Model12Win
Moderator
Ashamedly, the .44-40 is a bear to reload, and factory shells are very expensive.
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Best Production .45 Colt Lever Gun?
- Thread starter sixgunnin
- Start date
Driftwood Johnson
New member
Ashamedly, the .44-40 is a bear to reload, and factory shells are very expensive.
No, 44-40 is not a bear to reload. I have reloaded thousands and thousands of them.
It is a little bit fussier to reload than a cartridge such as 45 Colt, because the case walls are so thin, and can crumple if you're not careful. But once your dies are set up correctly, and as long as you don't try to load a bazillion an hour, 44-40 is a piece of cake to reload. I always say, 44-40 is not difficult to reload, it is just a little bit fussier than loading 45 Colt.
And because the case walls are so thin it is the Black Powder shooter's delight. The case expands beautifully at the low pressures generated by Black Powder so all the fouling either goes out the muzzle or stays in the bore. Not like 45 Colt in a rifle, which because of the heavier case walls does not obdurate as well. In CAS the guys who shoot 45 Colt in their rifles always have to clean more often than the 44-40 guys. With the heavy construction of the 45 Colt case, I can't tell you how many times I have seen exhaust gas shooting out of the top of a rifle because the case did not seal the chamber completely. That goes for either Black Powder or Smokeless.
Driftwood Johnson
New member
DriftwoodJohnson - Great insights into the 44-40. Do you find that fouling is worse with a blackpowder loaded 45 LC?
I don't own a rifle chambered for 45 Colt, so I have no direct experience with that.
A rifle is basically a pipe. Seal the chamber well and all the fouling goes out the muzzle or stays in the bore. If the chamber is not sealed well, some of the fouling will 'blow by' as has already been stated and get into the mechanism.
As I stated, the thinner brass at the neck of the 44-40, and 38-40 for that matter too, allow the case to expand very well to keep all the fouling out of the mechanism. The brass at the mouth of a 44-40 tends to run around .007 thick. The brass at the mouth of a 45 Colt tends to run around .012 thick. I have measured lots of them. So given that the pressure produced by a 44-40 loaded with Black Powder will be very similar to a 45 Colt loaded with Black Powder, the thinner brass will tend to seal the chamber better and keep the fouling out of the mechanism of a rifle. Even though I do not own a rifle chambered for 45 Colt, I shoot with guys who do all the time, and they often have to clean the insides of their rifles more often than I do. My 44-40 brass ejects without hardly any fouling getting into the rifle mechanism.
A revolver is not a pipe, there is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, so no matter what cartridge you fire in it, soot is going to get everywhere. Until recently, all my CAS revolvers were 45 Colt. And yes, fouling got everywhere because of the open nature of the mechanism. A few years ago I lucked into an antique Merwin Hulbert revolver chambered for 44-40, my first revolver chambered for that cartridge. Despite the fact the the 44-40 brass seals the chambers better in the MH, so much soot comes out of the barrel/cylinder gap that it is a moot point. I can't say a revolver chambered for 45 Colt fouls out any worse than a revolver chambered for 44-40.
But it makes a difference in a rifle.