burnt_servo
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- right in the middle of b.c.
well , I have had more than a few guys asking me questions about my schofield conversion on my French 1873 .
I thought it might be of interest to others , so I am posting a thread on it .
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first off , the cylinder is 1.350" long , 45 schofield's oal is supposed to be 1.450" ( roughly ) , but it isn't that big of a deal to sink the bullets 100 thou deeper .
I am also using a 216 grain bullet and not a 250 grain , so the actual volume of the case with the 216 grain bullet would be roughly the same as a factory 250 grain .
imr's reloading page lists trail boss for the 200 and 230 grain bullets at 5 grains of powder , and the 250 grain at 4.8 grains , with pressures around 13,000 cup .
so I feel fairly certain that 5 grains of trailboss behind a 216 grain bullet at a oal of 1.345" to be safe .
many of these guns are chambered in 45 acp and 455 webley .
the fiocchi 455 webley I have , on the box is rated at 850 fps with a 265 grain bullet .
now if you start comparing case capacity between 455 and 45 acp , I am thinking that the fiocchi ammo is running very similar pressures to 45acp .
so what I am getting at is , I have yet to see pictures of blown up French 1873s from either 45 acp or 455 fiocchi webley ammo .
so with my handloads on the 45 schofield case I am only 2/3's the pressure of 45acp , basicly lots of room for safety here .
the picture below show that the 45 sch case is roughly 1/3 more case capacity with a bullet in place than the 455 .( the green line on the sch case is the base of the bullet inside of the case . )
left to right , 44mag , 45 colt , 45sch , 455 webley ( fiocchi)
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the throats on the 1873 where around .445" .
after slugging my barrel the slug comes out sort of oblong , the grove diameter on one side measure .458 , on the other side .453 .
the tops of the rifling measure .440 and .441 . ( 4 grooves , 4 lands to measure across from ) .
so what was happening was the bullet was getting swaged down to .445 , then was just barely engaging the rifling .
I understand with blackpowder that a pressure spike is wanted to get a complete burn , and this is why many of the older guns had tight throats .
but it is also my feeling that the antiques that you do hear about coming apart are ones with tight throats and high pressure jacketed ammo being fed through them .
so what I am doing instead is , I opened up the throats until a .451 bullet slid easily through them ( they ended up just a hair over .453 )
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now when I cut the chamber I initially used a 45 acp reamer since it was sharper than my 45 colt reamer .
I cut down so the edge where 45acp headspaces off of was 1.120" ( 45 sch brass is 1.1" long )
I then finished cutting the chambers and throat with the 45 colt reamer . what I ended up with was all 6 chambers with a throat that was .140" long at the end of the cylinder .
I used a 44 mag reamer to cut the rear of the cylinder for the rim to set the headspace .
this allowed me to create a slight step so I could also use 455 webley .
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in the above picture you can see the dark ring on each cylinder where 455 headspaces on .
I ended up setting the headspace of the 45 schofield cases between just over 2 thou and just under 2.5 though .
the 455 cases ended up having around 23 thou clearance and they sat about 10 thou below the rear of the cylinder . the 45 sch cases are 10 thou proud of the rear of the cylinder.
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the above pic is with the 455 cases
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the above pic is with the 45 sch cases .
the pic below is a 20 thou feeler gauge in behind a 455 case .
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initially I had issues with the face of the primer stretching backwards into the unsupported area around the firing pin , and almost locking up the cylinder .
the firing pin was also hitting towards to the edge of the primer , rather than the middle ( see pic below )
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I gently warmed up the tip of the firing pin and tapped it down a hair and a half
then filed the end flat and reshaped it so it was hitting dead center .
pic below , the bottom 3 primers are before reshaping , the top 3 are after reshaping . all primers are cci mag pistol primers except the one in the 10 o'clock position which is a Remington 9 1/2 mag rifle primer .
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i'll add more as I think of it .
I thought it might be of interest to others , so I am posting a thread on it .
----------
first off , the cylinder is 1.350" long , 45 schofield's oal is supposed to be 1.450" ( roughly ) , but it isn't that big of a deal to sink the bullets 100 thou deeper .
I am also using a 216 grain bullet and not a 250 grain , so the actual volume of the case with the 216 grain bullet would be roughly the same as a factory 250 grain .
imr's reloading page lists trail boss for the 200 and 230 grain bullets at 5 grains of powder , and the 250 grain at 4.8 grains , with pressures around 13,000 cup .
so I feel fairly certain that 5 grains of trailboss behind a 216 grain bullet at a oal of 1.345" to be safe .
many of these guns are chambered in 45 acp and 455 webley .
the fiocchi 455 webley I have , on the box is rated at 850 fps with a 265 grain bullet .
now if you start comparing case capacity between 455 and 45 acp , I am thinking that the fiocchi ammo is running very similar pressures to 45acp .
so what I am getting at is , I have yet to see pictures of blown up French 1873s from either 45 acp or 455 fiocchi webley ammo .
so with my handloads on the 45 schofield case I am only 2/3's the pressure of 45acp , basicly lots of room for safety here .
the picture below show that the 45 sch case is roughly 1/3 more case capacity with a bullet in place than the 455 .( the green line on the sch case is the base of the bullet inside of the case . )
left to right , 44mag , 45 colt , 45sch , 455 webley ( fiocchi)
---------------
the throats on the 1873 where around .445" .
after slugging my barrel the slug comes out sort of oblong , the grove diameter on one side measure .458 , on the other side .453 .
the tops of the rifling measure .440 and .441 . ( 4 grooves , 4 lands to measure across from ) .
so what was happening was the bullet was getting swaged down to .445 , then was just barely engaging the rifling .
I understand with blackpowder that a pressure spike is wanted to get a complete burn , and this is why many of the older guns had tight throats .
but it is also my feeling that the antiques that you do hear about coming apart are ones with tight throats and high pressure jacketed ammo being fed through them .
so what I am doing instead is , I opened up the throats until a .451 bullet slid easily through them ( they ended up just a hair over .453 )
-----------------------------------------
now when I cut the chamber I initially used a 45 acp reamer since it was sharper than my 45 colt reamer .
I cut down so the edge where 45acp headspaces off of was 1.120" ( 45 sch brass is 1.1" long )
I then finished cutting the chambers and throat with the 45 colt reamer . what I ended up with was all 6 chambers with a throat that was .140" long at the end of the cylinder .
I used a 44 mag reamer to cut the rear of the cylinder for the rim to set the headspace .
this allowed me to create a slight step so I could also use 455 webley .
in the above picture you can see the dark ring on each cylinder where 455 headspaces on .
I ended up setting the headspace of the 45 schofield cases between just over 2 thou and just under 2.5 though .
the 455 cases ended up having around 23 thou clearance and they sat about 10 thou below the rear of the cylinder . the 45 sch cases are 10 thou proud of the rear of the cylinder.
the above pic is with the 455 cases
the above pic is with the 45 sch cases .
the pic below is a 20 thou feeler gauge in behind a 455 case .
initially I had issues with the face of the primer stretching backwards into the unsupported area around the firing pin , and almost locking up the cylinder .
the firing pin was also hitting towards to the edge of the primer , rather than the middle ( see pic below )
I gently warmed up the tip of the firing pin and tapped it down a hair and a half
then filed the end flat and reshaped it so it was hitting dead center .
pic below , the bottom 3 primers are before reshaping , the top 3 are after reshaping . all primers are cci mag pistol primers except the one in the 10 o'clock position which is a Remington 9 1/2 mag rifle primer .
i'll add more as I think of it .
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