Bottleneck Cartridge Reloading

[Devil Anse Hatfield]

I Know Carbide dies are not made for 44-40, 38-40  and such.
My question is why ?
Would make me like reloading such cases  a lot more.

[Driftwood Johnson]

I Know Carbide dies are not made for 44-40, 38-40  and such.
My question is why ?
Would make me like reloading such cases  a lot more.

Cost. Carbide is expensive stuff.

The carbide in the sizing die of a carbide die set is a ring of carbide set into the bottom of the die. The ring is only about 1/4" thick and has a hole bored through it the size that the cartridge will be sized. It is not a very big piece of carbide. This works fine for straight walled cartridges, the case gets sized down as it passes through the polished hole in the carbide insert.

But it will not work for a tapered cartridge. Passing a tapered cartridge through a hole bored straight through an insert will not resize the entire cartridge, only that portion that happens to be the same diameter as the hole. The only way around this would be to take a really big piece of carbide and machine a tapered hole in it that matches the entire shape of the complete shell. The cost would be prohibitive with such a big piece of carbide, besides, the entire shell would only be sized as it came in complete contact with the entire geometry of the inside of the carbide, not a little bit at a time as happens with a straight case in a carbide insert.

One reason carbide works so well with straight cased cartridges is the carbide is highly polished and is only contacting a small portion of the shell at one time. If an entire shell were to be thrust into a shaped, polished piece of carbide for its entire length, the friction would probably be so great that the case would get stuck, despite the fact that the carbide was polished.

There is an alternative to carbide dies for some tapered cartridges. They are coated with Titanium Nitride (TiN). TiN is a very hard coating and can sometimes take the place of carbide. A standard steel die can be coated with it. I looked into this a few years ago as an alternative for standard steel dies for 44-40. Hornady coats some of their dies with TiN. But when I called Hornacy to order one, they told me I would have to lube my cases anyway, do I did not pursue it any further.

[w44wcf]

Hatfield,
DJ has given an excellent explanation of why no carbide dies are made for bottleneck cartridges. Thank you, DJ.
However, neck sizing is an option if the cases will be used in the same gun after are  being fired. As far as i know, there is no neck sizing die available for the .44-40. But that can be remidied.

There are 2 ways to do this:
1.) Take a .44-40 sizing die to a machinist and ask him/her to open up the diameter of the case body portion by .02". That will leave just the neck portion to do the sizing.

2.) Take a .41 Magnum carbide die, give it to a machinist with instructions to open up the carbide I.D. to .437".  You will then be able to neck size with that die. You will only need to turn the die in 1 thread or so to do that.  That's what I use on my .44-40 cases (see pic on previous page).

w44wcf