.45 colt blowback partIII

[Bunk Stagnerg]

I have just finished a small scale test (10 rounds) of .44-40 cases neck expanded to .452" for use in the .45 Colt chambered 1866 new Improved Henry rifle to deter blowback. The 10 rounds came out with a shiny case and the neck expanded properly with all the forming wrinkles completely gone.  The next test will be using Trail Boss to fire form cases which is much easier to load than Holy Black.

Sorry Cuts , but that is just how it is so don't  fuss at me, please.

But worry not the rounds used in SASS competition will be loaded with Holy Black either FFFg KIK, Goex or  DuPont or perhaps  FFg Graf, KIK, Olde Eynsford, or  Goex FFg depending on the further testing. These will be loaded with a compressed load of powder with either a .45 caliber 210 or 250 grain Big Lube® bullet.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys, and you have motivated me to order an 1860 Henry in either .45 Colt or .44-40 whichever comes available first, or perhaps both.

Don't worry it did not take much motivation, but thanks anyway.
Bunk

[rbertalotto]

Do yourself a favor and simply order 44-40.......especially if Black is in your future!

[jimbobborg]

Do yourself a favor and simply order 44-40.......especially if Black is in your future!

This.  I just shot 30 rounds loaded with FFFg out of my Uberti 1860 in 44-40 and the brass is spotless on the outside and not too shabby on the inside.  They do not appear to have been loaded with BP, but the smoke when I fired them told the tale.

[Bunk Stagnerg]

please note I have on order an 1860 Henry rifle. Caliber  depends on availability.
I have nothing against the .44-40 but all my SASS guns and loading equipment is for .45 Colt and i really have qualms about another slightly different caliber.
I would imagine a .44-40 would shoot in a ,45 Colt, revolver but not the reverse in a rifle.
I already have enough problems accidentally with out purposefully making one.
But stay tuned it ain't over yet I am still trying.

Hold center,
Bunk

[w44wcf]

Bunk,
Once you fire those .44-40 cases in your .45 COlt check to make sure that your .45 Colt sizing die will size the thin wall cases down far enough to hold a .452" bullet.......

w44wcf

[Bunk Stagnerg]

Right w44wcf I just neck size the brass to the seating depth of the bullet. for the fire forming shot the case looks like a cannalure in reverse in that the it bulges out rather than in.  after shooting the case is nice and straight i have  not had time to reload them, but will soon. The original case is a new Star Line .44-40 and it is straight sided not necked down to .44 so the original process of forming goes  pretty smooth with enough lube inside the neck...usually.
Bunk

[Noz]

See my response to the Trinity Kid's thread-random question.

[Driftwood Johnson]

I would imagine a .44-40 would shoot in a ,45 Colt, revolver but not the reverse in a rifle.
I already have enough problems accidentally with out purposefully making one.
But stay tuned it ain't over yet I am still trying.

Yes, you can fire a 44-40 round in a 45 Colt revolver, I have done it. Just for the heck of it one day a few years ago, when the match was over I chambered five 44-40 rounds in one of my 45 Colt 2nd Gen Colts. You hear a lot of stuff about how the bullet will rattle down the bore and accuracy will be terrible. At regular CAS distance, I put all five of those 44-40 rounds onto the target. Of course the brass was ruined. Somewhere I have a photo of them, I'll post it if I find it.

No, you cannot chamber a 44-40 round in a 45 Colt rifle. It will jam it up completely. However I have been shooting 45 Colt in my pistols since day one in CAS, and 44-40 in my rifles, and I have not had a problem. You just have to pay attention at the loading table. It helps that all my 44-40 ammo goes into blue plastic boxes and all my 45 Colt ammo goes into gray boxes. And all the 44-40 ammo has a black stripe across the case head.

[Coffinmaker]

Driftwood, yer taken alla fun away from Murphy dontcha know

Coffinmaker

[Abilene]

...No, you cannot chamber a 44-40 round in a 45 Colt rifle. It will jam it up completely. ...

Hmm, I'm thinking maybe you said that backwards.  A 45 Colt round will fail to chamber and will jam in a 44-40 rifle.  But the 44-40 will chamber fine in the 45LC rifle, just as it did in your pistol.

[Dick Dastardly]

Since this thread is about 45 Colt blowback, I'll add this.  I just shot the Wisconsin State Black Powder Championship SASS match.  Shot the entire match plus side match with my 73 Win clone chambered in 45 Colt.  Nary a bobble, no blowback problems, shot the entire match plus side matches with no need to clean to maintain accuracy or function.

I'll clean the guns soon.  A spritz of Moosemilk and a tug of the boresnake is all it will take and they will sparkle.

Of course I shoot only Genuine Powder, the One True Powder correctly called Holy Black.  My mixed brand 45 Colt brass is loaded with 35 grains of Schuetzen FFg black powder compressed between 1/16" to 1/8" by Big Lube®LLC bullets.  I shot some 45SLIM, J/P 45-200, DD-ROA RN, PRS 45-250 and had only two misses, both pistol.

Blowback was negligible.  My brass is all sparkling clean now and ready for reloading.

DD-MDA

[Mean Bob Mean]

Blowback was negligible.  My brass is all sparkling clean now and ready for reloading.

DD-MDA

I don't know how you do it, I shot a single match, 60 rounds, and mine was feeling gummy toward the end.  37+ grains of FFg under a rather standard bullet (most definitely not a big lube and while the action was dirty, the bore was atrocious.  Definitely looking at Big Lubes for future true powder work.

[Coffinmaker]

Let me throw a little caveat in here.  After 16+ years building competition rifles for bunches of folks, no two Uberti rifles are the same.  The chamber dimensions are all over the allowable range.  They run from pretty ok, to wide open sewer pipe.  While I don't want to diminish  DD's results with his rifle and Big Lube Bullets (the are really good) results in different rifles may vary wildly.  I have 4 Henrys and a 73, all chambered in .45 Colt.  Two of my Henry rifles give negligible blow-by.  Two are marginal and the 73 is superb.  Luck of the draw.
Minimizing blow-by in a .45 Colt rifle can be a real challenge.  Or, super simple.  Remember, no two are alike.

Coffinmaker

PS:  If your gonna shoot Cap Guns with your Henry rifle, DD,s "Tower of Power" is the absolute Bee's Kneez  :-)

[Dick Dastardly]

Ho Coffinmaker,

I didn't say it, but I should have.  I slugged my barrel and am lube/sizing my bullets a thousandth over bore.  I agree about the bore sizes being all over the place.  The 45 Colt is a very old chambering and die makers have to supply dies for worse case barrels.  Every shooter should slug their barrels to KNOW what size bullets their individual guns need.

Thanks for the reminder.

DD-MDA

[Navy Six]

It's a shame the dimensions for the 45 Colt ammo/guns have varied so much over the years. I really like the cartridge and when I first started SASS matches I had two Uberti 66's both chambered in 45 Colt. At the time Goex and Elephant were the two readily available powders, SPG had just come out and the closest thing to a Big Lube bullet was a Hensley & Gibbs # 22 (got one of their molds just before they quit). With that bullet sized .454, SPG lube and as much compressed FFg as I could cram in the case and a heavy crimp I still could only go about two stages before hosing the carrier down with Ballistol. Bought another Uberti 66 in 44-40 and the difference shooting Blackpowder was night and day. I finally gave up in frustration and had Caley Carson at New Castle Gunsmithing re-barrel/re-chamber the the two 45 Colts to short rifle configuration, one in 38-40 and the other in 44-40. I wish I would have kept one in 45 Colt for further experimentation, but at least I can still shoot it in my pistols.

[Pappy Myles]

My 2 cents.  I've pretty much eliminated blow back in my uberti 73 in 45 colt.    Years ago I use to shoot bra high power, 30-06, 308, 223, etc. in order to extend the life to a couple extra loadings, I acquired an annealing machine from bench source.  And for a couple years I'd anneal my rifle brass.    Then I got into cowboy action.  After a match, the out side of my brass from both my uberti 73 and Ruger vaquaros were pretty dirty.  My biggest issue was the carrier in my 73 would crude up so much I'd have to spray and wipe between stage 4/5 to keep the rifle running.     I tried differing loads from light to heavy.  I'd get some some results with heavier loads, but not what I wanted.   One day as I was going thru my high power stuff, I pulled out my annealing machine and figured out a way to lower the burner to aneal 45 colt ( I'd been using star line, rp, ww, bha, etc).  After annealing, I now get a complete seal on the neck of the brass and resolved the blow by.  Yeah it's an extra step in the brass prep stage, but to me, well worth it.

[will52100]

My 1860 Henry is middle of the road bore/chamber wise.  I've tried annealing and it works, but too much trouble for me.  If there was an easy way to anneal just the last 1/8" of the case mouth I'd give it another go, but when I tried it with a torch and knocking over into a pan of water I got too much of the case too soft and a few swelled during loading.

The biggest thing I've seen with every toggle link Uberti is the brass lifter is too tight in the frame.  A buddy of mine recently brought his 73 chambered in 357 mag. over and after 25 rounds smokeless the action was gummy and the lifter notably stiffer.  I tore it down for him and polished the internals a bit and lightened the truck spring of a leaver safety and took a hair off the sides of the lifter with a disk sander and 240 paper.  Basically trued it up and probably only took a thou or two off, but now it runs slick as a button.  I've seen a 66 foul to a  stop with smokeless even after liberal amounts of oil sprayed in the action.  My Henry I've taken a bit off the sides of the lifter till I could go a couple hundred rounds with no issues.  Even with a smidge of blow by I only do a complete tear down every 6 months or so. 

What I do is give the rifle a very good cleaning, then use bore butter for grease in the action and a thin coat on the lifter.  After a match I squirt moose milk down the barrel and get the lifter wet, bore snake the barrel and run a few patches down it till they come out white, wipe everything off and use a patch with Hopes #9 on it to wet the bore for rust prevention and into the safe.  Got somewhere north of 6K rounds of black through the rifle this way without issue.

[Bunk Stagnerg]

Expanding .44-40 cases to ,45 seems to do the job. My next match I might shoot some of the fire formed cases in my 1866 and see how they work with Trail Boss and a 200 grain crayon lube bullet.
They worked quite well last match and I was fire forming some pretty gnarly cases on the line at the match.

Holy Black, of course and one of DD's 200 grain boolets. No more heathen powder will defile the bore of my 1860 Henry. Besides  making smoke drives the gamers nuts.
Bunk

[StrawHat]

...
No, you cannot chamber a 44-40 round in a 45 Colt rifle. It will jam it up completely. However I have been shooting 45 Colt in my pistols since day one in CAS, and 44-40 in my rifles, and I have not had a problem. You just have to pay attention at the loading table. It helps that all my 44-40 ammo goes into blue plastic boxes and all my 45 Colt ammo goes into gray boxes. And all the 44-40 ammo has a black stripe across the case head...

I read somewhere of a Texas Ranger who reloaded his Winchester with his Colt cartridges.  It gummed things up fairly quick.  He kept his head (and scalp) by removing the sideplate by using his knife as a screwdriver and removing the offending cartridge.  All while under fire from his attackers.  Me, I think if it had been me and I survived, I would have swapped the Colts in for something that shot the 44 WCF!

[Bunk Stagnerg]

I finally had time to load and shoot some of the fire formed cases.

The .45 Colt sizing die does not quite size the thin neck down to make a tight fit and usually I seat the bullet (200 gr. Big Lube™) with my thumb. Since the bullet base is on the powder the seating die compresses the load slightly and the crimp die holds it tightly in place.

I loaded the 1860 with a full magazine tube and all the bullets kept a proper length to feed so I think this is the remedy for the blow back problem.
Hold center
Bunk