What "filler" to use for 44-40 BP

[Trader Dan]

Montana, here is my setup. Either Starline or RP 44-40 cases, stainless steel pin cleaned and cob polished, hand primed using a RCBS "old Style" hand primer seater, resized with a RCBS Cowboy resizing die, belled with a RCBS Cowboy belling die, individually filled with 30 grains of Goex 2F black powder dropped from a Belding and Mull powder measure under a Mav Dutchman 200 grain bullet lubed on a RCBS Lubamatic with SPG lube seated with a RCBS Cowboy bullet seating die to the crimp grove and crimped with a Lee factory crimp dies. The RCBS seating die has been backed off so it will not crimp. All of the die work is done on a RCBS Rock Chucker press. I drop each completed cartridge in one of the revolver cylinders removed from the gun, to make sure they will properly chamber. It has been suggested by one of other CAS shooters at my club that I do a final resize on all of the completed cartridges by running them through the resizing die with the decapping ram removed. This is OK but it is a step I feel I should not have to do.
OK I like RCBS. Can you tell?
What am I doing wrong?  

[Coffinmaker]

FLATBUSH,

Ya gotta short the water a mite.  Also helps ifin ya add a spoonful (spoon size optional) of Bacon Grease.  Makes the whole posse
HUNGRY!!

Coffinmaker

[Montana Slim]

A shooting pard has given me all of his non-starline cases.....telling me they don't load consistently for him. I really don't recall his setup or rationale, but if he picks up a R-P case anywhere by accident, he passes it along to me. My setup now runs with any cartridge case tried to date, even ugly ones with wrinkled , uneven mouths & minor splits that most would toss.

The same friend also mentions running loaded cartridges back through a sizing die. I've done this, but only with rounds that would not drop into my revolver chambers...& I noticed there's usually some type of imperfection in the cartridge cases needing this special attention.

He's shooting Uberti rifles and Ruger revolvers with the 44-40s...

After the Lee FC die went in to my setup, no more resizing of loaded rounds.

Have you noticed a pattern of one type of case functioning better?


Slim

[Coffinmaker]

Along with Slim's recommendations, I would also suggest Bacon Grease from "Cracker Barrel Bacon."   

Coffinmaker
(Perky today aint I)

[Trader Dan]

Slim, I am trying to remember which ones I had loaded with the BP. I am pretty such they were Starline. I have already cleaned them and have them in my bin for the next reloading. I do have 50 more that are loaded with BP and I know they are Starline.

What dos your pard mean "they don't load consistently"? I do know that different manufacture can have different wall thickness changing the capacity of the case.

I am going to be at the range Monday and I will try it again and see what happens.     

[Montana Slim]

Oops..missed this one. There's a difference in thickness of the brass. I believe my friend is running .429 bullets & has chambering problems with particularly Remington brass. He only uses *-*. I told him to use .428 for trouble-free operation with any brass, but his supplier only does .429 bullets (?)

Just thinking about your cartridge gage. I don't have any Uberti 44-40 revolvers. I have a ASM which is tightly chambered...but they are very uniform. Several other things could come into play.
Your Uberti may not be uniform from one chamber to another. Tooling does wear & I've seen screwed up chambers firsthand. I hear a number of folks get a new Uberti in .44-40 or .45 and have to use a chamber finish reamer to uniform them. Mostly they're trying to improve their "groups". This is only one possibility. If using multiple revolvers, then you see it could get more dicey (12 chambers, which one is tight?).
Check the revolver for other potential problems, especially anything dealing with headspace, -  primer pocket depths (primer heights). I've had some cartridge cases which pockets were not finished quite deep enough, IMO. Borderline high primers, unless pockets were cleaned and or uniformed. Winter project - 1800 pieces of brass.
You'd see indicator's on the primers if this was the problem.
Same for a possible firing pin burr. (mark on the case head) New Uberti will tend to burr out a bit until fully broken in. Use a fine stone to eliminate. On a pistol with a bushing (not your case), always be sure the bushing is flush & tight. I've seen them work loose very slowly & end up causing mysterious problems & difficult to immediately spot.

Probably a few more, but This is all I have now. If your troubles continue, I recommend consulting a local shooter (familiar with "WCF" revolvers). Someone will likely have to get hands-on to do better.

good luck,
Slim

[David Battersby]

I use Cream of Wheat
Loading black powder cartridge with a filler adds more time, effort,steps.....to the reloading process. I use a filler for a specific purpose.

I shoot lever action silhouette. When the pistol caliber chickens fly over the backstop and knock over a pig or stick halfway into the backstop as if thrown like a hatchet.....people look at you funny. I never broke a chicken, but it is obvious that full power 44WCF loads are not needed.  I found a load my rifle likes of "approximately"  2/3 Swiss 2F and 1/3 C.O.W.   
Cream of Wheat is cheaper that Swiss BP and the load serves a purpose. The load however is too much trouble to make for all day every day shooting.

F.Y.I.  I was at the range with a N.S.S.A. member shooting reduced loads with corn meal. It smelled like a cook out on a grill !

[Dick Dastardly]

Truthfully, 44-40 loaded with Mav Dutchman Big Lube®LLC bullets can be shot without having to compress the FFg black powder hardly at all.  Just don't leave air space because of dirty burning due to low pressure.  Just fill your case to the base of the bullet, seat and crimp.  Good quality black powder is actually clean enough to function trouble free without having to firmly compress it.

I've found that the organic fillers can cause cylinder base pin fouling more than the soot residue from black powder alone.  Coat your cylinder base pin liberally with white lithium grease and your guns should be good for an entire match.  Check the gap between the cylinder face and the back end of the barrel.  It should be between Five and Eight thousandths of an inch.  More than that and the soot seems to not blow away and the cylinder binds up.  Less than that and the cylinder binds up.  So, on my guns, that's the magic gap measurement for trouble free function.

Good shootin' and the joy of smoke to you!

DD-MDA

[olskool]

I fill the space with more powder.

[Dick Dastardly]

Whut Driftwood said.  He says the truth.

DD-MDA

[Coffinmaker]

Actually, I am of little or NO help at all for this thread.  Notice my previous super informative contributions.  I don't shoot Bottle Neck cartridges (44-40 or 38-40 or 32-20) nor do I personally use fillers.  Because I Shoot straight wall cartridges, when I need a bit less recoil (Declared Recoil Wimp Here), I use a smaller cartridge.  .45 equals Cowboy 45 Special.  .44 equals 44 Russian.  38 equals ..... well .. 38s

I do however have a partner in crime who does shoot bottle neck cartridges and who does use filler.  His go-to filler is ground corncob.  Seems to work quite well.  I do admit however, some lustroum ago, when stoking with that heathen stuff, I used Cream-0-Wheat as my filler.  After seeing the light (Dark Side), the smaller cases seem to work much better.  Oh, and lighter (a lot lighter) bullets.

Coffinmaker

Most of the above is deemed heresay and is inadmissible for the purpose of persecution.  Any and all claims publicly touted will be immediately and vehemently denied.  All persons mentioned, living or dead are purely fictional and unrelated to anyone listed who is currently ... dead.  Endquote

[Gomezy3k]

When I reload, and when I shoot my C&B guns, the filler I use is Black Powder...    Back when I first started shooting in the local CAS club, after the first stage, several shooters came up and asked what the heck I was shooting in my guns.  My guns went BOOM!!! instead of "pphhhfffft" like the rest of the shooters who shot mouse phart loads.  

I never have liked to shoot light loads.  I guess i am just a Warhog shooting the Holy Black.