An Alternate source of Brass...

[mtmarfield]

   Greetings!

I'm no stranger to case-forming modern brass to work in older arms; this idea came to me shortly after blowing my wad on my 1860 Romano.
I'd had success annealing & fireforming .348 Win brass into .45-75-350 & .50-70 Gvt in the past. So, I took a dozen of those cases, and cut them down to 56-50 length; they were then loaded as usual. The rim is too small for the blade extractor to really get a good hold, but if I held the muzzle up when I cycled the action, the cases would "eject/fall out of the chamber" with reasonable reliability. The magazine to chamber feeding cycle was flawless.
Now, I'm not recommending this for Competition, and this is a time consuming process. But if you can't get proper .50-70 to trim, or 56-50, but do happen to have access to new or once-fired .348 Win brass, you can go out to the range and have fun. Actually, if the new "Lane" extractor in the Armi-Sport Spencer is spring-loaded, these ersatz Spencer Ctgs may even extract/eject a little better.
Again, this is merely a stop-gap expedient, and I did have quite a few .348 Win cases. But if you get handed a couple fistfulls of .348 Win brass {I believe that Winchester still lists it as a component}, and you don't own a Win. 71, give it a trial.

                 Be Well!

                                   MTM
                                 6-06-05

[Hell-Er High Water]

MTM,

The 348 Winchester case makes up into a good 56-50 round.  Long before the Starline brass was available I made several hundred 56-50's from Winchester brand 348 Win brass to use in my Taylor's carbine.  At the time I didn't want to modify any of my 50-70 brass as the Bell brass was just too expensive to start cutting up.  It's still too expensive to be forming into 56-50 when there are other sources available.  With the Lane type extractor I have never had an extraction problem; it starts raising upward as soon as the action is starting to open and engages the rim of the 348 case even though the rim is a bit undersized.  The only problem that I have had in using this case, if you can in fact call it a problem, is that after several firings some cases will develop a small split just above the heavy part of the case web where the undersize body expands out to full chamber diameter.  For the price saving at the time, compared to modifing 50-70 cases, this was a small price to pay; to just lose a case once in a while.  I still use these cases right along with my Starline cases and will continue to do so until they just all wear out.

The Starline cases and the cases made from the 348 brass are so close to each other in internal volume that I can see no difference in performace between them when using either smokeless or black powder.

Although the Starline brass is now available, and this conversion really isn't necessary any more, I hope that this provides some help to those who may still be looking for an alternate source for cases.  I have bought several lots of new 348 brass from sellers on E-Bay.

Hell-Er High Water

[Fox Creek Kid]

Funny thing, the .348 cases didn't eject worth a damn in my Armisport Spencer.