.44-77 PP bullets.

[Kurt]

I seat mine about 1/8" or slightly more with a slight taper crimp in the standard chamber Jim. my tight chambers that will just feed a PP in the chamber no taper crimp is needed.
I don't like to fumble with a loose bullet during a match and I have not seen where it makes a difference going with 1/8" or less
Hunting about 1/4 and a snug taper crimp.

[Don McDowell]

Most of them are seated around 1/4 inch or a bit deeper.

[Distant Thunder]

That's kind of what I thought and what I've seen in original cartridges.

Some of the brass I have, which was fire formed in Kurt's .44-77, has thicker necks and will accept a .437-.438" patched bullet very nicely. No crimp would be needed. I would think that would work every well and may well be worth all the effort I put into making these.

I'm not going to worry about reaming or turning the necks on these thick brass until I get to try them as is. I've worked with a number of different BP cartridges over the years, but this .44-77 with the brass situation the way it is should be an experimenters dream. I have never put so much work into getting useable brass for a rifle I don't even have yet! And I've had a lot of fun doing it too! If there is another shooting sport anything like this one where the learning never stops I don't know of it. It's a darn good thing I'm retired and put as much time into this .44-77 thing as I want.

My rifle can show up any day and I'm ready and willing to meet the challenge head on.

[Don McDowell]

When ever they lift that stay at home thing in Montana, and the Shiloh crew can get back to work, you're going to be a very happy fella when Lucinda calls.. And in a few days after, you're going to be saying why didn't I do this a long time ago.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

I first had the itch for a .44-77 back in 2004 and I was set to have of my rifles rebarreled to that cartridge. Some "friends" talked me out of it for all the same reason people don't chamber this as often as they otherwise would, mostly brass problems.

That .45-70 (.44-77 wantabe) had been sitting in my safe doing nothing for 3 years. I have more .45-70s than a man can shoot apparently! Then someone advertised a Shiloh take off .44-77 barrel for sale and a light bulb came on in the back corner of my mind, DUH!

Now the deal for the Shiloh barrel didn't go my way but it got the gears turning. I moved too quickly and made a lot of mistakes getting to this point, but it will have been all worth it when my rifle comes home again!

If anyone is thinking of having Shiloh rebarrel your rifle with a non-Shiloh barrel please talk to me first! I can tell all the things NOT to do and save you 6 months of waiting in hell! It will be worth your time.

[Kurt]

I know waiting for a rifle gets one walking from window to window especially if it was for a use for the upcoming season.

I have one rifle that was rebarreled by the Colorado Schuetzen Co in Loveland that did a fine job but I don't know if they are still in business.
I have a heavy 25# 35" barreled Shiloh I would like to unscrew the barrel off and get it sent in to get it turned down and rechambered from the .44-100 to the .44-77 but again I don't need 3 .44-77's, but I really like that caliber.
I'm just glad I had the foresight getting a good supply of .44 Bell and HDS 3.25" long basic brass and the Jamison in .44-77 and the .44-90 bn.
I been bugging Starline to make either the .44 basic or the .44-77 but I don't get any response from them one way or the other.
I think if they ever would make it the production of the .44-77 rifles would increase. People are finding out that it's an excellent caliber.

[Don McDowell]

I don't know Kurt, even after Jamison agreed to put out their 44 brass to the Shiloh specs, the keyboard masturbators with lots of band width, but zero experience still trashed the 44's, the brass and all the rest. But even with that Kirk turned out a bunch of 44-77's with the availbility of the Jamison brass.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

I have never had a .44-77, but I have research the snot of the cartridge and most of the people who have had one have been very happy with the cartridge and get very good to excellent accuracy. All the naysayers of the .44-77 are just like the ones who trash talk paper patch bullets, they have never owned one or shot one, heck they probably have never seen one, but they have a friend who knows a guy who talked to guy whose buddy told him that .44-77s are junk and don't work.

Then there is the old, "Well, the original Sharps Rifle Company dropped all the bottlenecks because, well you know, they fouled the barrels excessively and weren't accurate!". The other one that I dislike is then I read, "I had and original Sharps or Rolling Block and it had a groove diameter that closer to a .452" and I could never get better than 2 or 3 MOA accuracy out of it using .446" diameter bullets. Therefore all modern day .44-77s are inaccurate too!".

Then this stuff gets repeated by every non-thinking internet expert out there who has a keyboard!

I have been lucky to have been schooled in the machine tool trades and that has given me the ability to machine anything out of steel that I can see or think of or be told about. Having been a tool and die maker for 37 years taught me that there is always a way to get something to work, even if it doesn't seem as though it wants to. So maybe I'm a little more prepared than the average shooter to take on a .44-77, but I don't see how someone who wants the challenge and is willing to work it through should be discouraged from perusing it. There will be a little extra expense up front with brass and dies, but it can be done. For me the .44-77 should be a perfect fit.

I have emailed Starline about making .44-77 brass or better yet making .44 basic brass and they have emailed me back that they have no plans to do so in the immediate future. I think all of us .44 BN and wantabe .44 .44 BN shooters should start emailing them every so often and keep doing it until they give in. You're right, Kurt, if the brass was there we'd see both .44 SBN cartridges more often. One of the things that may be holding them back is the wide variation in rim thickness. Production people like to produce the same part is large numbers without having to deal and variations that would require additional setups. This problem is only compounded by C. Sharps and Shiloh Sharps using two different rim thicknesses, it's bad enough that the originals are all over the place. It would help if all modern manufacturers got on the same page.

That being said, reducing the rim thickness is one of the easier things to do if you have a lathe, but not everybody does.

I think I'll heat up some lead and cast some more bullets for a rifle I don't have! Life is good!

[Kurt]

Jim I call them Parrots

Thick rims are easy to correct even with out a lathe. Just figure 8 them on a flat surface using 220 grid paper. It don't take long to get what you need. You can leave the pockets shallow for pistol primers or deepen them again. I have some both ways.

My Echo Chain saw died last year so I picked up a Poulan at the lumberyard thinking it will be good enough for what little I use one.
This morning I got it out to trim some dead fall and I been trying to get the card adjusted so this beast just runs long enough to get a screwdriver on the adjustment screws. Frustrating..... It's not a Poulan, It's a PULLON.

[Nuclearcricket]

This has become a very interesting thread. One thing I do wonder about is the tooling that Jameson had, someone has it now and I am wondering who if if they will set it up sometime to make the odd brass that they had the tooling for.
Kurt, on your chain saw, that just sucks. Sad part is that its a pretty simple engine but seems that any more things are just not made to last. I had a hedge trimmer that ended up acting like that. l was told that it just wasn't made to last past the warranty. I got lucky in that I had about 13 years on it. I tossed it away and got a Stihl. I haven't had a lick of trouble with it for 3 years now. Yea it was pricey but I don't plan on replacing it.
As to the bullet seating depth, I understand seating match ammo out as far as you can safely get away with. What I am curious about is the original cartridges, the 44-77, 11mm Mauser and such, they were loaded with much shorter bullets. Did the original rounds have the powder up into the necks of the case? Most of what I have read says to only have the powder up to the base of the neck. What if any problems would having powder half way up the neck cause?
Sam