44-77 Brass

[J.B.]

" Yeh... nah" ( as we get quoted down here). Curious sure but I dont believe a lathe purchase is in my future. Had I the interest and expertise I probably would have invested in one years ago but the few times I've needed something made that wasnt 'accepted mainstream' , I've been fortunate to have a friend who would complete the task for me. Very lucky indeed. Now turning down 50 or a 100 or more cases.. that may be another story. We'll see. I have to get them first. The Bertram Spanish brass drops straight into the Shiloh chamber quite nicely and fills the rim recess almost completely. Let down only by the rim thickness and the corresponding neck length shortfall. For those with older , original Remingtons that take .081 rims, these are quite likely a 'drop in solution' once the necks are opened up. Not being a brass manufacturer, I dont pretend to know what's involved but based on the Bertram case I do have, it would appear that if the case was made with a slimmer rim, the neck opened up slightly and the base stamped 44/77 ..for all intents and purposes.. presto ' 44/77 cases' . I guess its the tooling up and changes that swings the balance and this only becomes viable for volume producers when the orders are in the 1000's or 10's of thousands. Now the 44/90 shooters may want a piece of the pie also.. so then comes the option of ' 44 basic' .. but I suspect the first option may be less of a hurdle ?
J.B.

[martinibelgian]

Fwiw, I once had a rim swage made for thinning rims on 32-20 cases to be a le to use them in my .310 cadet.
Mine was a hammer stage, but no reason one couldn't make one for use in a press.
And yes, it worked quite well.

[J.B.]

No this isnt the answer...but an update. I've sent a few emails and today had cause to contact the Bertram Co. in Australia. Asking if by chance they may have a stray box of 43 Spanish for me to further experiment with..? Well the answer was that they have thousands still in stock so if that's the case you seek, just place the order with your importer. The lovely lady was very familiar with the product and indicated that its 'not impossible' to have a run of 44/77 cases done but its not likely to happen until they need stocks again of 43 Spanish. At that time it would taken minimal machine adjustment to run the thinner rim, larger neck etc. So if its to happen, it would run in conjunction with...rather than as a stand alone production.
Potentially good news..but not in the near future I suspect. Certainly wont occur without demand, orders , email enquiries etc. In the mean time I'm going to experiment a little more with the cases I've ordered. Even in the 1860's we had cases all but identical and it seems re-inventing the wheel hasnt lost its appeal. This puts the 44 shooters and numerous others at a definite disadvantage when it comes to competing with the latest 'ultra velocity' wildcat or stealth chambering.
J.B.

[Longrange]

Hi all Vic from bris aust. I made 43 spanish cases from 458 win mag cases pulled out neck turned off belt swage fitted rim anieled and fire formed. worked for me

[powderburner]

I might have to give that a try. I got a bunch of 300 wind cases, and I don’t have any use for them. That would be a good thing to turn them into.

[MHS4575]

Given how Starline has treated the BPCR community I am finished with them. Rocky Mountain Brass makes high quality brass that while expensive is high quality. Cody has stuck with the BPCR community. We should support him. I am finished with Starline for brass for good.

[bobw]

Disagree mhs4575. Starline is a company who started out making brass for ordinary smokeless rounds when the demand for them slacked they branched out to make some low demand uncommon casings (50/90,50/70,45-2.1 2.4 2.6 etc) some companies would have cut hrs or layed off. Fact is Captech/ Jamison's principle production was for military consumption and their venture into bpcr cases wasn't enough to support them either. Thank the fugging demotards from Clinton, obummer and Joe f bitme for creating all the panics on ammo and components that have resulted in shortages. Rem arms doesn't offer component brass at all and only ever once in awhile will you find WW, Sig, Fed ,Hornady or PPU. When the demand is real high their brass is going into factory ammo period whether their own or from small custom ammo companies that is their bread and butter not some guy who can't think far enough ahead to stay supplied with brass he needs, primers, bp, tin and lead. All of us bpcr shooters no matter what kind of matches we like are a drop in the bucket in the general scheme of things. Just like lr primers their demand is so high for fac ammo you sure don't see jack for lr primers in stock anywhere. I could go on and on but the fact of the whole matter is that the days you can buy what you want, when you want , for how much you wanna pay are long fugging gone. When you order out a new rifle in a chambering where the brass is hard to get aquire the brass first then order the gun. 45 -110 isn't really an oddball either but when is the last time anyone on this forum got an order of Norma ? same deal. Starline filled case order for 45-70 early this fall for me same for others here a whole thread or 2 on that..bobw

[VenisonRX]

Bob, I can agree with you there. I live down the road from the Remington plant. Their big role right now is filling govt contracts arming the IRS and whatever other three letter agencies that definitely won’t be used against American citizens because “they have internal policies” saying they can’t unless they decide to change their policies as well as the proxy wars in Ukraine, Yemen, Israel, and the half dozen others I’m not allowed to mention and I definitely wasn’t “there” for a couple years back. That’s the reason you can find all the nato stuff easily enough. All their overrun is being put on shelves at a massive profit. It doesn’t help that companies keep putting out new 6.whichever mm fad cartridge every year so whatever capacity these factories do have for the civilian market is going there. Reloaders are definitely an afterthought and BP cartridges are a strange oddity amongst that. A lot of these companies would love to produce more but a lot of them are already at capacity at the moment. I’m sure the guy who owns Rocky Mountain is great. He certainly cares since guys like us and wildcatters are his bread and butter. It’s definitely praiseworthy. But at $8 a shot ($8k for 1000 to put it in oerspective) it’s hard to stomach what he’s got to charge regardless of your scruples. From what I understand about the amount of brass one would need to take this hobby seriously you’d be more than doubling the price of an already expensive rifle just to get started in brass alone. That doesn’t include the custom dies, powder, different molds to experiment with, lead, etc. I’m sure he charges as little as he’s able to keep his doors open but the fact remains that makes it unobtainable for most people wanting to get into the hobby. I’m happy to support any company willing to touch this stuff at all because most can’t let alone will. That’s my two cents on the subject.

I’ve been enjoying this thread because with brass being at Holland and Holland prices regardless of who produced it, we need more Townsend Whelens in the world if you’re a student of ammunition history. Hopefully we have more like it with the other black powder chamberings.

[Ray Newman]

BobW: well said. Back in August 1987, I took possession of a #1 Sharps .45-2.4". Even back then, non .45-2.1" brass was hard to find. I lucked out. Before I ordered the rifle in August 1986, I found 2 20 round boxes of the legendary BELL Basic Brass. A few weeks after I took delivery of the rifle, I heard a "range rumor" that Huntington had .45 BELL Basic Brass. Called and bought the remaining 5 20 round boxes of BELL Brass. Huntington representative was sorta surprised at how quickly their BELL Basic stock sold out and at the then high asking price -- US $25.00+ for a box of 20??

At that time, brass for any obsolete calibre was not easy to find. I recall Buffalo Arms stretching 45-2.1" Remington(??) brass to 2.4". Cannot recall when Starline first offered the larger .45 cases. Something in the back of my mind says the Starline was .45-2.4" and .45 2 7/8" cases only. Seems to me that C. Sharps and Shiloh may have had a limited amount of .45 basic. In 1998 or 99, I sent my Borchardt .45-2 7/8" off for repair. Gunsmith strongly advised me to obtain the .45-2 7/8" brass as you never knew when and if the stock would dry up. I bought some of Buffalo Arms brass -- also stretched?? Then Norma came on the market with its limited 2 7/8" run. Never bought brass from Dixie Arms and am not sure of what was available through them.

Back when I order my Sharps, I was advised to get the Buffalo Arms catalogue. If I recall correctly, it was 2 doubled sided photocopied pages of shooting supplies. I wish I saved my first few copies.

My SWAG (Scientific Wild Arsed Guess) the problem with finding brass is: (a) tooling up is costly for limited runs, and (b) Black Powder brass lasts forever with the care.

[Ray Newman]

"Reloaders are definitely an afterthought and BP cartridges are a strange oddity amongst that. A lot of these companies would love to produce more but a lot of them are already at capacity at the moment."
--Venson Rx

BINGO!

I recall a conversation I had with the late Rdnck when he was a GOEX employee and testing various GOEX Black Powder lots. Bill said 80% of the yearly GOEX production was US government/DOD contracts. At a subsequent SHOT Show, I talked to a GOEX rep about Black Powder production and the problem finding some granulations. I believe he said that government contract production was closer to 85-90%.

[J.B.]

Things move slowly down here but I have managed to get some Bertram, Spanish cases modified by a fellow shooting buddy. He was able to trim the inside edge of the rim back to an average of .074/.075" using a method along similar lines as to what Sam posted earlier. Case length for the Spanish cases averaged between 2.239" to 2.242 " before loading with very little 'set back' on firing and blowing out the shoulder. Neck wall thickness seems to hover around .009". My initial neck expanding was using various diameter expander plugs I had sourced or had made over recent years but it meant a 2 or 3 step process. I was annealing necks before and after the expanding process. Possibly overkill and I suspect doing them once prior to loading and firing would have been sufficient. That was my first 20 cases and they now sit, fire formed, perfectly matched to the chamber and ready for loading. Since then I've sourced a custom expanding mandrel through 21st Century Innovation and its working very nicely. Correct diameter and long enough to negotiate the whole neck, down to and just past the shoulder. Liberal application of Imperial sizing wax works well here. I'm working with a tight Shiloh chamber but it is for grease groove bullets, so the mandrel was requested to taper up to .446' from .436". Specifying for an original..ie. ODG or paper patch chamber, you wouldnt need that much of a step. You machinists and toolmakers out there may even be able to 'turn-up' what you require. The expander plugs I had were too short to utilise fully as I was into the flaring portion of the plug before the expanding portion had cleared the neck. ( Hope that made sense ) The purpose designed mandrel had no such problem. I'll get 80 or so of these cases formed up and hopefully give some longevity feed back down the line but for those interested in getting a 44/77. This is another option for you.
hth. regards.. J.B.