1873 Win/Miroku 44-40 WCF

[Randy Bohannon]

Found thison G.B. a few weeks back for a super price and finally got everything assembled, sights I wanted to use, brass,dies, good mould .Loaded up a 100 rnds. using one of Accurate's Moulds, Tom recommended for the 44-40 @215grs. and .430". bullet has one big fat lube groove. I have only used Win. brass and have no problem getting 40 grs. of Swiss 1.5 and compressing enough to seat the bullet in the crimping groove and have everything feed and function as it should.Accuracy, is everything in the 10 ring or X ring from the range bag. This rifle is a joy to shoot, easy to clean, Miroku did'nt do well with the case colors but the rest is great.
This is my first 44-40 and had heard all the stories of it being a temperamental cartridge not unlike the 32-20 WCF. I had no such issues to complain about it was easy enough. I wanted to get 50 and 100 yd. sight settings for the MVA Sporting Tang (Thanks Mac) and front globe sights. This rifle cleans up with a few wet patches and one dry patch. A little beeswax/bear grease on a patch finishes it up.

[Don McDowell]

Nice rifle Randy.

[Randy Bohannon]

Nice rifle Randy.

Thank You Don,

Now I need to find out how far I can shoot it accurately , I have a 200 yd Ram pistol silhouette I am going set up next nice day and see if I can hit it.

I bought 500 pieces of Scapline, 500 pieces of Winchester and 200 pieces of Remington brass. I've thrown away a fair amount of the Winchester for being to beat up. I know if I try to get 40 grs. of Swiss in the SL or Rem. brass it will bulge the brass and not chamber. I should have set up the Lab Radar today and chronoed a couple strings but I had one other rifle to shoot.. Spectacular Wyoming day today

[Don McDowell]

On a calm day 2 and 300 is pretty doable with the 44, wind pickup and all bets are off.
I bought 2 boxes of Winchester factory ammo when I got my rifle, that ammo was not particularly good, but the once fired cases were a goldmine. Then a friend turned out to have several boxes of Winchester once fired, and I got those pretty cheap. So now that box full of full scrap line can sit...
Pretty cold here yet, but at least the wind wasn't blowing. Have a whole pile of rifles needing shot when the weather gets good enough to try.

[Randy Bohannon]

Resserect this thread, I have about 270 pieces of W.W. brass and had loaded and shot 150 pieces and developed for loads the rifle.I started with this brass because it is thinner. Zero problems getting my bullet and this brass to fit. I had 200 pieces of new Remington brass and wanted to load 50 of them up with 38 grs. O.E. 2F. dropped all the powder charges,compressed to the desired,checked in the rifle to ensure they still fit.No problem a little scraping from belled case mouth, seat a bullet in a couple of cases try it in the rifle no go, to fat.
So a skinnier bullet to shoot up the compressed cases and hope for decent accuracy ? Or would you just shoot them at the range get the brass back and never use Remington brass in this rifle. I'm not giving up on what works really well but the Remington brass is that much thicker and a problem which also means the Starline will most likely hsve the same problem, dang and I have a boat load.

[Gunlaker]

Thanks for the write up Randy. I've been thinking of one of the new model 1892 Winchester/Miroku rifles. The local gun store has one in .44-40 that I might have a look at soon.

Chris.

[Randy Bohannon]

Well after a 3 week stay at my Son's in CA (Still Sucks) I had put my 1873 Win/Miroku .38/357 on consignment at the local gun enablers. I was surprised when he said $1100.00. I paid him $970 for the rifle 10 months earlier, a week after they sold it for 1K which gave me $900 after !0%.
I put that money down on another 1873 44-40 with a 24" tapered octogon barrel and pistol grip, blue,plain wood Iwill pick it up in a few weeks.

[Don McDowell]

Sounds like a good one.