44 Rem. brass

[Sam Perfye]

Pards, Does anyone know how 44 colt brass compares to origional 44 rem. as chambered in the 75's? I'm thinking of converting my 38's and any info would be greatly apprieciated. Thanks.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I don't know fer sure, but I think that 44 Russian is closer to the original.

[Tommy tornado]

I wish I could shoot my orginial Remington Conversion but a lass I can't.  It is chambered in .46 Remington Rimfire. 

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[Papa Bear]

The original chambering for the 1875 Remington was in .44 Remington CF for the first 16000 produced. They then went to .44-40 and .45 Long Colt for the rest of their runs. The 1890 was only in .44-40.

The .44 colt is the same as the .44 Special except that the length of the case is .050 shorter. The .44-40 is a bottled necked case and will not work with the other.44's.


The case lengths are as follows;

.44 Russian .970

.44 Rem Special 1.160

.44 Rem Mag 1.285

.44 Colt 1.110


So if you were to rechamber it for .44 Rem. Special you could also shoot the .44 Rus. as well as the .44 Colt. I would be careful about going to .44 Mag because of the high pressures.

I hope that this is what you were after.

[Papa Bear]

Tommy T.

I know yer pain.  I have an original Remington New Model Navy conversion that is in .38 RF.

[Grapeshot]

According to Mike Venturino in his book, "Shooting Sixguns of the Old West", the .44 Colt cartridge would not fit in the .44 Remingtons that he had.  He had to use a very tight .44 Spl/Mag sizing die to get the cartridge sized small enough to fit in his original chambers.

Several years ago I had two .44/40 Remington 1875 revlvers that I converted to shoot .44 Special by having a pair of .357 Mag Cylinders bored out and fitted to my remington 1875's.

Those cylinders will shoot the .44 Russian, the .44 Colt and the .44 Special.  I only shoot the .44 Colt out of them as they are the only cartridge that is close to the original .44 Remington.  Wether I shoot 200 grain, 240 grain, or 215 grain bullets I seem to shoot to point of aim at CAS distances. 

If I were you I'd go for the .44 Special chamber and shoot the .44 Colt brass out of them.  You can duplicte the original .44 Remington loadings at your pleasure using the heavier bullets.

As a side note, the Army's Frankfort Arsenal in Philadelphia, PA made cartridges to be used in both the Colt .44 Conversions and the Remington Conversion.  The cartridge that the Remington Conversions used were transfered over to the 1875 model revolvers.  Have fun on whatever you decide to do.

[Halfway Creek Charlie]

The Kirst 44 Rem. is labled as 44 Colt on the box. Old West Moulds have all the components to load the original 44 Rem load. this is an outside lubed 248 Grn bullet, .451 dia drive bands with a.429 dia heel. I load it in BHA 44 Colt Brass with 30 grns BP are very acurate from my 2002 Pietta '58. this cartridge is the original Rem load for Rem. conversions and colt conversions, discontinued in 1895.
Old West Mould has re-introduced this cartridge. They sell a special crimper also. I just bought 500 bullets, the luber/sizer(.451 Dia, and the crimper. Tjhis cartridge is a hoot to shoot. 



44 Colt,          44 Rem Mag loaded with .451 ball,       44 Remington loading of the 44 colt
                                                                            For original Remington and Colt Conversions
                                                                             and current 44 Remington conversions.

Hope this helps.

[Rapid Lee]

Hey Old D,

Does Old West Moulds have a website (or can you provide a ph number)?  I tried to google it and came up goose eggs.   I am just getting into playing around with loading the 44 S&W American round which is also a heel base bullet like the original 44 Colt and 44 Rem loads.  For the 44 S&W American you can use cut down 41 mag brass.  I've found the following website, http://www.gadcustomcartridges.com/, from which you can buy cast heel base bullets if you're not into casting your own, but I'm interested to see if Old West Moulds might have a crimper for the 44 American for when I start reloading it  .  Thanks,

Rapid

[Rapid Lee]

Hey All,

Old Dragoon, AKA Halfway Creek Charlie, sent me the following info I asked for above so I thougt I'd share it in case anyone else was interested (thanks Charlie!):

Here is Old West's info.
Old West Moulds
1175 17 1/2 Rd.
Fruita, Co. 81521
970-858-1449
email:allisonmonument@aol.com
 
Bernie Rowles is the owner.  Tell him Old Dragoon/Halfway Creek Charlie sent ya.
Probably won't do me any good, but Bernie is a good guy and he'll treat you right.

Rapid

[ColonelFlashman]

Pards, Does anyone know how 44 colt brass compares to origional 44 rem. as chambered in the 75's? I'm thinking of converting my 38's and any info would be greatly apprieciated. Thanks.

The .44 Remington prepriatory cartridge is 1/8" Shorter & Tapered.
The .44 Colt's prepriatory cartridge Only chambers 3/4's of the way into a .44 Remington chambered cylinder.

[Grapeshot]

I read in one of the articles by M.Venturino that crimping a heeled bullet required a tool similar to a electricians crimping pliers.  You might be able to fabricate a crimping tool from a wire stripper/cripping tool using a dremel tool and a grinding headed mandrel.

[Halfway Creek Charlie]

Old West Moulds makes a crimper for 44 Rem. The Kirst 44 Rem Konvertor uses a 44 colt Full length brass and Old West Moulds has the 248 Grn outside lubed heeedl bullets and they are accurate with 28 Grns BP.
Call Bernie (all this info is on an earlier post on this site.) he'll treat you right. Cool to know that the rem 44 case was a bit shorter than the Colt which is why they would work in both the Rem.s and the Colts.

[ColonelFlashman]

The .44-100 Remington Prepriatory Cartridge was not only Shorter but was Tapered as well as I stated previously.
The .44 Colt's was a Straight case & of course longer.
The chambers on the .44 Remington conversions fit both Colt's & Remington because the base of the cartridge is close in size.
But when Remington started producing the '75 N.M.A. the Chambers were made to the Specs of the shorter & tapered dia. of the .44-100 Remington cartridge. So that's why Colt's .44 no longer would interchange.