Need opinions on loading dies

[deadin]

I've always understood that one should buy 44 Special dies instead of 44 Mag dies as you can use them for both cartridges. (Just back the seating/crimping die out to make up for the difference in case length.)
Now I see that Lee is making a die set for 44 Russian.
So, what do you think about using them for all 3 cartridges?
The only negative I can think of would be that, if putting a heavy crimp in 44 Mag, there might be a possibility of crumpling the case because of the loss of case wall support outside of the die.

I'm asking because I need some form of a 44 die set for reloading 11mm French Ordnance, which basically is a shortened 44 Russian/Special/Mag . Having a die set that will handle 4 different shells seems like a good, frugal idea.

 

[Alk8944]

Actually, if the European cartridge lists I have are accurate, no .44 die set is compatible with loading the 11mm French Ordonnance cartridge.

If you have a need to load .44 Russian then that die set will load that cartridge, .44 Special and .44 Magnum, but not the 11mm French. If you do need dies for that cartridge try CH4D they have everything else odd!

In reality most, if not all, die manufacturers are selling .44 Special die sets marked as .44 Spl/.44 Magnum. I am not aware of any making an exclusive .44 Magnum set any more. Even when they did the only die in the set that was specific was the seat/crimp die that was too long to crimp .44 Special.

"The only negative I can think of would be that, if putting a heavy crimp in 44 Mag, there might be a possibility of crumpling the case because of the loss of case wall support outside of the die."

This is not an issue. The place a case fails when crimping is over the bullet shank or immediatly behind the bullet. Even using the Russian die the portion of the .44 Magnum case that is outside the die is strong enough this will not happen. Besides, the die does not actually support the case when seating, typical dies have far too much clearance. Most seating dies are actually larger than the average chamber of a revolver! This is why there is a place for the Lee Carbide factory Crimp die.

 

[deadin]

Actually, per measurements and a prototype round I have made up, any of the .44 dies should work to size the neck back to around the diameter I need. The 11mm French is a heel seated bullet and I'm using .454 dia. 45 LC bullets (which match my slugged bore) and turning off the first driving band to allow them to be seated. My only foreseeable problem will be getting a crimp to keep the bullets from "walking" out under recoil. A taper crimp won't work as the bullet driving bands are the same diameter as the case but I think I have figured out a way to accomplish this.
Here's a couple of pics of my prototype:

 

[Alk8944]

Well, since you are controlling the heel diameter, and therefore the neck diameter is controlled by this, and the base is slightly larger than the bullet. It does look like i would work. My list shows neck diameter as .440, in spite of bullet diameter of .451! Obviously the neck isn't critical as long as it is small enough to chamber.

This looks like an easy one really. I load for several oddities, 10.4 Italian Vetterli, 9.4 Dutch/10mm Beaumont, 10.4 Italian (Bodeo), .450 Adams, 9mm Browning Long, 7.62x38R Russian, 7.62x25 Tokarev, 9mm Largo. There are others too.

The Vetterli I cheated and opened the chamber neck a few thousandths to avoid having to make or buy a bullet mold.

The 9.4 Dutch works well with the 386187 Lyman .41 Long Colt bullet. Don't have dies for this one. Use a .30-40 and .30-30 die to size, Lee Universal Expander, crimp with a modified .38 Special seater die.

10.4 Vetterli sort of the same. .44 Carbide sizer to neck size, crimp in a modified Lee .44 Mag Factory Crimp die.

10.4 Bodeo, had to make a .423 bullet sizer die, use Lyman 42798.

The 9mm Browning is a Swedish 1912 which was originally this caliber, imported to US and re-barreled to .380. Re-chambered it to 9mm Browning just because that is what it is supposed to be.

While I do have specific dies for some of these most are improvised from other die sets as needed.

So, I do have a little experience with the odd ones.

Just for future reference. If you ever buy a 9mm Largo such as an Astra 400, or a couple of the Stars, just use standard 9mm Luger dies. I bought three die sets for the Largo from RCBS, Lyman and I don't recall. The only difference is they were marked for Largo, but were dimensionally identical to the normal 9mm Luger die sets.

"My only foreseeable problem will be getting a crimp to keep the bullets from "walking" out under recoil. A taper crimp won't work as the bullet driving bands are the same diameter as the case......"

What diameter does the barrel slug? As I said above, my reference shows a .451 bullet. Cast or slug the chambers to see how large a case you can get away with and adjust your heel diameter to get .001-2" under that diameter when seated. You may then be able to use a .44 Carbide sizing die to get a little bit of crimp. Maybe! A .44-40 seat die might work using the shoulder to crimp.

That thing can't have much recoil, it probably won't be an issue.

 

[deadin]

Alk,
Sounds like we may be kindred souls. Over the years I have also loaded for most of the one's you mentioned.....

My French barrel slugs to .456 and the .454 bullets I'm using chamber fine and just fit through the throat of the cylinder. I noticed that the books show a much smaller bullet dia. and all I can figure is that it had a hollow base and they counted on upset to seal the bore.

As for "difficult" brass to replicate, I would guess that the 11.43 x 55R Turkish was the worst I did. I had picked up a Peabody-Martini chambered for it. (The rifle had even traveled to Japan after the Turks were done with it...)
Anyway, there was nothing available to base the case on so I fell back on the old "standard" .348 Win. Thinned the rim from the front, reamed a brass washer that could be pressed down ahead of the thinned rim. Then took a brass tube that would also be pressed down to hold the washer and bring the base diameter up to close to what was needed. Put the whole thing back in the lathe and turned the rim to spec. Also had feathered the inside upper end of the tube so there wasn't much of a lip. Annealed the daylights out of the brass and loaded a stiff charge of Bullseye topped with cornmeal and fireformed the whole thing. I had made up 10 cases, of which 5 failed in the fireforming. I did get to shoot the rifle with the remaining 5, but 3 of them cracked on the first firing.
Here is a picture of one that worked about 3 times before it started to separate at the case/tube junction... (I let the one remaining case go with the rifle....)

 

[Alk8944]

Yep, we both do silly things! Made 11.15x60R from .45 Basic cases by adding a "Spiralok" snap ring in front ore the rim to made up the necessary thickness to match the Mauser "A" base. Didn't have a proper tool for the snap rings so just pushed them down. They caused a scratch in several cases so the split in spite of annealing before firing them.

Did the sleeving trick to make .41 Long Colt from .38 Special. Also have made .41 LC from .30-30 and 7.62x39, 9mm Largo and 7.62x25 from .223 and .357 Magnum, 9mm Browning Long from .38 Super, and others. 7.5x55 Swiss from .284 Winchester, that would have been easy if dies had been available in 1968! Now it isn't necessary since Prvi Partisan brass is available.

The sleeved .38 Spl. .41 LC was problematic. When they are sized the sleeve will stick in the die and pull off the case while sizing the front of the case back to its' original dimension. They don't get a second chance. I have about 200 from .30-30 and 7.62x39, that's plenty for my New Army and re-bored .32-20 Army Special for as much as they are shot.

One of the funniest was the 10.4 Vetterli. Finally decided on 8mm Lebel for a base case, and then found that at least one Italian ammunition maker had actually used the same case, already headstamped(!), for military contract ammunition. I ordered some LBT 44-325 LMCWN .44 Magnum bullets unsized and un gas checked, from Beartooth. They work fine so far, although I have only fired them once, and lost a few because they were annealed too deep. They stuck badly because of this and had to be driven from the chamber! This was with Trail Boss.

Mostly brass was not available for any of these when I started loading for them. The only one I will not buy is .41 LC from Starline. $200+ for 250, that's more than twice what they want for 500 of anything else! Really don't shoot any of them much, and don't expect to, so I would rather improvise from the 40+ different die sets I have when possible than go to the expense of buying a set for maybe 1-200 rounds.

Too bad we aren't a bit closer, it could be interesting!

 

[deadin]

This latest adventure into "odd" cartridges is something I haven't done in a number of years. Don't know why I ever quit as I love a challenge.. Now if I can just break my old habit of setting up to practically go into commercial production. (I usually don't shoot the darn things more than 10 rounds, so why do I make up 50 to 100 rounds of ammo???)
I even traded off my copy of Nonte. (Of course it got to where a good number of the cartridges he used as a starting point for conversion have become the subject of conversion.)

BTW, have you found yourself picking up Berdan primers whenever you find them? It sure is a lot simpler repriming old cases than it is making new ones. I never did manage to do a satisfactory primer pocket conversion......(But I tried.)