one other glitch is since it was 1871 there was a 1873 peacemaker towards the end!

 The 1995 Reloaders Guide for Alliant Smokeleless Powders has one rifle load listed for the 44-40 Win. with Reloader 7.

Cast 240L.  Rem. 2 1/2 primer.  Min OAL 1.580 inches.  Rem. Case.   24 inch barrel. 
23.5 gr Reloader 7.  1290 fps.  12,100 c.u.p.

Was looking for the Schofield one, enjoyed the Remington video, big fan of Remingtons. I see a couple others in the link to check out now too. Thanks.

The other day I found a jar of Reloader 7 at the gun shop. I have not seen this powder around here probably for years. I have never used it either. When I saw it there I seemed to remember Savvy Jack of Chasing the 44-40 https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/introupdates likes this powder for .44-40 rifle loads so I bought it.

The two manuals I have, Lyman 50th Reloading Handbook and Lyman 4th Cast Bullet Handbook do not have any data nor did the Alliant website. Does anybody know of any published data for Reloader 7 and the 44-40?

Mako,

If Winchester had been interested in accurately describing their "new" rifle cartridges, rather than primarily just marketing them, we would have ended up with the 43 Winchester Center Fire and then the 40 Winchester Center Fire a few years later. I bet the latter would have failed given it was introduced after the original 1873 cartridge had a strong hold on the market.

Dave

Dave,
You of course are right, but the .44 WCF  does meet the marketing paradigm, instead of calling it a 43 Winchester.  However the 38 WCF is an enigma.  It doesn't seem to follow any naming convention or a marketing angle.  why make something seem LESS "powerful".

I like things to make sense and there is in fact an answer for everything.  The answer may not be what we expect and sometimes boils down to a clerical error or bad ad copy.  One of the things I learned years ago is that there really is a reason for everything, we just don't always have access to the information.

I have read that the 38 WCF was "introduced" by Winchester in 1874, but according to the Win 1873 production records there wasn't one produced until 1879 and not shipped until 1880.  I have no idea where the 1874 date came from (but it is probably from the most "ACCURATE" source of information there is, Wikipedia)  and that will be repeated over and over along with it being reposted on many sites.  My personal experience with wikipedia in a field I am actually considered to have expertise in, is that it is OFTEN factually wrong and since it is a crowd sourced data base the popular mythos of the day is what will be recorded and blindly defended without supporting facts or data.

I hear the "facts" as reported on various internet site repeated as a holy tautology, "well I read it on _________ fill in the blank".  Wikipedia while having some useful information is treated as a canonized work and must be accepted.

I believe that Colt's was the culprit.  They introduced the "Frontier Six Shooter" in 1877.  They would not use the .44 WCF cartridge designation and thus the .44-40 was "born".  .44-40 is a a type of homophone and could be included as a "confusable" because not only is it a homophone but numerically speaking 40 and 44 are very similar.  Try saying .44-40 three times and then immediately switch to .40-40.  I have a hard time, it would be very easy to get the wrong ammo or mix up the caliber you were talking about.  By the time Winchester produced the first 1873 in 38 WCF (and it was the first firearm sold in this caliber) the Frontier Six Shooter was a hit and probably helping Winchester's sales as well.  I can imagine the engineering/production/marketing meeting where they were trying to determine what they would call the cartridge.  I'm sure they were very aware that the 44 WCF was called .44-40 everywhere.  Isn't it interesting that Colt's followed the convention set by Winchester and called it a .38-40 after Winchester's 38 WCF?

I wonder if the meeting I described above was at a Denny's at 6am like the naming of .40 S&W happened with the S&W engineering team who had just worked all night to produce the first 10mm short pistols.  It was a last ditch effort  to try and assuage the FBI team that was at S&W trying to get out of the S&W 1076 contract and switch to SIG.  The team ran through a list of names, everyone making their arguments (the leader had been the "Centimeter" until reason prevailed and everyone agreed that was already takne by the wildcat and finally settled on the .40 S&W), surprisingly S&W marketing kept it after the FBI rejected their prototypes offered that morning and the S&W 4006 was born.  And, before you jump in, yes I know the tales of Paul Liebenberg and Whit Collins who worked on the original High Power converted to 40 G&A (therein lies the tale of the Jeff Cooper association with Dornaus and Dixon (Bren 10).  But Tommy Campbell would tell you that while the attributions to Whit and Paul need to be made they did not make the original .40 S&Ws.  ALSO, I love how Steve Melvin (president of course) is given the credit, typical...

Wouldn't that be COINCIDENCE?  The .40 S&W name being born at a meeting with most of the name submissions (10mm types) being thrown out as confusing and perhaps the same happened at Winchester?  Oh... to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting.  I know what happened 34 years ago with the .40 S&W, but I long to know what happened with the 38 WCF.

~Mako