Tight Cahmber in Farmingdale .45-70 Business Rifle

[Todd Birch]

Roll crimped hunting rounds that chamber in my other .45-70 rifles will not chamber in my Farmingdale '74 deep enough to permit the action to close.

Will taper crimping solve this problem? If so, can anyone recommend a good one?

Thanks, Todd

[Lee Stone]

Todd:

Lyman makes two taper crimp dies, a short one for .45/70 and .45/90 and a long one for .45/100 and .45/110. I have two of the short ones. The one I use for .45/90 worked fine out of the box. I use the other one for .45/70 but had to grind 1/8" off the bottom as it was too long to affect the case. Now it crimps just fine. Just grind and cool very often so as not to affect the hardness of the metal.

I am not sure that it will be the answer to your particular problem though, I think case length and overall length need to be looked at. Will it chamber a sized empty case? If not, then case length needs to be addressed. If it will chamber a sized empty case, the put a bullet in a case and insert it so that the bullet will be seated to the overall length that chamber needs.

[Ray Newman]

I doubt if a taper crimp will solve your dilema.

1st thing that I would do is look @ the OAl of the cartridge.

Make up a dummy round for the Farmingdale & compare the OAL to the other round(s) that will chamber in your other rifles.

Could very well be that there is a difference in the chamber sizes & lengths.

Are these cartridges FL re-sized?

[Todd Birch]

Because I want to feed all of my rifles with the same ammo, (I'm lazy....),
I full length resize my brass.
Factory jacketed loads with 300 and 405 grain chamber just fine.

The only rifle I don't do that for is my Shiloh .50-70 Military. Fireformed brass is all it asks.

Mine is not the only Farmingdale .45-70 I'm aware of with this problem.
It's going to take some experimentation to solve, but that's part of the fun.

I'm thinking it has to be a function of the ogive of the bullet engaging the rifling ahead of the chamber.

Todd

[Lee Stone]

Todd:

When you try to chamber a round you say it almost but doesn't quite chamber, are you getting rifling marks on the ogive of the bullet? If so, then OAL may be the answer and seating the bullets deeper may be the answer. Assuming that a resized case will chamber completely.

[Vic]

I had a similar experience with my 45-2.1 Shiloh when I used to use the Lyman 310 crimping/seating tool. My fireformed Remington cases are a perfect fit for the .459 buffalo arms swaged bullets - so much so, that I would usually have to hold the bullet down in the case for about 10 seconds until the air bled out before I could put them into the crimping tool, otherwise they would pop back out from the compressed air. But after crimping, I noticed a drag when trying to chamber the bullets. I guess the crimping allowed a ever so slight bulge at the crimp edge, which caused it to drag when chambering. So I ran the loaded rounds through a taper die just enough to bring the loaded rounds back to about .481 at the cartridge mouth. It was an almost imperceptible squeeze, but it was enough to eliminate the dragging when chambering.

I don't know about using a taper die to hold the bullet - my understanding is that it just deforms the bullet and still doesn't satisfactorily hold the bullet - at least it hasn't in my experience.

[Todd Birch]

Lee....

All my unloaded brass has been resized, belled and primed.
It never occured to me to trying chambering a round before belling. I will when next I process a batch of brass.

Pushing a loaded round into the chamber does not produce any marks of contact on the bullet nose.

If nothing else works, I will acquire a mould that drops a bullet with an undersized nose.


Vic....

I expect that a taper crimp die will achieve the same for me.
I'm not looking to achieve a 'crimp' per se on any of my single shot loads.
It's my understanding that crimps are not required for single shots so long as the bullet remains correctly located in the case.

Todd

[Lee Stone]

With no marks on the bullet that seems to leave case length. When available, a full length resized empty case, without being belled, chambered will tell if your cases need trimming. It could be as simple as that. I believe if the problem was your bullets, there would be rifling marks on them after attempting to chamber.

[Todd Birch]

Lee

I shall check all my brass for OAL when next processing. It may well be that my Farmer '74 needs trimmed brass to chamber. Easily done.

At one time or another, my brass has been through 6 .45-70 rifles of different makes and designs.

Thanks for all the input and suggestions.

Todd

[Lead Pot]

Todd here's another thing to check, some cases have thicker walles then others. I have a problem with Hornady .405 winchester cases in my .40-70. It just wont except the hornady case with a grease groove bullet.
What I found the cases have a thick wall that taper back to the head, The problem is not at the case mouth, but where the seated bullet base is. I dont have a inside reading mike that will reach in .625 inside the case were the base of the bullet is, I loaded ten rounds and ran them through the taper crimp die till they fit the chamber and fired them to fire form the cases, and reloaded several empty cases with out sizing, got some bluing and inserted the dummy rounds. I found the problem was just in front of the bullet base were the blueing rubbed off and the cases were fron 1/8 th 5/16" from seating.I took a dowel rod and forced the cartdrige into the chamber drove it out with a cleaning rod pulled the bullet and miked the base of the bullet. I found that the base of the bullet was swaged down to .406 the second one was .404.
I dont know that if this your problem or not but it is something to check.
One pluss with my heavy walled cases is, there ideal for paper patched bullets

Kurt

[Lee Stone]

I didn't think of that one . I've never encountered that problem but then I've never used Hornaday brass, only Winchester, Remington, Bell and Starline (Bell and Starline definitely need to be annealed before the first loading.). But that is an excellent suggestion Lead Pot made.

[Lead Pot]

Hey Lee that's nothing to get red faced about , It took a few loadings for me to look there. I use a .408 expander ball and I get .0005 spring back on the case wall. I was having problems while seating the bullet that it would, how do you say, up trude?from .399 to .401 with the soft bullets I use. I could feel the resistance on the press handle that they were to tight.
One more thing that can happen is over compressing the powder with out using a die that supports the side wall of the case that will swell the case. I reworked a seating die and put the compression plug in that die so it does not push the case wall out when compressing a heavy charge.
Oh well aint this fun?

Kurt.

[Todd Birch]

I've only used Remington and Winchester brass.

When trouble shooting anything, experience has taught me to look for the simple, obvious solutions first.

Yes, this is going to be fun......

"When the obvious has been disproven, whatever remains, however unlikely, is probably the truth." Sherlock Holmes

Todd

[Lee Stone]

Did he shoot BPCR to?

[Trigger Dr]

Yeah Lee, he did, but he was on the losing team.... You know, the one that used those trap door things.
Jim