Original 44-90 Sharps

[LeRoy]

Happy New Year folks!

I have an original Sharps (serial # 155xxx) in 44-90SBN, and have a couple, for now, questions.

1. How hard are dies for this caliber to come by?
2. Have a hundred or so cases I picked up from BACO (great people) when passing through your beautiful country a couple of years ago. The rims are too thick to chamber the cases The question is, do I trim the face of the case or the "cylinder" side... or?

I don't think this will be a BPCR or BPCTR, but would like to use it to take some game up here in Alberta.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as my search 'wu' leaves a lot to be desired.

Thanks for your help!

LeRoy.

[firefighter1990]

Buffalo arms sells brass that's for originals, c sharps, and Shiloh as their rim thickness varies from each other. But if you have cases already then you just need to thin the the rims from the head stamp side. The front of the rim where the case body starts (webbing area) is where your cartridge headspaces off of and that should remain untouched as your common denominator. Again, cut from the back side. A lathe will probably give you the most uniform results.

Buffalo arms also sells dies but they may have to special order them through Huntington, ch4d, or whoever else offers them in 44 2-5/8" but they'rer not cheap. Be sure you know what neck diameter you need if you order dies for an antique rifle though! A chamber cast will be essential for that part. I assume you're shooting black powder but in all honesty, dies aren't a necessity.

I have an original Rolling block sporter in 44-77 and once I have fire-formed brass; I just load and finger seat a soft lead bullet and its ready to go. I decap them and dont bother sizing anything. I had to thin the rims on my brass to fit that old chamber as well. Its all just a little work for these old ghosts but it's worth it, they still shoot and do so quite well!

[LeRoy]

firefighter1990...

Thanks for the help. I have a lathe, and took a bit off the face of a few last year, and someone told me I was doing it wrong... should be from the web side, so I quit. I will do another small batch for testing.
Am trying to get some cerrosafe to do a chamber cast, but the few places I have asked, they look at me like I have three eyes!

Thanks again!

LeRoy.

[powderburner]

Leroy, google rotometals. They have cerroaafe for a good price.

[LeRoy]

Thank you powderburner!

LeRoy.

[firefighter1990]

I guess if it's virgin brass; cutting either side of the rim will work for fitting your head spacing. From a geometric stand point: if you cut the web side then that simultaneously alters how far your brass sits in the chamber and thus you might have to trim the necks back or bump the shoulders back.Cutting on the backside: youre simple dealing with head spacing until it's enough for the block to slide closed and seal the breach. Once you're fire-formed then the round head-spaces on both the rim and the shoulder (in the case of bottlenecks. Straight cases is solely the rim.)

A cheaper way to go about dies may be to use 43 spanish (for .439" bullets) or 43 mauser (for .446" bullets) but thread them out shallow on your press to account for the taller body of the 2-5/8" case. Kind of redneck but if you need neck tension and dont like finger-seating then lee dies are like $30 as apposed to the $250 for custom ch4d dies.

[James]

You can do a chamber cast with sulfur, gently heat it till it melts and proceed as normal. My self would trim the rim from the web side to maintain the primer pocket.

[Tomklinger]

LeRoy,
I have an original 44/90. Sharps Creedmoor. The rim thickness is .080. How thick/thin do yours need to be? If you need to cut very much off, and you cut it off the head stamp side, be sure the primer is below the surface when seated or you may have to recut the primer pockets.
Tom

[Nuclearcricket]

LeRoy, you say you have a lathe and what I am about to suggest may not make a lot of sense to you but it may if you think about it a bit more. When I first learned of this trick it didn't seem right to me either but it does work and if your a little careful it can work very well.
First off, if you need to thin the rim thickness on your cases you do need to do it from the under or web side of the rim. Other wise you rick the chance of making the primer pocket too shallow and that will cause problems.
You are not taking a lot of material off of the rim and brass is relatively soft and cuts easily so it doesn't take all that much to hold it to trim a little bit off.
I came up with this idea while refacing the flywheels for large trucks. They were just pressed up against a lathe chuck and used friction to hold them while they were being faced off. Kind of went against what I was taught in school and in practice as a machinist but it worked out very well.
The first thing you want to make is a plug with a shoulder to fit snugly in the case mouth, and it needs to have a center drill hole in it to fit your lathe center. I used brass for this but aluminum or steel will work just as well. It should fit snugly in your case mouth, it is best if the mouth ID is uniform,
Next you will need to set up a piece of stock in the chuck and bore out a shallow pocket slightly less deep than what the final rim thickness will be and just out to the rim diameter. This is what will drive your case as it turns in the lathe. I used aluminum for this and it worked quite well.
To thin the rims, put the plug in the case mouth and use your lathe center to hold it into the pocket you just formed in the part in the lathe chuck, then you can use your part off tool or any tool to feed in and out to thin the rim. This will keep everything same same as all you do is run the center in and out.
It sounds kind of complicated but once you set everything up and have it running it works pretty well. You can easily hold the rim thickness to +/- /.001".
For an easy set up to measure the rim thickness, I took a piece of aluminum and faced it off on both ends with a length a bit longer than the longest case you might use. Set it up and drilled a hole through just a little bigger than your case diameter, so that the case will drop in and the rim will set on the faced off end. Next I made a flat slug a little bigger in diameter than the rim and made sure it was flat and parallel, any stock will work, even a piece of flat stock, just as long as its flat. I use a surface plate and a 1" travel indicator on a stand. Set the cylinder on the plate with your slug on top, set your indicator to "0", then drop the case in the hold, set your slug on top and use your indicator to measure the rim thickness. I know I am not the best at describing things, but hopefully I have done a good enough job that when you set and think about this it makes sense.
Sam

[semtav]

Very good suggestion cricket !!!
Ive got a whole bunch of Shiloh 45-110 cases that the rim is too thick on. I may try that out. Unless someone has a need for thick rimmed cases.

[Kurt]

When I got my .44-90 bn I used Bell .44 basic brass and the rim thickness was .086" +- I used my Lathe with a collet chuck and put the rim right against the collet and set the tool at .078" for my Shiloh and I just ran the tool bit accost the head and never changed the depth setting. I re cut the primer pocket depth for rifle primers and some for pistol primer depth.
For the .44-77 I just used 220 grid sand paper and figure 8 it that worked just as well.

[LeRoy]

Thank you one and all for your observations and suggestions.

LeRoy

[Yellowhouse]

I wonder if one couldn't just reduce the rim from the the headstamp and use large pistol primers?

[Chief Beck]

LeRoy,

.44-90 BN CH4d dies will size those necks down to .456.

Dennis

[Kurt]

I wonder if one couldn't just reduce the rim from the the headstamp and use large pistol primers?

That's the way I do it.