.56-50 brass check

panhead pete · August 03, 2011, 08:56:12 PM

Have you tried Buffalo Arms?

PhP

Sean Thornton · August 03, 2011, 09:08:51 PM

Quote from: PvtGreg on August 03, 2011, 08:42:26 PM
The plastic 32s that Sean Thorton uses work if you resize them all the way to the rim, so I think these will as well.

While the 32 gauge shells work fantastic for blanks they do not work for live rounds. Once the bullet is seated they become too big since the case walls are thicker than brass cases. I have loaded and tried one of these a few months ago but would not chamber in my Taylor. In the past I have made cases from .50-70 and also could be made from .50-90 brass. Buffalo Arms used to carry the brass also.

JimBob · August 03, 2011, 10:24:49 PM

Previous experience in shortening some cases has required that the inside of the neck had to be reamed.The brass got thicker the closer to the base it was shortened.I remember C-H/4D had the reamer dies and reamers but they were rather costly.

Jan Buchwald · August 04, 2011, 12:47:15 AM

I use my lathe to shorten. I use a split sleeve in the right length, and machine to the length. This way, the case is supported too.

ndnchf · August 04, 2011, 07:14:07 AM

That's a good idea jbw. If I need to make a bunch of them, that's the way to go.

PvtGreg · August 04, 2011, 11:11:21 AM

Sean's right - I meant to say the the plastic cases will chamber as blanks when they are re sized full length

Thanks for the correction Sean

mtmarfield · August 06, 2011, 02:31:01 AM

Greetings!

Also, don't forget that if you have access to .348 WCF brass, they can be cut to length after fire-forming or expanding. Although some have trouble extracting them with the knife-blade extractors, they pop right out in the Infantry Rifles that use the Layne extractors.

Be Well!

M.T.Marfield
8-06-11

PvtGreg · August 10, 2011, 07:39:38 PM

Report - 32ga brass.

In the 56-50 Armisport Spencer with just normal resizing - no good, you can't resize it.

Shucks!

JimBob · August 10, 2011, 08:27:38 PM

Quote from: PvtGreg on August 10, 2011, 07:39:38 PM
Report - 32ga brass.

In the 56-50 Armisport Spencer with just normal resizing - no good, you can't resize it.

Shucks!

Could you elabotate on this a little?

Jan Buchwald · August 11, 2011, 01:55:09 AM

Why, what happens, it works for me: cut, anneal, oil a litlle and size.
I have used mine several times.
I use a RCBS die set.

PvtGreg · August 11, 2011, 07:28:46 PM

Revision.

Ok - after some rethought here's what I found.

1) For traditional Spencers you can cut to size and resize with lube - works well except I can see with blade extractors it would not always extract. Again this is the original Spencer.

2) For Armisport anneal and refom with a LOT of lube - I didn't think of annealing this earlier, I thought I could resize with out annealing.

Thanks for the post Jan. I admit that after I read your post I had a "Duh" moment.

JimBob · August 11, 2011, 07:56:02 PM

I am curious.What is the case wall thickness at the mouth of the trimmed 32g. case compared to a Starline case?

PvtGreg · August 11, 2011, 08:21:19 PM

It was thicker - I chamfered the mouth. It chambers - I ran up one without powder to see if the Armisport would have an issue.

Sorry I should have measured, I was in a hurry. This was a VERY rough test run to see if it was worth the time to try some more. For my next attempts I will measure everything and try to do a youtube or at least pictures.

So far my tentative plan is to anneal, cut, trim to length, form in a regular spencer resizer die, then reform in the Lyman armisport die. I'm sure I'll modify the steps after a few tries.

My Lord - if this works and shoots good enough, the effort will be worth it!!

More to follow....

JimBob · August 11, 2011, 09:19:30 PM

I'll be surprised if these don't require inside neck reaming.Maybe not.

ndnchf · August 12, 2011, 06:45:44 AM

I'm following this closely. With the non availability of Starline brass, this may be the best alternative if it works. Thanks pvt greg!

PvtGreg · August 12, 2011, 08:38:35 AM

JimBob - with my one attempt it didn't, but we will see.

PvtGreg · August 22, 2011, 09:48:50 AM

Ok - I spent the weekend before last working on this. Here's my discovery.

With annealing and using a 50-70, an original spencer 56-50 die and an Armisport 56-50 die I could resize 32 ga brass.

HOWEVER - only one of my efforts would chamber (the first one of course!). With the others I discovered the last 8th of an inch of the cartridge was too fat. Of the 25 cartridges I bough only 3 had small enough diameters to work directly after resizing.

For the rest I have a small metal lathe and was able to lathe it down so they would chamber, but I have no idea how they would stand up. The up shot is that without special tools this is not really practical.

I'm going to try 348 wcf brass next - the specs of the cartridge makes me think that after fire forming they might work much better.

SGT John Chapman · August 22, 2011, 02:30:35 PM

Remove the decapping pin from your sizing die.
Use a flat base on top of your loaders ram and push the case up just a tad more into the die and pop it back out with a bolt down through the top of the die.
Just a little will do ya,...Go slow....if you get a bit much it will fire form back to chamber size on firing....