Why did the .44 calibers loose favor over the .45's ?

[bobw]

Well actually I think it had more to do with Sharps hiring Nelson King from winchester to be the plant manager. He was hired expressly to put Sharps into the black out of the red ink. He believed Sharps operated to much like a custom gunshop instead of efficiently producing a standard model at a higher profitability. The business rifle could be put together faster and more profitable than every other gun being different. The 44's went because the army was shooting 45's. For production simplicity Nelson King wanted just 40's and 45's he replaced the plug gauges for the 44's without telling anyone which resulted in 44 diameters being all over the map. He got fired for that. As the Hartford era ended so did the pewter forend tips and 44 as well as 50 cal std chamberings. oh they could be special ordered but Sharps was trying hard to streamline production and gain profitability. Then the buffalo ran out. They had dealers returning unsold Sharps riles. Heavily discounted then and sold at a loss. The owners of the company took to much of the profits without reinvesting into new items to produce. After the company shut down remains stocks of parts were sold to companies like meachum for conversions of the percussion model to center fire. For a fact Sharps converted a huge amount of their percussion guns for the gov't. It's all in the Sellers and Marcots Sharps books to read. Nothing wrong with 44 cal guns or 50's they shoot well..bobw

[bobw]

Think in terms of production efficiency. The last 44-77 sbn casings I bought cost 3 bucks a piece. Last week my order from Starline for 45-70 showed up 250 pieces of brass for $137 delivered. The 50-70's still backordered with no apprx furnish date. Look at what 45 2.9 & 3.25" basic from Norma cost. Worse yet absolutely no correctly headstamped 40-70 ss availible yet people keep telling newbies to order one. If the demand was there so would the.brass be there at a decent price like 45-70 that simple..bobw

[Kurt]

Kurt,

You'd better start up a new topic - this has nothing to do 44's vs 45's losing favour.

Yes, but that is a patched .44

[Kurt]

I think you guys are right with everything mentioned.
And I feel that with the end of brass now it will put the numbers lower for some of the bottle necked shells but the straight wall .44's can be made mostly from the .45's.

Kurt

[marlinman93]

Think in terms of production efficiency. The last 44-77 sbn casings I bought cost 3 bucks a piece. Last week my order from Starline for 45-70 showed up 250 pieces of brass for $137 delivered. The 50-70's still backordered with no apprx furnish date. Look at what 45 2.9 & 3.25" basic from Norma cost. Worse yet absolutely no correctly headstamped 40-70 ss availible yet people keep telling newbies to order one. If the demand was there so would the.brass be there at a decent price like 45-70 that simple..bobw

Even the donor .405 Hornady brass I use in my many .40-70 rifles is impossible to find now! I was excited when Hornady brought out there .405 Win. brass, and bought a lot of it, so I'm OK. But I see people recommending this chambering, and wonder where they'll get brass once they have the rifle? I really don't care what headstamp my brass has, just care about having any brass that can be reworked to shoot!

[Kurt]

Huntington still has some .40-70 Bertram brass in stock and there are still a couple places that make custom cases like the .40-77 and .44-90bn but they come at a high price. But the Bertram cases I found out that I had to anneal the whole case to keep them from splitting after a few loadings.
I had a large inventory of the .44 BN and the Bell and HDS .44 basic straight wall brass, I gave away a couple hundred cases to friends to get them shooting their sharps but the Jamison brass I have left will go with my rifles when I get done with them.

https://huntingtons.com/product/40-70-s ... f-bertram/

[marlinman93]

I'll find any other source before I'll ever buy Bertram brass again! It's not worth paying their prices and then losing so many cases so quickly. It's junk.

[powderburner]

Jf you are building a 40-70 cut the rim for privi beass. Its quite nice other than the thin rim could probably shim the reg chamber if need be.

[martinibelgian]

I'll find any other source before I'll ever buy Bertram brass again! It's not worth paying their prices and then losing so many cases so quickly. It's junk.

Not my experience by all means - I purchased some no.2 Musket brass, and it has been quite good, with 10+ years and the only losses due to operator error. IME good stuff. I have retired it in favour of newer brass, but I still have it and it is still useable.

[Yellowhouse]

MartiniBelgian is on target. Back in the beginning we Yanks used the brits methods of bore measurement which was what we call bore not groove. I've yet to see a roller 44-77 that didn't measure over .450 groove diameter. The guvmint in developing the 45-70 strived to standardize matters and used the more familiar groove to designate caliber. The adoption of the straight vs BN is an altogether different matter...they could have easily reamed for greasers and produced a BN .45.

[desert deuce]

While only limited experience with original 44-77 Remington Rolling Block Rifles, it does seem .450 groove is not unusual, however, a .450 diameter GG bullet seated in a full length sized case can be too large in the neck to chamber wherein a .446 diameter GG bullet will chamber and shoot quite well.

Has anyone else had similar experience?

[marlinman93]

All my single shot rifles in .44-77 have a groove diameter at .451"-.452" diameter. I've always assumed the original bullets being paper patched were likely around .446" and then patched to fit the larger groove diameter? I only shoot GG in mine, so haven't made any PP bullets for it.
My .44-100 Ballard #7 came with an Old West paper patch mold that drops a .446 bullet of 480 grs., and a ream of onion skin paper. I have tried to make a paper patch using two wraps of the paper it came with, and the patched bullets are right at groove diameter of .452" for the Ballard #7.

[marlinman93]

I'll find any other source before I'll ever buy Bertram brass again! It's not worth paying their prices and then losing so many cases so quickly. It's junk.

Not my experience by all means - I purchased some no.2 Musket brass, and it has been quite good, with 10+ years and the only losses due to operator error. IME good stuff. I have retired it in favour of newer brass, but I still have it and it is still useable.

Maybe because you bought it 10 years ago, and it might be better back then?
I bought 40 rds. of .25-21 Stevens Bertram from BACO about 7 years ago, and lost over half on the first firing. Using the same load I've used for old original UMC brass for years, with zero case loss.

[Kurt]

I cant say for the RB .44-77, I never had one in this caliber but I got some chamber casts from originals and the bore groove diameters where what I would call a .45. When I had the reamers made and I got the proof prints for an OK I change only the throat diameters but not the transitions angles into the throat for the now used .438/.446
The other roller I had where 11mm and the .40-70 bn as well as the .43 Spanish

[Kurt]

I think Bertram uses the yellow brass that is harder instead of the red brass which is softer. The .40-70 cases I got back around 20 years ago and they split length wise till I annealed the whole case and never sized them again. I still have some left.