.44-40 lessons learned

[Thundermaker]

I've been shooting black powder for the majority of my life, but this is my first time loading it in a cartridge. This is also my first time loading .44-40, which has its own little quirks. I've learned a number of things concerning the cartridge, rcbs dies, and Winchester/miroku rifles. I thought I'd document them here. This might be "duh" material for some of you, but here it is.

Lessons learned:

1. You really can't get away with the stock expander plug in an RCBS die set if you're using bullets larger than .427. I'm using .430s. They further expand the neck, and, due to the thin case neck, it is nearly impossible to seat them perfectly straight. They will bulge the case neck on one side just about every time, at least with winchester brass (which, I grant you, is significantly thinner than Remington or starline). I'll be calling RCBS about a .429 plug. See pic below for reference.

2. You can cram 40 grains of 2f Sheutzen in a modern .44-40 case, but you really need to use a compression die of some sort, as opposed to using the bullet to compress the powder. I did it, but the nose of the bullet was deformed by the seating plug, which leads me to the next lesson.

3. The bullet seating plug in RCBS dies just isn't shaped right. I don't know what kind of bullet it is made for. The way it deformed the bullet looks like it was made for some sort of round nose. Even when I dropped to 35 grains for subsequent loads (giving about 1/8" compression) it still deformed the edges of the meplat. The bullets are cast from wheel weights but not water dropped. See pic below for reference.

4. The new Winchester/miroku '92s have very generous chambers. Even with a .430 bullet and the bulge in the neck, the rounds still drop right in.


Here is the one round I loaded with 40 grains. It displays all the issues.

[HWooldridge]

Yes, all true. My RCBS dies are about 45 years old and have a .427 expander. I do seat .429 bullets and set them by eye without too much trouble - but - I did turn the end of the plug back a bit so the tip of the bullet touches. I also expand the cases mouths more than most people but I also anneal necks every 2-3 reloading cycles. One of these days, I may make another seater to exactly fit the John Kort design I use but it works well enough for now.

I fill sized and primed 44-40 cases to the top with 3Fg BP then I compress that with a dedicated plug die. As you noted, the bullet is way too soft to mash the powder. That’s still not 40 grs in modern cases - more like 37-38.

Both of my older 44-40 rifles have .427 bores but they like .429 pills from 12 BHN lead.

[greenjoytj]

Buffalo Arms Co (BACO) custom made my powder compression plug threaded to fit my expander die.
I like a flat surface bullet seater for my flat nose bullets.

If your bullet seater is embossing a circular mark on you bullet that a signal you trying to compress too much powder with the bullet and it time to use a dedicated compression plug.
Not sure if you could use a compression plug as a bullet seating plug, dual purpose?

I believe trying to put 40 gr of powder into a modern solid head case is equivalent to putting ~43 gr into a old original 1873 era case.
36 to 37 gr today would equal the old 40 gr pressure wise due to the smaller volume of space under the bullet in a modern cases with thicker side walls and solid head.


What your bullet? Does you bullet carry enough lube for your barrel length?

[Hick]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the cases that took 40 grains of Black Powder were balloon head cases. That's why only around 37-38 grains works in modern cases. Can't remember where I read it so I might be wrong.

[Randy Bohannon]

I have two of the Win/Miroku 1873 rifles both in 44/40/WCF and have been two of the easiest rifles to get excellent accuracy from . Accurate mould #423-215C has been a amazingly accurate bullet out to 200 yards with 37 grains of O.E. or Swiss 1.5 .bullet sizing has been dependent on the brass used .429” RP brass, .430” WW brass,alloy is RotoMetals 16:1 , lube 50/50 Olive oil beeswax with some SPG added when it’s on sale.
Savvy Jack on this forum and a deceased member John Korth have done yeomans work with the 44-40 WCF cartridge.

All of your observations are valid for first time B/P cartridge loading I had the benefit of doing other B/P cartridges before the 44-40 WCF. I was set up pretty good to get good results out of the gate.

[Thundermaker]

If your bullet seater is embossing a circular mark on you bullet that a signal you trying to compress too much powder with the bullet and it time to use a dedicated compression plug.
Not sure if you could use a compression plug as a bullet seating plug, dual purpose?

I believe trying to put 40 gr of powder into a modern solid head case is equivalent to putting ~43 gr into a old original 1873 era case.
36 to 37 gr today would equal the old 40 gr pressure wise.

What your bullet? Does you bullet carry enough lube for your barrel length?

It's not embossing a circular mark. It's rounding the nose off. My bullet is John Kort's design, the 43-215c from accurate. If you know what that bullet looks like, you can see the deformation in the picture I posted. It's rounding the corners of the meplat. It even does it with 35 grains, just not as much.

40 grains works fine in these Winchester cases. I just need a compression die. Funny thing is, I'm using a lee hand press to load these. Even at 40 grains, I was able to squeeze the handles together with one hand to seat the bullet. The handles on that thing actually have some give in them, but they didn't even flex. Maybe I just don't know my own strength, but I'm thinking a properly shaped seater would solve the issue.

As for the seater, my rcbs .45acp dies came with two different seating plugs. One is for round nose. The other is for flat nose. I don't know why they didn't do that for these dies. At the very least, you'd think they'd put a flat one in there, since .44-40 is a levergun cartridge, and 99.99% of people are going to be loading flat point bullets.

In any case, I'm going to use a compression die from now on.

As for the bullet seating, part of the problem is that I ran them through the sizing die first to straighten out a bunch of deformed necks. That RCBS die really squeezes the necks down, maybe too much. That is probably the last time these cases will see a sizing die unless they get deformed or hard to chamber. From now on, it's just seat and crimp.

[Don McDowell]

You can use the expander die to compress the powder. Another possibility is maybe going back and rechecking that the crimp isn't a bit much, back the seating die off an 1/8 of a turn and make sure you're not trying to finish seating the bullet after the bullet is crimped.
The 3 original wcf cases are relatively thin in the case mouth and it doesn't take much to bugger them up in the reloading process.

[sharps4590]

First, my RCBS dies for the 44-40 are new. Secondly, I've been loading BPC's since the early 80's and never found cramming the old powder charges into new cases either beneficial or accurate. I've never experienced any of the difficulties mentioned for my '73 Uberti/Cimmaron. I'm shooting the Lee bullet at .429.

[Finster101]

RCBS makes a set of 44-40 dies for cowboy action. They are geared more toward lead bullets. It has a larger expander plug I believe. I will measure mine later today and post the findings. You may be able to order that expander plug separately.

[indian joe]

First, my RCBS dies for the 44-40 are new. Secondly, I've been loading BPC's since the early 80's and never found cramming the old powder charges into new cases either beneficial or accurate. I've never experienced any of the difficulties mentioned for my '73 Uberti/Cimmaron. I'm shooting the Lee bullet at .429.

I like the look of that LEE boolit (and the price of the mold) but never been able to get enough lube on it to work well with Blackpowder - must be our dry climate and your humidity makes the difference ?

can get 40 grains into a modern case so long as use a 200grain boolit and a compression die - "beneficial or accurate" ? shoot it and see answers that - my take is if accuracy is maintained then we get the benefit of increased velocity, which leads on to improved boolit stability at longer ranges ?

Some fellers like to go full throttle others like to pussyfoot around - having fun? then its all good!

[HWooldridge]

I like the look of that LEE boolit (and the price of the mold) but never been able to get enough lube on it to work well with Blackpowder - must be our dry climate and your humidity makes the difference ?

can get 40 grains into a modern case so long as use a 200grain boolit and a compression die - "beneficial or accurate" ? shoot it and see answers that - my take is if accuracy is maintained then we get the benefit of increased velocity, which leads on to improved boolit stability at longer ranges ?

Some fellers like to go full throttle others like to pussyfoot around - having fun? then its all good!

FYI, the 43-215C Kort bullet design from Accurate has a big lube groove just for black powder - and it also works just fine with smokeless. The little bit of extra lube applied might make a difference in yield over thousands of bullets but the performance outweighs the loss.

[Thundermaker]

You can use the expander die to compress the powder. Another possibility is maybe going back and rechecking that the crimp isn't a bit much, back the seating die off an 1/8 of a turn and make sure you're not trying to finish seating the bullet after the bullet is crimped.
The 3 original wcf cases are relatively thin in the case mouth and it doesn't take much to bugger them up in the reloading process.

I'm crimping as a separate step with the Lee factory crimp die.

[Thundermaker]

RCBS makes a set of 44-40 dies for cowboy action. They are geared more toward lead bullets. It has a larger expander plug I believe. I will measure mine later today and post the findings. You may be able to order that expander plug separately.

That's what I'm looking into. The plug in my set measures .425". RCBS has always been good to me. Their customer service seems to like serving customers. What a novel idea, huh?

[Nobade]

My RCBS die set is fairly old, early 1970's. The expander plug is .428" and works just fine with .430" bullets. I just started playing with 44-40, wanting to resurrect my Dad's '73 carbine that hadn't been fired during my 60 year lifetime. He had told me when I was a kid that he thought it was worn out since it was not accurate. I got a good look at it, and didn't see anything really wrong so gathered what I needed to shoot it. I already had a NOE blackpowder mould, 200 grains with a big groove so used that. 2.2cc of powder or about 33 grains fit comfortably with a bit of compression so that was the load. The first three shots hit 6 inches high at 50 yards and centered, with a group about an inch. I guess he had tried shooting it with factory smokeless ammo since it worked just fine with mine. I don't see any need to try to put more powder in it and make things hard on myself. If I feel I need more velocity, a couple grains of smokeless powder will take care of that and I can use even less black. So far this project is a lot of fun and maybe I'll even be able to get a deer with it this year to remember Dad.

[sharps4590]

I don't know where you are joe but, we assuredly don't lack for humidity. That 3 extra grs. of black might give you 20 fps. I have tried the full, compressed loads in several cartridges. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have offered my experience and opinion. If you like it, that's fine but, over almost 40 years of working with 20-25 different BPC cartridges, rifle and revolver, foreign and domestic, I've never seen it worth the effort or extra powder, not for such minimal returns.

Thinking back, I don't remember what I did with the Lee bullet, whether I used a grease cookie or not. I know I didn't with any revolvers but, I might have with a rifle, for the reason you mentioned....it's been a while.

[Larry Gibson]

I have the RCBS "Cowboy" 44-40 dies and have no problems loading softer cast [20 or 16 -1 alloy] which are sized .429 or .430.

[Texas by God]

Barely above no experience loading BP here; but I have a question. Why FFG? Is it more consistent than FFFG? Well, actually another question. Would a TL design hold enough Lube to use with black powder?

[Outpost75]

Barely above no experience loading BP here; but I have a question. Why FFG? Is it more consistent than FFFG? Well, actually another question. Would a TL design hold enough Lube to use with black powder?

I use 3Fg Goex only because that is what I can get. If better quality powder like Swiss or KIK 2Fg would be powder of choice.

TL design bullets do not hold enough lube for black. I use John Kort design Accurate 43-215C with 50-50 olive oil beeswax. Proven combination.

[Thundermaker]

I used 2F because I have a lot of it.

[Nobade]

Barely above no experience loading BP here; but I have a question. Why FFG? Is it more consistent than FFFG? Well, actually another question. Would a TL design hold enough Lube to use with black powder?

Because it works better in larger cartridges than finer powder. I'll use 3f in the 32-20 and smaller, otherwise 2f until I get to the really big rifle cartridges then I switch to 1f.