Howdy Again
Thought I would give an update on my old Winchester.
The action was very stiff when I bought it. Turns out the hammer spring was strong enough to be a suspension spring in a Mack truck. So strong it was difficult to lever it and stay on target. I called up Happy Trails thinking to buy one of his modified Uberti springs. Hap said an Uberti spring will not fit a Winchester. Not to worry though, he had an original Winchester spring that he had lightened and he sent it to me. That way I can keep the original spring unmodified in case I ever want to put it back in. I put the modified spring in and that made levering the gun much easier. I decided not to do any further smoothing or modifying, wanting to leave the gun as original as possible and still be able to shoot it.
The first 38-40 ammo I loaded for the Winchester used some bullets I had found at a local shop. 190 grains, with two thin lube grooves lubed with SPG and sized to .401. They shot fine, but I am a big proponent of Big Lube bullets, so I called up Iron Pony and he sent me a few hundred Big Lube 190 grain bullets sized to .401. It was April by this time, and I had my first match of the year coming up and I really wanted to try out the old girl at a match.
So I loaded up two boxes of 38-40 ammo. I've been loading 44-40 for years, so I thought this would not be much different. I was using a Hornady set of dies, and I decided to order a Lee Factory Crimp Die so that I could seat and crimp separately. Ordinarily I do not go in for separate seating and crimping, but I have found that for 44-40 with a huge amount of lube in the bullet, a standard seating/crimp die has a hard time forming the crimp if some lube escapes and gets into the crimp groove. The 38-40 has the same thin brass at the neck, so I opted to use the FCD.
I figured I would use the same powder charge that I use in 44-40; 2.2CC of Schuetzen FFg. I set up my dies carefully so I would not have any problems with crumpled necks. So I loaded up two boxes with Starline brass, and set off to the match the next morning. The first stage started with ten rounds of rifle. I shouldered the old Winchester, pushed the lever forward, pulled it back, and it would not go quite all the way. The gun jammed, right out of the starting gate. I had not fired a shot, so I headed for the unloading table to see what was the matter. The offending round was protruding from the chamber by about 1/8". The bolt would not close the rest of the way. And the lever had not closed enough to allow me to shove the carrier down. The gun was jammed up real good. I did not try to force things, and somehow used a screwdriver to carefully remove the offending round. I decided to put the old girl away and wait until I got home to figure out what was wrong. I shot the rest of the match with my 44-40 Henry.
I got home and I was very puzzled. The gun had fed fine with the rounds I had made up with the two groove bullets. But something was wrong when I tried the Big Lube ammo. I was afraid there was something wrong with the gun. I had some A-Zoom 38-40 snap caps, and they fed through the action just fine. But when I tired to chamber one of my Big Lube rounds it got stuck most of the way in and would not go all the way in. I was not about to try to force it.
So I put my calipers on the bullet in one of the troublesome rounds. Holy Cow, it was almost .410 in diameter. Looking closely I could see the bullet was misshapen. Now things started to make sense. Iron Pony casts his bullets from pure lead, they are dead soft. I had noticed a fair amount of resistance when I was seating the bullet. I had also noticed that because of the narrower neck of the 38-40 cases, 2.2CC of powder rose a lot higher in the case than it did in a 44-40. Light finally dawned on Marblehead. I was compressing the dickens out of the powder, and the resistance was deforming the soft lead bullets when I seated them. They had deformed so much they got jammed in the chamber without going all the way in.
First thing I did was fill the cavity in the bullet seater in the Hornady seating die with J B Weld and after it hardened I it filed down smooth. That hollow seater had been doing a number on my bullet noses. Next thing I did was reduce the powder charge from 2.2CC down to 1.9CC, the next smaller dipper in the Lee set. I made sure this amount of powder would still be compressed. It was, but much less than 2.2CC. Then I carefully went over all my die settings to make sure everything was up to snuff. I loaded up just 20 rounds to take to the range and try them out on a Saturday. I load on a Hornady Progressive press, but this time, unlike what I usually do, I loaded them in two stages, first sizing, priming, and belling, then I cam back and poured in the powder, and seated and crimped my bullets. Unlike my earlier attempt, this time I made sure the rounds would chamber before I boxed them, which they did. Next day I took the rifle and the 20 rounds of 38-40 to the range. This time everything was fine. I shot a few 3 shot strings to make sure everything was feeding, and then I loaded up with the last ten rounds and fired the whole bunch. Everything fed fine and I took the rifle home and cleaned it.
Here is a photo of one of the deformed rounds on the left, and one of my non-deformed rounds on the right. Look closely and you can see how the bullet on the left is bulging out.
Last Sunday I again took my 1887 vintage 38-40 Model 1873 to a match. I had loaded just enough ammo for the match, making up only about 15 extra rounds. I made sure every round chambered before I boxed them. The old girl performed like a champ. Six stages of ten rifle rounds each, nary a bobble nor a miss. I did take it easy with the old girl, levering slowly and carefully after each shot. So slowly that several empties landed back on top of the receiver and I had to brush them away to see the sights.
Moral of the story: If you are loading a new caliber for the first time, or a new bullet, be sure to check your ammo for feed and fit before bringing it to a match.
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