Forming Cases and other things

[Nuclearcricket]

I was a bit surprised my self, that is kind of why I picked that case to play with. I have 50 nickel Rem cases that have been shot with BP and they are just hanging around. I use Win cases for the sharps and the rest of my rem cases are for smokeless. If you look close you can see the web area hasn't filled out and probably will not but as long as the body taper fills out, and it has, and the shoulder didn't split all should be good. I would like to fire form the rest of them before I shorten them down to the 60 length but need to find something to put in the case rather than bullets. I figured I got lucky with the one that didn't fill the nec/throat area with lead but my luck can only stretch so far. I guess maybe COW would work. However with the weather turning cold and such casting time is coming up and burning powder will wait till spring.
SAm

[Kurt]

Well the cases will shorten when they expand. Even a full length sized case will shrink some when fired.

When I formed my .44-90 bn cases from .44 basic I filled the case with junk mixed powder and gave it heavy compression with three card wads and fillet it with corn meal again and compressed it and fired them like blanks the first shot and that did a good job, but I did not have to blow out the case walls like you did. I just formed the shoulder and neck. I also reduced the loaded round case neck some and left it long and let it blow into the throat lead. This worked fine for me and it gave me a point where to trim the case a little long for the second firing so they weren't short. A little more work but the cases turned out the way I wanted them.

[Distant Thunder]

As I mentioned earlier I've done a little experimenting with brass for the .44-77.

   

Left to right:

JBA The good stuff.

BACO converted .50-110 brass.

.300 Win. Mag. with the belt removed and a new rim swaged in place.

Bertram 45 Base brass with the rim pushed forward to .076 thickness.

Starline 45-2.6 brass with the rim pushed forward to .076 thickness.

All of these would make usable brass. The .300 Mag is the most work. The Bertram and Starline are very easy really.

The case capacity does vary, but really only with the Bertram the others are fairly close. I set up with 85.0 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss thru my 14" drop tube into each case and measured the distance from the case mouth to the powder. This is what I found:

JBA .150"

BACO .160"

.300 Win. Mag. .130"

Bertram .300"

Starline .165"

The rims on the two .45s probably wouldn't have to be pushed forward, you could just head space on the shoulder and there should be enough rim for extraction, but I also increased the rim diameter to .625" while pushing it forward.

[J.B.]

Interesting comparison there Jim, especially the additional depth afforded by the Bertram basic cases. An additional .135 - .150 is quite a jump. I'd be curious to know how much of that is brass thickness vs case length vs head thickness. It's all a bit academic as I'm finding 84 x Swiss 1.5 is more than enough to get the job done.. provided I get my side of things in order . I have some Bertram 45/110 cases sitting in my workshop so I might just run a couple of them through the sizer to see how they pan out. The Norma basic I tried once worked a treat but then Jamison/ Captech came good with supplies at the time so I stopped pursuing that option. Only wish I'd had a few more dollars at the time to lay in more JBA cases . All of my cases have shortened on firing but the JBA set back the least. I managed to get hold of one of the BACo 50/110 cases to try and still have some of theirs based on the 348 cases. All have worked without issue but for my part I've not had the ability to swage the rims either in diameter or thickness. Once fired though I'm not sure the rim thickness is as critical if being shot in the same rifle ?
rgds.. J.B.

[Distant Thunder]

Since I don't have my rifle back from Shiloh yet I can only go so far with my experiments. All the cases shown were fire formed in someone else's rifle, but I believe all were the Shiloh standard chamber dimensions at least.
My timing is almost always bad when it comes to these things and as a result both times that I have had the itch for a .44-77 brass has been non-existent to very, very pricey. This time I wasn't going to let that stop me.

As soon as I had shipped my rifle off to Shiloh I started researching possible cases that could be converted for use in the .44-77. The .45-90 looked like a possibility, though many said it wouldn't work because the case head is too small. It's really not that far off if you look at it per side it's only .0055", .505" for .45-70 brass and .516" for .44-77 brass. It some what depends on who's drawings you look at, but it's not that much.

Having worked with under size brass in chambers in the past I know that it is important to keep the expansion in front of the case head centered so it is as even as possible all the way around the case. That will help prevent case splitting. For the .44-77 it is important to have the neck and shoulder area annealed. The head itself is not going to expand from fire forming and I don't think it needs to to make useable brass. Tape can be use to wrap around the case head to hold it centered for initial fire forming.

The good thing about the .300 Win Mag is that the case in front of the belt is already the correct diameter, especially on fired brass. New brass would be just a little undersize. The belt is easy to turn off in a lathe or even in a drill press. Swaging the rims on is a major case conversion effort in that it requires special tooling and some serious pressure. The result, when done right, is amazing. You end up with a very solid rim firmly attached to the case without soldering so there is no heat involved to anneal the case head. You never want to anneal the case head.

Because of the special tooling, machining operations and the pressure to swage the rims I don't really see this as an easy way to go. If someone wants to go this route I can give them at least some more idea of what it takes. This would be perhaps worth while if you only needed 20 or so cases to get a rifle up and shooting.

I see the .45-90 brass as the way to go. Much easier and no special tooling needed, just a good understanding of what it takes to fire form brass in an oversize chamber for best results. With the thin rims you also have to understand head spacing. Any of this cases conversion could have devastating results if done wrong so proceed at your own risk. I can not think for you so you're on your own.

Anyway, I now have some Jamison brass so it is a little less urgent for me to make brass, but I do enjoy doing this stuff. When I get my rifle from Shiloh I'll be able to report actual results of shooting with the different brass. Until then I've gone as far as I can.

[Distant Thunder]

JB

The reason I used 85.0 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss for my comparison is just that, I don't see the need for more powder to get the job done. I see 82 to 88 grains behind a 520 bullet as plenty and as the sweet spot for Creedmoor shooting. That's basically a .45-90 load and with ppb I use 83.0 grains in my .45-70. 83 grains gets the job done.

My rifle should weigh around 12 pounds, I hope, and more powder and/or bullet will only start to bring recoil into the picture. I don't need that. If I end up closer to 90 grains I'll just have to deal with it. I am a little surprised how much powder this .44-77 will hold and with a bore diameter ppb it is getting up there near more than enough.

I'll weigh these brass that I have and see, but I'm thinking the Bertram, which is not the best brass, is on the thin side. I started with the Bertram because I had about 50 cases from a rifle I had a long, long time ago and they really weren't worth using except for an experiment like this. I have a bunch of the .45-2.6 Starline brass that I could convert or better yet sell and buy more JBA.

[J.B.]

I've certainly been cautious with the few I've done but at the time wanted to know if I had 'options' if the Jamison brass was not forthcoming. Even if I could source it, I then had to get it back down here. Between the assistance of good friends and of course my pilgrimage to the Q the last few years I managed to get around that hurdle... but then Captech ceased production ! Bummer RMC got me up and running thankfully and I couldnt fault their cases. A little down on capacity but not dramatically and the dimensions could be 'made to order'. Hence I was able to get brass at 2.270 -2.275 and trim back as required. Even managed to get some case necks at .014" and they work well with the Brooks 'Sharps' p.p. bullet mould I have. Hopefully I've enough JBA brass to keep me out of trouble for the moment but should I need to form any more I will take your idea of the tape into consideration to even out the expansion over the full radius of the case. Looking forward to hearing and seeing the results when you get your rifle up and running.
rgds... J.B.

[Distant Thunder]

I weighed the various ".44-77" brass with these results;

BACO .50-110 - 229.9 grains

.300 Win Mag - 224.7 grains

Bertram 45 base - 185.7 grains

Starline .45-2.6 203.4 grains

JBA .44-77 - 226.9 grains

I also measured the inside diameter of the necks on these fire formed cases.

BACO .50-110 - .444"

.300 Mag - .438 to .440" (somewhat depends on the brand of brass used)

JBA .44-77 - .448 to .449"

Bertram 45 Base - .444 to .446"

All except the JBA were fire formed with bore diameter paper patch bullets so the thicker necks were not a problem. Clearly some of the conversions would have to be neck reamed to be used with groove diameter bullets (.447-.448).

[Nuclearcricket]

Here are some more case weights
Jamison 44-77 - 235.2
BACO 348 44-77 - 215.8
JBA 44-77 fired and trimmed - 220.6
Betrum 43 Mauser - 232.4
Ren Nickle 45-70 - 186.8
WW 45-70 - 163.2
BACO 348 to 44-60 - 220.6
That Jamison case at the top of the list has the thickest rim of all the first batch of cases I purchased. The second batch is marked JBA and has rims about .002 thinner. The 44-60 case has been trimed back to 1.875. That must have come from a really heavy batch of WW brass.
Sam