DON'T BELIEVE I DID THAT

[Coffinmaker]

  ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages 

I did a captain Dumb dumb.  I am a Poster Kid for the 1871/72 Open Top.  The undisputed Swiss Army knife of single actions.  It is so so easy to fit additional barrels and cylinders to the base action and then shoot a bundle of different cartridges.  Most ALL the .38s, All the .44s and ALL the .45s, except I don't like 45 Colt nor 45 ACP in an Open Top.  However, I recently built myself a new Chameleon.  I didn't pay attention to my own mantra, and just put the 44s together.  HOWEVER:

My .44 Barrels arrived Roll Marked "44-40."  I thought, "How weird" 'cause neither Colt nor Uberti ever chambered the Open Top in 44-40.  Just kept on trucking, cut the barrels down to the Ejectors and called it wunderbar.  EXCEPT!!:

First match out of the gate, I noticed recoil al little heavy and at cleaning time had a bunch of fouling at the barrel breach and cylinder face that was a strange colour.  Oh well, cleaned 'em and put away.  Then a conversation I was having got me to thinking about bullets for the .44s as my favorite bullet is/was "out of stock."  Instead of .430 bullets I started thinking about .428s as they are in stock.  So I pulled out the 44 Barrel/Cylinder for the Open Top and started measuring and slugging.  Cylinder throats are a correct .430.  The Barrels are a different matter entirely.  The barrels really ARE 44-40.  The bore is .427.  When I tried the same same hard case .430 bullet I tested the cylinder with, as the bullet encountered the rifling, it STOPPED DEAD.  Wouldn't budge.  Had to flip the Barrel inna vise and drive it back out from the front.  So the gist of the story is, my 44-40 Open Top barrels really are .427 and require .4275 or .428 bullets.  In some applications, Uberti ain't paying attention to the usual "industry standard" of ALL .44s are .429 bore.  Luckily, both of my 44 Trappers are 44 Special and "should" be 429.  I will however, be slugging them soon as I can source a couple of soft bullets.  Hard Cast are a little too hard.  Burma Shave.

Oh, most forgot.  When shooting the 44 Open Top, All that weird fouling was caused by the oversized bullet trying to act as a bore obstruction.  Just glad I didn't have much bigger and more violent problems.  Could have been real nasty fer sure!!

[Black River Smith]

Sorry you had to find out the 'hard' way.  I don't think I would have guessed that after all these years they would be producing a 0.427" barrel in a '72 OT.  I would be curious as to what market they did this for.

I have for years now, after changing from BP to smokeless been slugging the barrels on everything that I get or question, just to be on the safe side.  Example is -- I have 3 - 44/40 pistols and 3 - 44/40 rifles. Yes, they do have different diameters.  Two older pistols and two older rifles have 0.427.  One newer Uberti pistol has 0.429 which I purposely bought to put a 44Spec cylinder in, for the correct 0.429.  The other rifle is a Rossi 44/40 that mics out at 0.428.  I have settles on a 0.428 bullet in the 44/40 smokeless rounds, just because.  I still will use 0.427 bullets in any BP shooting, I can do outside in the 44/40's.  The 44 Series -- Spec, Russian and Colt smokeless rounds will be 0.430, depending on molds used.

Good luck.
BRS

[Crow Choker]

  Ah good grief Coffin, I'da thought the fact that the barrels were stamped 44/40 woulda' been a red flag for an ole veteran like you. You know more about stuff old timey than me, but even I woulda' thought since most if not all 44/40 hoglegs and rifles were .427" shooters, .429/.430 bullets would be tight. Won't mention a few of my goofs!   

[Graveyard Jack]

What are you doing for front sights on those chopped barrels?

[RoyceP]

I think it's understandable - I did the same thing, except mine was an SAA Uberti clone of a flat top target in 44 - 40. I loaded up 50 of them using .430" bullets that I had bought for my open top in 44 Russian. I loaded up a whole box and then found out they wouldn't chamber. Yes my Uberti barrel and cylinder were sized properly for 44 WCF. No, the internet is wrong - no .430 bullets would fit because the barrel was .425".

I cursed the internet roundly as I pulled all 50 bullets.