on a CW carbine thus far. What complicates a little is that the hammer about, as noted, ends up juuuuuuust shy of your line of sight.
Once used to it though, no worries.



Actual lever though, what WERE they thinking? So small to the only way to operate it is with your thumb and index.



For once "Mr Handyman" seems NOT to have been in the picture all that much thank god. Screw heads and so forth NOT butchered up.





Now. The thing came with an original cartridge, one that was supposed to be inept/"deactivated". Suuuure.. sure it was. Sry to say some Italian had gone ape on the thing with a pair of pliers why i opted to drill the thing out of there. Oxidation kept the thing from just being pulled.
..and there was blackpowder. Which i poured onto the work bench and took a mini torch to it. HELLO!
Guess the pic says it all.

Anyways.



This thing takes the same boolit as the Smith carbines and see.. we´ve already got those on file in our CAD system so.. Dial in at 390 grains. Then.. the 50 Beowulf brass showed up. Yes. This´ll work just fine. Cut the rear off of them and am going to braze the primer pocket shut and drill with a 0,8mm drill bit - to minimize backpressure.
Then anneal the top of the cartridges and use an expander to make them 518" Smith boolits fit aaaand.. then basically anneal the entire thing to make it take to its new intended surroundings.
Loads of work to save a buck? No, not really. Over here the ready made Maynard brass is just insanely expensive. This here is about a dollar a pop while a ready made case runs 7.
In other words for 100 cases we´re talking a difference of 600 dollars, and 100 was indeed what was delivered (Beo cases)
Nuff said.

[Nobade]

Neat! looks like fun.

[Bigslug]

Had Dad's out at the range yesterday.

We happily learned that the front and rear sights were both NOT soldered into place. This was handy because the hammer rides pretty close to the centerline and can mess with a good sight picture. We were able to drift both sights over to the left slightly and restart the zeroing process. Got the windage sorted out and were merrily thumping jugs at 100 yards. You have to pretty much bury the front sight all the way at the bottom of the rear notch to achieve this - probably one of those period "hold-on-their-belt-buckle" aiming techniques.

On the same trip, I was also doing some penetration testing of handgun bullets and ended up with jugs left over - Mr Maynard seems to be good for about seven of them, in case anybody was wondering.

[Green Frog]

A frequently used substitute for North-South Skirmish events is [I]plastic[I] cases (actually some sort of polyethylene.) Currently the brass cases at Lodgewood are about $3 ea while the plastic cases are only a fraction of that cost. Also, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a couple of hundred plastic fittings through customs... “who knew they fit into a gun?” Competitors get one or more seasons out of a set of them, and no reloading tool to seat the bullet is needed!

Froggie

[Racing]

Uhu.
Plz keep in mind that i live across the pond rendering that US hang tags on stuff is rather far from the truth to me.
A "regular" Maynard brass hull runs us over here approx 8$ at the moment, bringing that 100 of them turns into a bit of change.

Compared to the 50 Beo hulls which runs us like 1,20$ (120 bux for a bag of 100 incl shipping)

Anyways. Fooled around quite a bit with where to touch down, smooth extraction being part of that equation. Well. The Beo shells already has a rim, a 9mm para one, why i just opted to cut that back on the lathe and then trim overall length accordingly. Seeing we´re talking black powder and in turn "extraction by hand" (have fabbed a small "fork" out of stainless to yank the used ones out of the chamber) i figured there´s no need for that massive rim of the 50 Beo.



So. Current situation. This is just shy of 30 of them, but from practical tests we now know this to work a million bux. As far as i´ve understood the tools for 56-50 Spencer can be used, within realms, to handle these shells on a loading press?
No matter.



Turning a quick n ugly expander tool made me end up where i wanted to be. Annealing the brass first of course, and while at it brazing the former primer pockets shut..
Then opening up an orifice of 0,8mm diameter out back, which is plenty to get the blackpowder onboard to go hello. Thus minimizing backpressure out said hole, and thereby keeping leakage to an absolute minimum.

The slug in turn is out of one of our "home brew" CNC molds we make for the Smith carbine, and them boolits seem to work great in this Maynard of mine too.



So. 60 grains of Swiss and then an over powder card out of milk carton followed by said 390 grain greased up pill out of 1:20 alloy.

Yeah. We´re right where i want to be actually

[Captain*Kirk]

Carry on...we are all waiting to see this one shoot!

[Racing]

Indeed, so..



A bag of boom in short.



...n here´s the summary. This works so well it a damn joke. Gas leakage rearwards is in a word nil. Zero. Extraction is simple too in turn. The approx 80 cases has now been fire formed and... what can i say?

Sure.
Turning them 50 Beo casings into Maynard ones takes a tad of work, no argument, but to us over here in Europe the difference in cost is to laugh at. It comes down to 1/6th to 1/7th the money.

Yes. You need to anneal them and yes before that you need to cut the brass on a lathe but.. to me over here the savings alone is like 600$. U do the math, and as this turned out, how well it works, well...

Yeah btw.
The -62 manufacture Colt 1860 did just as well
Handed the work it needed.

[Ajohns]

Very nice, and very interesting!
Looks like a good setup!

[John in PA]

I shot a Second Model Maynard like yours in N-SSA competition for many years. My target load was 34-36 grains GOEX CTG with the Lyman 350 grain bullet cast 5% tin/lead. The Maynard is a LIGHT gun! I'm guessing that 60 grains Swiss really gives you a shove!! It appears your cases are considerably longer that original style, so a bit more volume available?

[Nobade]

That is great news that it works so well! Congratulations on your inventiveness and success!