.56-56 brass AND reloading tips

[5judge]

I'm in need of .56-56 brass. Anyone out there with any redundant brass they'd part with? Thanks.

[PvtGreg]

Have you looked at cutting down 32 gauge brass? 

[5judge]

I've got a deal of .56-56 converted from .56-50 and .50-70, and want to keep with what I know, but thanks for the idea.

[npm5063]

If your looking for brass all ready to go buffalo arms is your best bet its expensive but i use them and there great. i think they are on back order now but check with them and they will tell you when they should be in.

[5judge]

     Ordered 50 additional rounds of .56-56 from Buffalo arms today. As anticipated, it's back-ordered. Claim is: it'll be in in a couple weeks. We'll see.
    And, for other eccentrics who shoot .56-56, reloading tips which work for me:
   The best mould I've found is the Owsiak. It surpasses the Rapine Spencer mould due to its generous grease grooves; lube is said to be an issue with Spencers. In addition, Owsiak's mould, a thing of real beauty, throws a superb looking bullet, and the Owsiak bullet has a bit of a boattail, making insertion into the case easier and flairing the cases lips less needful, enhancing case life.
   The .56-56 takes a heeled bullet and I've found this causes difficulty using conventional bullet seating techniques. The problem is, whilst seating AND concurrently achieving a mild crimp on the case mouth, the bullet, the top portion of which is wide as the exterior of the case, jams in the die and sticks there, pulling loose when the supposedly loaded round is lowered from the die. I've found that by removing the bullet seating plug I can insert a rod into the vacancy. I run the round into the sizing die which partially seats the bullet and removes any case flair. Then I concurrently tap the rod with a hammer while lowering the cartridge out of the die. The "shelf" around the bullet is beautifully snugged against the case mouth, every time.
   It is reliably asserted the .56-56 Spencer is inherently inaccurate, perhaps due to the rifling pitch. My carbine, delivered 7 December, 1863 surely is. It's presently at Robert Hoyt's having a liner pressed into the barrel. Hoyt says accuracy will be noticably improved. I surely hope so!  
   

[majvret]

Not sure where you heard the original 56 56 carbines were inherently inaccurate.  Mine is very accurate as we're the other three I have owned over the years. My first one had a very pitted bore. I did not expect much but was happily surprised
The one I have now has a great bore and shoots 2-3 inch groups at a hundred.
Majvret

[Herbert]

Not sure where you heard the original 56 56 carbines were inherently inaccurate.  Mine is very accurate as we're the other three I have owned over the years. My first one had a very pitted bore. I did not expect much but was happily surprised
The one I have now has a great bore and shoots 2-3 inch groups at a hundred.
Majvret

This has all so been my experince,I can get better acuracy with my originals than with the New AS spencer rifle(I have not tryed the AP carbine)

[5judge]

    Wanting a CW Spencer carbine for display and shooting, I finally acquired a sound, reasonably priced 1863-date .56-56 a couple years ago. Turned it over to a black powder gunsmith buddy, well-versed in CW carbines, to bring it up to shooting condition. He became sufficiently interested to purchase one of his own. With either piece, our BEST groups at 50 yards are about 10-12 inches. Using various black powder brands and substitutes, different primers and lubes, compressed and non compressed loads, hard and soft lead, and finially adding an Owsiak .56-56 mould to my Rapine, there was no discernable improvement.
   Last summer at the NRA museum I purchased the Peter Schiffers book "Civil War Carbines, Myth Vs. Reality". Therein Schiffers tests twelve CW carbines. The authour wrote: "The shooting with the Spencer was disappointing. Its overall rank was only 8th while the Joslyn, with similar ammunition, ranked 5th." At a range of 55 yards, the Spencer ranked tenth in accuracy; only the Gwyn & Campbell and Gallager doing worse. He noted the Spencer's chamber was generous, due perhaps to the wide variety of cartridge size issued by various manufacturers during the war, but his main theory for the Spencer's random accuracy is the rifling twist. Schiffers believes the 1:49 twist of the Spencer is too slow. He got better results from an M.1864 Joslyn (1:43 twist) using the same ammunition. I'd be flabergasted to achieve two or three inch groups at 50, much less 100 yards.
   I'm glad other readers have accurate Spencer .56-56s. Civil War users also sometimes testified to the Spencer's shining accuracy. I know of three carbines that disappoint: mine, my friend's, and one in the possession of authour Peter Schiffers.

[Herbert]

If you look up the optium stability for twist rates you will see the 56-56  with a 1 in 49 twist rate for a velocity of 900fps(relistic),.534 groove diameter needs a bullet lenth of .611 for optimum stability.If you use a longer bullet you will have to increase velocity(all most imposible in the spencer carbine) so the trick with the 56-56 is to use the shotest bullet that fits the groove diameter and plenty of lube,this was not the case with the original bullet an is why the 56-50 twist rate was increased to 1 in 34 for a .520 groove diameter,go below 1 in 34 and you need a longer bullet and reduced velocity

[5judge]

       Herbert: I understand there are optimum twist rate formulae established for given calibres utilizing bullets of certain sectional densities, and I'd like to think Christopher Spencer made those calculations. There are other factours potentially at work here, too, such as rifling depth, etc. I'm trusting Robert Hoyt will apply his decades of experience serving the needs of North-South Skirmish shooters and provide me with a shiny new bore in my .56-56 which will gratify my expectations, heretofore unmet.
     A gun writer, I think it was Elmer Keith, once opined that the only interesting guns are accurate guns. Although not always true (unlimbering an M.1842 .69 calibre smoothbore with buck & ball is a hoot), it is generally so. In well over 50 years of burning black powder in a very, very wide variety of antique firearms, my test of satisfaction is simple: I want the weapon to be able to shoot streighter than I can point it. My Spencer presently fails that test.  Miserably.
     I cannot help but repeat my near-religious awe over the 2 to 3-inch groups a contributor to this thread reports he achieves with a Spencer .56-56 carbine at 100 yards. That score is  far, far beyond my experience with ANY Civil War carbine, including Sharps, Burnside, and Maynard. In fact a 2-inch group would be outstanding with any of my carefully handloaded post war carbines including a .45-70 Springfield, Krag, or M1 carbine.

[Trailrider]

I was able, some years ago, to make .56-56 brass from Dixie Gun Works .50-70 brass.  While the original ammo used heel bullets, I elected to try inside-lubed bullets. With the thickness of the case increasing as one goes further from to the mouth of the original .50-70, it was necessary to have a special reamer (.535" dia.) made up that reduced the wall thickness to about .012" on the cutdown brass.  I also slugged and did a chamber cast on the barrel.  It turns out that M1860 Spencer carbines have a tapered bore!  Several I checked measured .545" just ahead of the chamber, and .535" at the muzzle.  I got ahold of a now-discontinued Lyman #533486AX mould and cast some bullets from Lyman #2 equivalent alloy for use with smokeless powder. Bullet weight came out 411 gr. The bullets cast about .535 - .538", were sized to .535", and seated against the shelf created by the end of the reamer.  I had some dies made up that crimped the case mouth over the top of the forward driving band on the bullet.  I had various expander plugs made. For the Lyman bullet, I used a .528" dia. expander to insure good neck tension.

Best accuracy was obtained with 18.6 gr of IMR4227.  Seven to ten round groups ran around 3-5/8" - 4-1/8" at 50 yds.*  Interestingly, considering the Relative Sectional Density of this bullet (.205) and the internal capacity of these shortened solid head cases being very close to that of a .45 LC with a 250 gr. bullet, .45 LC load data was very close.  Resultant MV was around 929 ft/sec from the 22-in. barrel.   A full case of Pyrodex "P" produced 802 ft/sec at 42 deg. F.  Accuracy wasn't as good as with the smokeless load, however. 

The main problem with these older guns with open sights is sighting error, which isn't helped when the sights themselves become blurry as the gun gets older!   

*Not responsible for accidents, incidents, injury or death resulting from the use of this data! [Standard warning!)

[Herbert]

I have found that troat size is the most important part of getting a BP cartridge to be accurate,with the 56-56s tapperd bore I tryed for a long time to get aceptable acuracy It was not untill I went to a .546(relying a bullet to bump up cansisintly is lick beliving the tooth farie will com bullet that I got it and as always lube is very important ,if there is no greas ring at the muzell after shooting there is not enough lube or it is not working properly,all so no mater how good the rifling is a small inconsisinty in the crown will destroy accuracy

[Trailrider]

What accuracy could one expect from a Thompson SMG at fifty yards? Or an M3 grease gun?  The Spencers were CW/IW as---lt rifles. As far as I'm concerned 4-inch 7 round groups at 50 yds is "minute of enemy cavalryman, mounted or dismounted".  Or as The Duke said in "Rio Bravo", "I'd hate to live on the difference!" 

[5judge]

Trailrider: I concurr. A four-inch 50 yard group is perhaps acceptable for a .56-56 Spencer carbine. Problem is, my present groups are 'way more than twice that size, really in smoothbore territory, as I lamented above.

[wolflobo76]

My shot groups on paper at 50 yds covered about 12 inches   but when I took my original 56/56 [converted to centerfire] out deer hunting this last season  I brought down a very good doe at about 30 yds with a heart shot.   

[matt45]

Somewhere way back on this board is a great group I shot once w/ my armi- sport carbine, 56-50.  I only did that once but I would concur w/ the opinion that the chief malefactor on poor accuracy is bad sights followed by horrible trigger pull (both authentic).
     As to improving accuracy I will mostly defer to my comrades, but from my experience smokeless powder will give better results (note- I have only tried IMR-4227, followed by H-777, and then Goex).  I also have better luck using the standard NRA 100 yd. target- I can hold a more consistent sight pattern.