My First Attempts at Case Forming - 45-75

[Coal Creek Griff]

I am beginning to run low on my Jamison 45-75 brass and worrying that I will run out.  I bought some Starline 50-90 brass and worked this past week at forming it to 45-75 Win.  I'm still practicing, so no two of my formed pieces of brass are the same, but I think that they'll likely work.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to try out the 12 cases that I formed and loaded.

I trimmed the brass with a tubing cutter to about 2", then annealed and formed it in my 45-75 sizing die (a little at a time).  I used my 56-50 Spencer shell holder at that point.  I then trimmed the brass down to length with a case trimmer.  Then comes the hard part.  I had to thin the rims as well as narrow the diameter  I had to make sure to radius the edge to help the extractor snap over the rim without snapping off.  To make them fit my 45-75 shellholder, I also had to cut a groove just above the rim to match the Jamison brass (this is within the solid part of the head).  I found that the cases then needed to be full-length sized again or they would be a little stiff in chambering.

As I said, they look like they will work, so I'm excited to try them out.  I entered into this project as a service to other 45-75 shooters knowing that as soon as I perfect this process, either Starline or another company will start making brass at a reasonable cost...

CC Griff

[dusty texian]

Good write up CCG ,the cases look good , and  should look even better after fire formed  .   I have some  45-75 cases formed from Starline 50-90 cases ,they have many loadings behind them using BP. with no problems so far . ,,,, DT 

[Coal Creek Griff]

Thanks, Dusty!  I fired these twelve this morning and all functioned just fine.  You're right--after firing, they slipped into and out of the chamber even more smoothly.  I have high hopes for them.  My plan now is to form 8 more cases for an even 20 and make a bunch of notes for next time.  These I'll put away until I need them.  I don't want to form up all 100 of my 50-90 cases in case someone starts making 45-75 cases again.  On my far distant wish list is a 50-90 Sharps, so I'm hoping that these cases will be of use besides for making 45-75 cases...

CC Griff

[dusty texian]

I hope that 45-75 brass will be a production run again from Jamison  or another . Like you said after you go through the trouble of making your own , they may .  Story of my life , If I would have just waited , or If I just would not have waited .,,,,DT

[Sarge]

CC Griff, I am a neophyte on the 45-75 but they look good to me and hopefully will have this same problem soon myself. In fact, I'm getting them in reverse order in that I've got the 50-90 and looking for a 45-75 now. The Big fifty is Big Bore Booming fun for sure. Good Job.

Sarge

[Coal Creek Griff]

Thanks, Sarge!

CC Griff

[greyhawk]

I hope that 45-75 brass will be a production run again from Jamison  or another . Like you said after you go through the trouble of making your own , they may .  Story of my life , If I would have just waited , or If I just would not have waited .,,,,DT

Same story here (similar anyway - might make ya feel better)
I bought 150 348 cases on a trip over there, came home, ordered the rifle, eight months later ...... dies etc,  its a year and I see Jamison brass all over the net in ads (2013 I guess that was) Midway - Brownells - everybody had some there for a while - dont buy any - dont really need it - plenty there - looks like this is a production deal - get some later maybe ................. reform 348 stuff cuz the money already spent - only after fire forming did I realise about the discrepancy in base size between 348 and proper 45/75 ------aarrrrrgh ! trusted the dimension drawings didnt I - didnt figure Winchester would make em undersized - got two sets of calipers and a micrometer - too dumb to measure the cases I already had - shoulda coulda woulda !!!! Have a buddy that urged me to buy some Jamison and ignored him too - I think hes OCD or whatya call it -- kinda pedantic about correct headstamps on brass and stuff like that. Ah well ! we wait long enough somebody will make some. In the meantime I like the look of those 50/90 converted cases --- a lot!     

[larryo1]

I'm not one to toot my horn but here is what I went through.  When I got my rifle, I too got a bunch of 348 brass.  Then what I did was run   them through my 45-75 dies and load them with Cream of Wheat with a Bees wax cap and stepped out the door of my shop and went bang!  then I trimmed them to what was the right length,etc.  I found that "Coke Bottle" shape at the rear of the case did finally go away after a few loadings. Then I splurged and got some Bertram brass and really got a shock over the price and that ended my excursion into that stuff!  My next step was with 50-90 Sharps brass and I still use that stuff.  When you stated that you had to do some machining on the case heads what with a groove and whatnot.  I have never had to do that so maybe my rifle is  just weird!  I have never had any problems with either the 348 brass or the 50-90 brass with regards to ejection or whatnot.  I was able to get a bunch of Jamison brass and glad I did but still hoping that they will make some more.  There are other outfits that make and sell the brass but in all cases, the prices are pretty high however if a body is in need I guess that they could be the way to go.

I hope that this bit of trivia is of some help to you.  I sure wouldn't worry about that 348 brass.  those cases are tough little buggers and will last a long time. As far as the head measurements go--here again, in my rifle I have never had any ejection problems so have never had to any work on the case heads.

The only other thing that comes to mind is when I got ready to make  purchase, I thought about getting a 45-60 as they are easy to load and can be made out of 45-70 cases. I had a relative that had an original 45-60 and I made a lot of cases for him out of 45-70 cases and they worked perfectly.  But in the end,l I got the 45-75 because TR had one and I saw it on display in the NRA museum one day.  Never have I looked back!  Just figgured to pass that tidbit on. Have fun!!

[Coal Creek Griff]

I narrowed the diameter of the 50-90 brass because it was certainly too big to work well in my gun.  I tried some at that point and, while they cycled, it seemed to take some extra effort to get the extractor to ride over the rim and it seemed tight.  Not wanting to cause undue wear on my extractor, I decided to thin the rims down.  I only cut the groove in the case heads to get them to fit my 45-75 shellholder. The cases would fit into the 50-90 shellholder, but with the narrowed diameter of the rim, the cases would pull out under the stress of pulling the cases from the sizing die.  For that reason, I created the groove.  Now the dimensions are very similar to the Jamison brass and they seem to work well.  It's a lot of work, but hopefully they last a long time...

CC Griff