Special Interests - Groups & Societies > BROW

Reloading the Buffalo Load

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Delmonico:
That they did load, there is no doubt, that they were of match quality or even up to factory ammo quality I have my doubts.

An interesting side note to this that comes from my friends who collect cartridges seriously and have done a lot of study, even with the 0.457--0.460 bores on the Sharps rifles in 45 for example, the Factory Sharps bullet only measures 0.451 as patched using the bump up principle.  The Winchester and at least some of the others use 0.458-0.459 dia.  Of course I am going to listen to these guys thats been collecting since the 1950's or so because this ammo is too valuable today to break down just to prove a point.

The 50 caliber rounds from Sharps measure 0.509 those from Winchester measure 0.512 even though they are for some of the same guns.  Of course the serious long range target shooters would have been much more careful in their reloading.  But a man in camp with 50-75 rounds to load with the hand tools of the time would not be able to take the time to be as careful in his work esp. since their requirements did not really need ammo of this quality. 

Delmonico:
Great site TK.  I marked it for furthor study.  As a side note I own an old Winny mould that apears to be this one.

http://www.antiquereloadingtools.com/winchesterframes_5mold.html

It sure drops a bullet that looks like it, 255 grain, with 1/4 WW and 3/4 Lino is measures 0.379 and is used as cast and lubed with modern high speen lube in a 374 Win. big bore 94 at full power  (1900 or so fps)and does quite fine in choppin' stove wood into kindling for the cook. ;D

This is an early Big Bore with a 0.377 bore, not the proper 0.375 bore.

I also have one of the Ideal adjustable grease groove moulds in 22 cal.  It will drop a 35-120 gr. bullet.  I will try to remember to bring it in Feb if any one wants to see it.  It shows in none of their cataloges I've seen but there were at least two of them I took the best one.

(A note to Joss, didn't mean to hijack the thread, perhaps we could put some of this on a thread intitled tools.)

TAkaho kid:
A while back I pulled a PP bullet from an original Sharps 45 2-1/10 (hated to do it but got way to curious)
It measure 1.5" long, cupped base with a nice tapper. At the base its .445" Twice wrapped brings it to about .456" I had a custom nose pour mold made to duplicate it. How does it shoot? Very well!

I still think this would be a real cool Living History type Seminar complete with the fire, coffee pot and a helping of Buffalo hump.
Have fun with it! ;D

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Delmonico:
Now I got even more curious and headed to the reading room with the white chair and fetched out a copy of COTW. (It's a better way to spend reading time than Readers Digest. ;D)  I rechecked figures and I was sort of wrong in my memory, a bit too much pain meds in the last month.  He lists the 45-2.1 as having a 0.457 and the rest of the Sharps 45's as having a 0.451.  As they say, the plot thickens.

The little bit in Quigley about using the 450 #2 Musket lead caught my attention the second go around and I checked things out.  The 450 #2 Musket bullet is listed as 0.454 and would of course work in the 45-2 7/8 shaps just fine and would just not have to bump as far.  The 450 #2 is also the only English round from the time that would have worked.

It would be a lubed bullet but just for fun I am going to lube a few of my 500's up with case lube and run them through a 0.451 Lee die and size a bit of the neck with a 45 acp die to hold the bullet.  Don't know if it will revele anything, but I have plans to go to the range with a freind at the end of the week weather and me permiting.  Been planning on trying this for fun for a while as a just see.  The bullets do size nice this way.   I have made up a dummy round and it might work.

TAkaho kid:
Swaging down grease grooves is a great way to get paper patching fast. (I won't tell you what I paid to have my mold made, it was resonable but not cheap.)

As for Quigly, Mr. Sellick is one of the few people in Hollywood interested in doing things right. He's a gun and history lover himself and goes to great pain's to depict historicly accurate arms ammo ect. I can't remember which movie (Saber River?) but I sure loved seeing an Evans Rifle on screen! beats looking at nothing but Winchesters and Colts!

I use a firm Tapper crimp. It seems to drop the SD.

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