Original UMC 44-40

[Fox Creek Kid]

A friend gave me a bunch of old UMC 44-40 BP factory loads a year or so ago. I had forgotten about them until recently but today I decided to dismantle one out of curiousity. I used a kinetic puller & loosened the bullet so I could pull it by hand w/o losing any BP. The bullet had two cannelured lube grooves and weighed 217 gr. Little if any lube was left. It also had a small dish base, just slightly concave. The powder on top was loose but 1/2 way down it had clumped. I scraped it all out being very careful to not miss a single granule and weighed it on an electronic scale: 38 gr. It is a balloon head case as well.

Now for the kicker.  The bullet at its largest point was only 0.423 - 0.424" in diameter. This was often the method used in the old days of loading a slightly undersized soft lead bullet knowing well that it would fit in all chambers and obturate to fill the grooves upon ignition. I am tempted to shoot a few but the last time I did that was in a revolver with old .44 Russians and half the cases split.

[Doc O]

Interesting.
How old  do you suppose the round are? Probably hard to put a date on them.

Doc

[Fox Creek Kid]

Since Remington dropped the UMC name (originally) in 1912 it has to be pre-1912.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Kid

Kuhnhausen has illustrations of similar bullets in early 45 Colt cartridges. He calls them hollow based, but the illustration shows it is just a slight dish, as you describe. You are correct about the bullet obturating. Kuhnhausen also mentions this. It is kind of like a Minnie ball, just not so drastic. He does mention that hollow based, soft lead bullets as you describe were used because of wide variations in rifling groove as well as chamber throat diameters.

[Dick Dastardly]

Ho Driftwood Pard,

You mean that the Eitalians ain't the first to make out of spec chambers and barrels.  I just thought it was a more recent thing.  My 1860 Colts are so far out of spec that Walt Kirst had to ream my cylinders to match the barrels.  Look great, point great, shoot like $hit till corrected.

It's no wonder that the mighty 44 Magnum makes such a great bp cartridge.  Heck, everything is in spec.  Hey, that rhymes.  Anyway, they sure love bp.  It would have served all concerned had SAAMI existed "in the day".

DD-DLoS

[73_winchester]

is your box the original box and if so does it actually say 44-40 or 44/100 i have a simular problem with a 73 win. that is chambered in 44henry center fire suposedly never happpend i have never heard of one either but never the less i have one. the original henrycf. cartridge on the box was stamped 44/100 from the info. i have gathered upon research i have done on the gun and the chambering.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Didn't S & W call their .44 the 44/100?  The genesis of their .44, now called the .44 American, was the same as the .44 Henry cf made for a Brazilian dealer about 1891, change the ignition from rf to cf, leaving everything else the same.

[john boy]

Kid, send John Kort a PM or email with this thread ... he is a historian of 44wcf ammunition
http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=500

[Fox Creek Kid]

...the original henrycf. cartridge on the box was stamped 44/100 from the info. i have gathered upon research i have done on the gun and the chambering.

In the 19th Century the "44/100" designation such as that merely meant .44 hundredths of an inch, hence .44 caliber.

[Bryan Austin]

loss of two grns BP for and extra 17 gr bullet. hmmmmm!!!!

(200gr lead) On average I loose 40 fps for one grain pyro-p. Sorry for the sub but I have yet to try this with BP. With 38gr of Pyro-p I get 965fps and with 37gr I get 923fps. Wonder if I would get 1,005 fps if I could'a got 40gr in there with a balloon head!!!!!!!

[Wolfgang]

loss of two grns BP for and extra 17 gr bullet. hmmmmm!!!!

(200gr lead) On average I loose 40 fps for one grain pyro-p. Sorry for the sub but I have yet to try this with BP. With 38gr of Pyro-p I get 965fps and with 37gr I get 923fps. Wonder if I would get 1,005 fps if I could'a got 40gr in there with a balloon head!!!!!!!

Sounds like you are having fun playing with guns . . . 

[Bryan Austin]

Sounds like you are having fun playing with guns . . . 

You Bet!!!

[Bryan Austin]

I just chronoed Pyro select RS (FF).

200gr Mav Big Lube
38gr

Three shots averaging

886 fps

Pyro-p (FFF) beats it with 965fps

This is fun 

[w44wcf]

Fox Creek Kid,
Nice find!  I purchased 12  U.M.C. .44-40 headstamped cartridges from a cartridge dealer several years ago. My plan was to keep 2 for my collection, and dissect the remaining 10 for shooting, which I did.  As you found, the bullet weighed 217 grs., had two very shallow lube grooves, a cupped base and a diameter that was undersized. I believe the bullets were reduced in diameter when they were seated into the cases since the soft lead yielded to the tougher case neck.

Pulled bullet shown in this line up-


The average weight of the powder I removed was 39.5 grs. I did find that after washing the cases, they lost an average of .7 gr. from caked in residue.

I removed the small rifle mercuric primers, annealed the cases and seated some older 7 1/2 Remington smalll rifle primers (copper colored). After screening the fines from the original powder, I reloaded 5 cases with 40 gr. charges. I then reseated the bullets after removing the dried out lube and replaced it with SPG.

I fired 5 rounds across the chronograph and they averaged just over 1,200 f.p.s. and grouped into 1" at 25 yards.
Plenty of life left after 100 years!

I have since reloaded these 10 cases several times and they are still going strong.
Like stepping back in time............. 

If you would like to sell some of those U.M.C. cartridges, I would be interested. Thank you.

w44wcf