Model 1873 made in 1887 Update: Adventures in loading 38-40.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I have a nice Uberti replica 1873 that I bought quite a few years ago, but for some time now I have been saying to myself that if I could find an affordable original Winchester Model 1873 chambered for either 44-40 or 38-40 I would buy it. I have passed on a few chambered for 32-20 because I did not want to be messing with that caliber, I wanted something with a bit more punch to it. Of course the 32-20s are less desirable, and consequently cost less than the 44-40 and 38-40 rifles.

Two weeks ago I checked the used gun web pages at Kittery Trading post, and lo and behold they had an 1873 listed chambered for 38-40. I knew it had not been there for long because I had checked a couple of weeks earlier. So I drove up from The Land of the Pilgrims and grabbed it.

As specified, it has a nice brown patina, except for the magazine tube which is obviously a replacement. Wood is good with no cracks, been stripped at some point, looks like an oil finish now. Bore is old, but not too bad. The SN says it was made in 1887.

I took it home and detail stripped it to remove all the old oil and gunk that was inside. The internal parts are beautiful, they look almost factory fresh. I oiled it up with Ballistol and made up a few Black Powder 38-40 rounds. I tried it out the next day. The sights are really hard for me to see with that tiny groove in the full buckhorn sight, so I was not disappointed in how well it shot. It kept everything on the paper, probably if I could see the sights better I could do better. No, I am not going to alter the sights, they will remain stock.

Here are a few photos.






The front sight is very interesting. It appears to be a German Silver blade set into a groove in the base.




Here is the rear sight with the tiny notch.




Here is the caliber marking on the barrel just in front of the frame.




And here is the caliber marking on the bottom of the cartridge lifter.




I love these patent dates.





This photo is just a teaser. The 1887 vintage Winchester Model 1873 and my S&W Second Model Russian, made in 1875.




P.S.: It did not cost a whole lot more than a new Uberti.

[Shotgun Franklin]

Looks like you got yourself a good shooter.

[KirkD]

You got yourself a nice original 73 that no one has messed with. A fine old rifle! I know about that tiny notch ... Mine is the same.

[Rowdy Fulcher]

Howdy
Love that Rifle , looks like a round barrel . Good luck and Happy Shooting .

[w44wcf]

DJ,
Nice find! Neat piece of Winchester history!  I've been in the Kittery Trading Post a couple of times in the past when my job, at the time, required me to travel.  What a neat place!

Accurate molds makes a b.p. bullet that follows the form of the original .38 W.C.F. bullet (40-185C) but with more lube capacity for b.p.  It's the brother of the 43-215C (.44 W.C.F. / .44-40) that has worked very well for me.

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=40-185C-D.png

w44wcf

 

[Wolfgang]

Driftwood . . . NICE. . . real nice . . . . 


Here's mine . . . made in 1886 . . also in .38-40.   I got it in July of 2011.

Consider a tang sight.   I bought a current one and stripped the finish to look like the rest of the rifle.

http://www.drburkholter.com/cf21.html

Shoots just great.   

[Shotgun Franklin]

Using a full buckhorn sight is not that much different than using a peep sight. Except, when shooting fast and close just pickup the front sight inside the semi-circle, when farther away or for more precise shooting use the notch at the bottom of the sight. I've been using a full buckhorn for over 10 years, hunting and CAS. I love it. I'd even considered chopping the top off of the rear sight on my AR to make it into a kinda buckhorn.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

I am well aware how to use a buckhorn sight, been using one on my Uberti '73 for years. However look at the difference between this Buckhorn sight, made by Marbles and mounted on an original Winchester Model '92, and the one on my new original Model 1873. Look at how tiny the groove is in the 1873 sight. As I said, I can barely see it.


Marbles buckhorn sight.



Winchester buckhorn sight

[pistol1911]

I don't understand.I have been taught to focus on the front sight and your eye will center the front with the rear as in a peep sight.The little notch on the bottom doesn't come into play.  l

[Driftwood Johnson]

Yeah, that is true for CAS, but when I was trying to sight in the rifle on paper I wanted to be able to see the front sight centered in a slot. Works better for my miserable eyesight trying to do a little bit of precision shooting. No way the geometry of the front sight and that tiny groove would let me do that, the front sight is much wider than the tiny groove when sighting the rifle. Compare that to the groove on the Marbles front sight. Much bigger and it allows centering the front sight in the groove for precise shooting with my old eyes.

Not to worry, I am not going to alter anything on the rifle, including the sights. I like to leave original sights alone on old guns.

Usually.

[KirkD]

Had the same problem with my original '73. The rear sight notch was just too narrow and tiny for my 58 year old eyes. I bought an original tang sight and am back in business.

[rbertalotto]

Great story.........sounds a lot like my 1873 buy up at Kittery

http://rvbprecision.com/shooting/1873-winchester.html

Good luck with it!

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

Thought I would give an update on my old Winchester.

The action was very stiff when I bought it. Turns out the hammer spring was strong enough to be a suspension spring in a Mack truck. So strong it was difficult to lever it and stay on target. I called up Happy Trails thinking to buy one of his modified Uberti springs. Hap said an Uberti spring will not fit a Winchester. Not to worry though, he had an original Winchester spring that he had lightened and he sent it to me. That way I can keep the original spring unmodified in case I ever want to put it back in. I put the modified spring in and that made levering the gun much easier. I decided not to do any further smoothing or modifying, wanting to leave the gun as original as possible and still be able to shoot it.

The first 38-40 ammo I loaded for the Winchester used some bullets I had found at a local shop. 190 grains, with two thin lube grooves lubed with SPG and sized to .401. They shot fine, but I am a big proponent of Big Lube bullets, so I called up Iron Pony and he sent me a few hundred Big Lube 190 grain bullets sized to .401. It was April by this time, and I had my first match of the year coming up and I really wanted to try out the old girl at a match.

So I loaded up two boxes of 38-40 ammo. I've been loading 44-40 for years, so I thought this would not be much different. I was using a Hornady set of dies, and I decided to order a Lee Factory Crimp Die so that I could seat and crimp separately. Ordinarily I do not go in for separate seating and crimping, but I have found that for 44-40 with a huge amount of lube in the bullet, a standard seating/crimp die has a hard time forming the crimp if some lube escapes and gets into the crimp groove. The 38-40 has the same thin brass at the neck, so I opted to use the FCD.

I figured I would use the same powder charge that I use in 44-40; 2.2CC of Schuetzen FFg. I set up my dies carefully so I would not have any problems with crumpled necks. So I loaded up two boxes with Starline brass, and set off to the match the next morning. The first stage started with ten rounds of rifle. I shouldered the old Winchester, pushed the lever forward, pulled it back, and it would not go quite all the way. The gun jammed, right out of the starting gate. I had not fired a shot, so I headed for the unloading table to see what was the matter. The offending round was protruding from the chamber by about 1/8". The bolt would not close the rest of the way. And the lever had not closed enough to allow me to shove the carrier down. The gun was jammed up real good. I did not try to force things, and somehow used a screwdriver to carefully remove the offending round. I decided to put the old girl away and wait until I got home to figure out what was wrong. I shot the rest of the match with my 44-40 Henry.

I got home and I was very puzzled. The gun had fed fine with the rounds I had made up with the two groove bullets. But something was wrong when I tried the Big Lube ammo. I was afraid there was something wrong with the gun. I had some A-Zoom 38-40 snap caps, and they fed through the action just fine. But when I tired to chamber one of my Big Lube rounds it got stuck most of the way in and would not go all the way in. I was not about to try to force it.

So I put my calipers on the bullet in one of the troublesome rounds. Holy Cow, it was almost .410 in diameter. Looking closely I could see the bullet was misshapen. Now things started to make sense. Iron Pony casts his bullets from pure lead, they are dead soft. I had noticed a fair amount of resistance when I was seating the bullet. I had also noticed that because of the narrower neck of the 38-40 cases, 2.2CC of powder rose a lot higher in the case than it did in a 44-40. Light finally dawned on Marblehead. I was compressing the dickens out of the powder, and the resistance was deforming the soft lead bullets when I seated them. They had deformed so much they got jammed in the chamber without going all the way in.

First thing I did was fill the cavity in the bullet seater in the Hornady seating die with J B Weld and after it hardened I it filed down smooth. That hollow seater had been doing a number on my bullet noses. Next thing I did was reduce the powder charge from 2.2CC down to 1.9CC, the next smaller dipper in the Lee set. I made sure this amount of powder would still be compressed. It was, but much less than 2.2CC. Then I carefully went over all my die settings to make sure everything was up to snuff. I loaded up just 20 rounds to take to the range and try them out on a Saturday.  I load on a Hornady Progressive press, but this time, unlike what I usually do, I loaded them in two stages, first sizing, priming, and belling, then I cam back and poured in the powder, and seated and crimped my bullets. Unlike my earlier attempt, this time I made sure the rounds would chamber before I boxed them, which they did. Next day I took the rifle and the 20 rounds of 38-40 to the range. This time everything was fine. I shot a few 3 shot strings to make sure everything was feeding, and then I loaded up with the last ten rounds and fired the whole bunch. Everything fed fine and I took the rifle home and cleaned it.

Here is a photo of one of the deformed rounds on the left, and one of my non-deformed rounds on the right. Look closely and you can see how the bullet on the left is bulging out.



Last Sunday I again took my 1887 vintage 38-40 Model 1873 to a match. I had loaded just enough ammo for the match, making up only about 15 extra rounds. I made sure every round chambered before I boxed them. The old girl performed like a champ. Six stages of ten rifle rounds each, nary a bobble nor a miss. I did take it easy with the old girl, levering slowly and carefully after each shot. So slowly that several empties landed back on top of the receiver and I had to brush them away to see the sights.

Moral of the story: If you are loading a new caliber for the first time, or a new bullet, be sure to check your ammo for feed and fit before bringing it to a match.

[ndnchf]

Great write up DJ.  Thanks for taking the time to share your trials and tribulations.  We can all learn something.

[w44wcf]

DJ,
Yes indeed. Great write up and teaching experience!  Great to see that you got that vintage, historic, '73 talking once again!

(When I use soft lead bullets is in my '73 .44 W.C.F. with the historic 40 gr. load of b.p., I found that a 180 gr. .40 handgun hollow point bullet (full cased over the h.p.) works great as a compression tool. I would think that a .357 or .38-55 hard cast or f.p. bullet would do the same in the .38 W.C.F. if one so desires.....)

w44wcf  

[Trailrider]

Howdy, Pards,
I was under the impression (could be wrong...I was wrong once back in '65  ) that the sights on both rifles shown are semi-buckhorn. IIRC, full buckhorn sights curve over the top so they almost, but not quite touch at the top. I have some on a couple of my rifles. They, too, have that little notch at the bottom, but I don't use it that way. I simply center the top of the front sight in the almost closed loop, like when using a tang or appature sight. NOT suggesting you change from the original, just sayin'...

The first Winchester '73 I ever owned was a .38-40. I never got around to shooting it, however, and traded it off on something...like an idiot!  The only other '73 I've owned is a .44-40, but the dadgummed groove diameter is .434! I can chamber .430" bullets, but only jacketed will grip the rifling. Cast bullets give a 2-foot group at 25 feet! The barrel isn't worn, just cut oversized. The solution would be to shoot BP, but I am too lazy to clean up after them. Have to stick with the replica M1860 or Rossi '92.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get out shooting in over a year! Schedule just works out that way when there are matches going on.  Maybe in July, if it isn't too hot.  Or if the smoke from the fires isn't to bad to see the targets! 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Yes Trailrider, of course you are correct, the sights on both rifles are semi-buckhorn sights, not full buckhorns. I may have gotten a little bit sloppy if I called them Buckhorns.

[Blackpowder Burn]

Driftwood,

I acquired a "new" old 1873 today that appears to be the exact twin to yours, manufactured in 1888.  It has the same front and rear sights.  Mine has had some work done on it - barrel relined and action worked over and short stroked.  I'm still trying to figure out why someone would do that to a 125 year old rifle, but it does handle nice and shoots well.

It appears to have two holes drilled and tapped for a tang sight.  Does yours have that?  Do you know if it's typical?

Now I just have to wait until my bullet mold, brass and bullet sizing die come in.

Can't wait to get the old girl smoking again!

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Blackpowder Burn

Yes, my '73 appears to be drilled and tapped for a tang sight. The holes have what appear to be filler screws in them. No, i have not tried placing a tang sight against it to see if the holes line up, but that certainly is what they appear to be. No, I do not know whether or not this was a standard feature.

[Blackpowder Burn]

Driftwood,

It turns out those two screws are for a tang sight.  A current Marbles fits perfectly, even to the proper screw threads.  It took me about 3 minutes to mount the sight.

Here's to Winchester doing things right - 125 years ago!