Missing variable.

Jim's quest for Brass in the swapping section got me to thinking about the missing variable in a lot of our load testing. Something I've been experimenting with a little more of lately.

We test different primers, powder, wads, bullets, alloys etc, but seldom do we test a variety of brass.

With the brass shortage, it's even harder to do.

It kinda started with my two 40-50 SBN rifles. The first one liked thick cases and some of the junk Bertram 45 2.6 brass Ron Vandenbrink gave me worked perfect in it. But few others did. When I acquired another 40-50, the Bertram brass just didn't work well, but the thin walled W-W brass did.

When I started out testing my Bull Barrel 45 2 7/8 , the only bullet I had that would fit was a DD bullet that Kenny and Arnie had developed. But for some reason it just didn't gel with me. Of course the only Brass one ever needs to try for a 110 is Norma brass. There just is no other worthy enough. So the gun sat for a year.
Recently on a whim, I dug out some Shiloh 45-110 brass I had acquired years ago. Suddenly everything fit as it should and I had a worthy load of that gun and caliber.

I realize, with the brass shortage this is even harder to do now, but when all else fails, maybe having a few custom brass of a different thickness might be in order.

All this was in a roundabout way to say the brass I'm sending Jim may work or may be better used as floor sweepings.

Always with the thicker brass you can always turn it down. Thing brass, you are stuck.
Tim

Of course, the obverse of the missing variable in the brass is the chamber, ordinarily set up for a shell expanded enough for a groove-diameter grease groove boolit. I’ve never ordered a gun specifically chambered for bore diameter boolits, and the only one (I think) I’ve found, a Hepburn in .40-3-1/4” has resisted all attempts to turn it into a target rifle, so far.

I remember explaining what I was doing to an inquirer at the rifle range, and, quicker than thought and without asking, he plucked one of my unsized case/loose boolit cartridges out of the box for a look. The boolit stayed in the case mouth just long enough for the shell to clear the box, then it fell off, clattered on the bench before it hit the ground. I got a four shot group for that loading, and I don’t think my concentration for the rest of the test was what it had been before the exchange of information.

Some other expedients need to be tried if one wants a bore diameter paper-patched boolit to stay in the case well enough for casual handling and function in a grease groove chamber, but not give problems as the boolit and patch rivets up to groove diameter and starts its way forward into the barrel.

Dual diameter boolits are one solution, of course, but I find a judicious parallel mouth reduction with a homemade die (not a roll crimp or a “neck sizing only” die) to hold the boolit “just tight enough” works for me. Reformed brass, thicker at the mouth, like .348 brass reformed to .44-77 and not outside neck turned or reamed, helps to minimize the neck reduction needed, but the other cases, like Jamison, made for grease-groove boolits, only need a slight bit more “squinch” to work, and they do work fine.

I’ve toyed with the idea of cutting down longer .45 cases to see if the extra thickness in the body would give better boolit holding with less squinch in the .45-70, but such stuff is too precious anymore to chop up for casual experimentation merely to satisfy curiosity. The regular shells work well enough. But I haven’t been confident enough to fill the loops of my CSA cartridge belt with my paper-patched loads and walk around a shoot for the whole time, radiating Coolness. They stay in the box.

Makes a guy think a few custom cartidges from Rocky Mountain Cartridge would be a good investment if he can't find a good load with his current brass.

Semtav,
I think you know by now the curiosity I have with these powder rifles finding out why this is happening :D
I did just this with the .40-70 using the stretched .30-40 Krag brass from BA and new Hornady .405 brass that has a ticker wall and I loaded it two different ways, one with fixed bullets and breach seating to eliminate the neck friction from the bullet obturation.
I just loaded ten rounds each in the stretched case and the .405 cases with seated bullets in the case and same powder and primers.
The first batch I mixed the rounds 10 each and shot the 20 rounds pulled the target and put up two new ones and shot 10 on each one with the stretched brass and the other with the .405 brass.
The results between those three targets was good too bad. The mixed shots the group opened up considerably between the other two.
The breach seated batch with the breach seated bullets also opened between the .405 and stretched cases.
I think the difference between the compression with the same powder loads is the problem. The thicker necks compressed the powder more and maybe crushing the powder finer did the damage between the thick wall and the thin.
The separated loads the groups stayed close being the same with out shots walking out.
Inside case volume I feel is the issue from bullets wandering out of the group when the compression changes maybe by the powder gets broke down to a finer granulation. But I'm not sure. I try to use brass with the same inside volume, but this changes after a bunch of reloads and case trimming.

I was thinking breach seating would alleviate that problem, but I remember Bruce talking about wanting his powder height to be the same in all loads before compression.

Bruce did his breach seating a little different than I do. He tuned his seating with the case full and a wad flush with the case mouth and seated his bullet away or closer to the wad. This worried me some and we exchanged PM's on this because he mentioned that some loads he had the bullet ahead of the wad as much as 4.5mm and that is close to 3/16" and I thought that was pushing the envelope. But he said when you open the gap between the wad and bullet base that bump increased the velocity and that would help a mismatch with bullet length and rate of twist for better stability.

I have a 45-90 chamber by friend Mike Lewis and designed by DT for bore diameter PP bullets. The chamber is tight enough to only chamber bore diameter bullets - no GG will fit. It sits in the back of the safe almost unfired. About 20 years ago I was talking to Paul Jones and asked him if he would consider making a PP bullet mold like a "GG bore rider I guess now known as a two diameter PP mold"? We talked about it some and a few weeks later it showed up. I shot it some in the 45-70 and 90 and I haven't done anything with it since.

I have had great PP bullet accuracy with the P. Gibbs ML long range rifle and competed well with it! But, with a breach loader (for me), they are at best only the equal of my GG bullets and a whole lot more finicky. Not saying you guys aren't great with them, but me???? I just kinda suck wind with them.
I bow to your greater cool factor!!!

I’m of the mind in the end it comes down to work with what you have and find what the rifle wants with what you have and not what you think the rifle wants. Some rifles don’t like some brands of cases ,primers and powder,others thrive on, but given enough open minded load development a good load can be arrived on.
I prefer shooting paper patch but I do own a couple of rifles that just won’t shoot them at all.
If you want easy peas stick with 223 and 6.5 Creedmoor by the factory loaded case lots

I have several different caliber rifles that were chambered with my reamers that are tight and will not chamber a GG and I mostly use those for the matches and gong shoots. But I use a shallow transition into the throat like these reamer designs. They are more like the original chambers used.
I mostly have been using the .40-65 for the silhouette and the .45-90 for the long range. I also have this type of chamber for the .44-77 and the .44-75 Ballard.
One of my .38-50's has a tight chamber for PP only and I'm still working on this rifle. For some reason it's a problem child.......

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