44 RUSSIAN “BRIDGEPORT IMPROVED RELOADING KIT”

[BMur]

Just purchased this kit. I thought it was a 44 Winchester reloader but it’s a rare 44 Russian “IMPROVED” reloading kit. I’ve never seen one so I thought I’d share.
Very interesting in that the loading die, plunger, and base are SOLID BRASS, Nickel plated.
It also has a tool I’ve never seen. A hand held bullet lubricator. It operates like a syringe. Very neat.
It has a 23 grain FF POWDER SCOOP, PRIMER PUNCH, mouth sizer, and rare iron handle primer tool.
It also came with a 44 Russian bullet mold that I have soaking right now to loosen the rust for cleaning.
I will post a photo later. The mold is an early outside lubricated bullet! Which is also quite rare.

These kits are not well documented. I keep running into examples I’ve never seen before.
Also the photo of the catalog listing is for the older kit. I do not have any information on an IMPROVED KIT. It does prove however that the 1202 kit covered the 44 cal pistol.

Murph

 

[Spurdann]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

Wow, how VERY interesting. Do you know an approximate time frame for manufacture of the kit?

 

[BMur]

Manufacturing time frame

Wow, how VERY interesting. Do you know an approximate time frame for manufacture of the kit?

That’s a great question.
Without catalog reference I can only speculate but I think I can get close.

We know the outside lubricated bullet was replaced with the 3 band inside lubricated round nose bullet by 1887 with some time for transition into the early 1890’s. So this kit is no earlier than 1887 since the earlier kits also had the outside lubricated bullet. That’s all I can confirm. I would guess early 1890’s. This might actually be a transitional kit.

I’ve never seen a listing for the improved kit. So it’s definitely a later kit but not too late because of the earlier bullet design.

It’s really odd that BGI changed from an iron loading die with iron plunger & wood knob to this SOLID BRASS NICKEL PLATED set up. I would never have guessed that.

Brass is much easier to machine so perhaps they saved money and time fabricating the parts? I don’t know. Definitely a rare bird.

Murph

 

[BMur]

Mold

Here is the mold that accompanied this kit. Came out nice. It had a lot of rust on the block.

You can see it’s the earlier RED HANDLED OUTSIDE LUBRICATED design that changed some time in the late 1880’s- to early 1890’s to a BLACK HANDLE INSIDE LUBRICATED BULLET.

The black handle is the improved bullet design so this may be a transitional kit. I’ve never seen a black handled 44 Russian mold but I have seen them in the 32&38 Smith & Wesson so obviously they do exist.

The hunt goes on!!


Murph

 

[BMur]

Black handle

Here is an example of a BLACK HANDLE BGI BULLET MOLD.
These are later molds that most often have later inside lubricated bullets.
There are NO ABSOLUTES when it comes to transitions. I believe most often it’s the customer that is the root cause of oddities. Even though the Company has transitioned to a new bullet design the customer often makes the call. During that time satisfying the customer was monumental to your business surviving.

So the vast majority of black handled BGI MOLDS have the improved bullet.

Murph

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

That is really fantastic! Thank you for posting all the comparisons too!

Ivan

I have a question about case type and construction: Is the any difference in the loading tools for Balloon Head verses Solid Web cases? I'm sure powder volume was different. I have full box of unprimed virgin factory Winchester balloon head brass the pre-dates WWII. On my very modern solid web brass, the web is as thick as 44 Mag brass!

Ivan

 

[BMur]

Ballon head vs Solid head

Ivan,
At the time this kit was manufactured the cases were typically folded head and later solid head full balloon copper cases.

The only difference with reloading tools of that Era that I’m aware of was the use of sizing dies or re-sizers required the case punch to have a concave face so as not to damage the balloon head when you punched the case out of the die after re-sizing.
See photo 1.

All early spent primer punches that I have seen from various kits have a flat face that does not damage the balloon head. Also, black powder typically introduced much lower case pressure when discharged at that time.

So reloading kits typically did not need to Resize the fire formed case.

This kit however is unique in many ways. It also has a case mouth expander. Most early kits did not have this feature which I personally think was a result of using duplex loads that were common beginning in the early 1890’s.

Duplex loads were a mix of powders or in this early case using an FFFFG PRIMING LOAD before the main charge of FFG. Totaling 23 grains max load.
Early methods used to modify powder burn based on barrel length.

As an example;
If you had a 4” barrel 44 Russian a hand loader of that Era would use a priming load of say 10 grains of FFFG or even FFFFG before the main charge of 13 grains of FFG. The result would be an increase in bullet speed and performance from the shorter barrel.

I also very strongly believe that early black powder cartridge manufacturers were using this same “Duplex load” when loading commercially manufactured ammo. I have dissected early black powder cases and when carefully removed you will sometimes find a 10-20% primer/duplex load.

I originally attributed this to compression but it doesn’t add up since the smaller granulated powder is always found at the head of the case next to the primer.

What fits is a Duplex load. I believe this was an engineered solution for short barreled derringers/ pistols /and short barrel rifles/carbines to get a more efficient powder burn and increase performance when using black powder as a propellant. Makes perfect sense.

Murph

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I currently load 12 gauge all brass Mag-Tech hulls, they use a large pistol or rifle primer and have Folded or balloon heads. I had already found 'The fewer F's, the fewer feet per second!' I never thought of a priming charge, Then a standard propellent!

After 8 firings of the 100 hulls, I still haven't needed to size the brass cases! Originally I used roll crimped over the shot cards, I had to remove the crimp before reloading, but the last 6 loadings I use a "glue" to hold the card in place and no crimp means no sizing at all! I had made a wooden punch with a relieved center (to not mash the primer pocket) for knocking the case from the sizing die.

In the pre-WWII Lyman 310 tool, marked 44 S&W, the decapping stem and decapping pin are long enough to clear both types of primer pockets. The funny thing is that die set is long enough to work on 44 Magnum cases. I wonder if that was a holdover from the Evans 44 Extra Long cartridge?

Your newly acquired loading set and box are in such fine condition, I would believe it if someone said they were from the 1950's!

There had been so much ruckus made about the diameter of the 45 Schofield bullets: Inside vs. outside lubed diameters. This makes me wonder what is the weight and as cast diameter of the 44 mold with this kit?

My pair of Uberti No.3 Russians get a diet of .430 200 gr RNFP Cowboy style bullets and Trail Boss powder. I as looking at an original No.3 Russian the other day and thinking I have everything I need to load a BP round. (but at $1850 was too steep for the condition) Maybe I need a two-scoop powder system over the single scoop I already made up. I am still looking for a 246-grain, conical nose, hollow base mold to complete my BP loading set.

Ivan

 

[6string]

Ivan,

Duplex loads were a mix of powders or in this early case using an FFFFG PRIMING LOAD before the main charge of FFG. Totaling 23 grains max load.
Early methods used to modify powder burn based on barrel length.

As an example;
If you had a 4” barrel 44 Russian a hand loader of that Era would use a priming load of say 10 grains of FFFG or even FFFFG before the main charge of 13 grains of FFG. The result would be an increase in bullet speed and performance from the shorter barrel.

I also very strongly believe that early black powder cartridge manufacturers were using this same “Duplex load” went loading commercially manufactured ammo. I have dissected early black powder cases and when carefully removed you will sometimes find a 10-20% primer/duplex load.

I originally attributed this to compression but it doesn’t add up since the smaller granulated powder is always found at the head of the case next to the primer.

What fits is a Duplex load. I believe this was an engineered solution for short barreled derringers/ pistols /and short barrel rifles/carbines to get a more efficient powder burn and increase performance when using black powder as a propellant. Makes perfect sense.

Murph

Duplex loads also burn cleaner with less fouling of the brass cases and the gun.

 

[Patbar]

Nice find, Murph !!