I just finished a journey to create ammo for my Antique Swiss Ordnance 10.4mm revolver from 1887. It's been rather rewarding to say the least! When compared to making Wildcat loads for my T/C Contender this was far more involved.
Here's stock pics of the gun from google, mine is devoid of all bluing but the bore and chambers look pristine!
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The first thing was to find brass that could be used. In this case there wasn't a lot online who have played with this revolver / round but there was one who noted 41Mag brass would work.
The next was finding a mold to cast the special "heeled" bullets that were originally used. To my surprise all the custom mold manufacturers have a version of this bullet. The easiest path was through Old West Bullet molds because they also offer a retooled Lee FCD die to allow the crimp of a heeled bullet! I never even thought about the crimping difficulties of a heeled bullet until I saw the die being offered for sale. I'm glad I did!
Given the low pressure of this round I cast the bullets out of near pure lead with some tin and ended up with a BHN of 9. My practice for almost all of my bullets is to use 45/45/10 bullet lube. IMO this is not only by far the quickest way to lube bullets I've also found it to be the best performer from low pressure 38 Wad Cutters to high pressure rifle rounds upwards of 2300 fps.
Given that this was originally a black powder round I had some research to do on creating a load that will work. All of the online warnings say to never load smokeless powder in a black powder firearm. The revolvers from this era were in service right through the invention of smokeless powder and many were proofed for smokeless use later in their lives. I thought that if I could create a load that didn't go over the pressures the original black powder loads would have achieved, I should be good. There is quite a few debates online on this topic. Burn rates vs pressure curves between the two...
After much research and a number of quickload simulations I came up with 4 different smokeless loads that I thought would be appropriate to test out using Bullseye, and UNIQUE powder.
I had my 41 Mag brass trimmed to length, my bullets cast and lubed, now the assembly.
I had the Old West FCD for the 10.4mm Swiss and tried to use my 45 ACP dies and Lee universal case expander to make the test rounds. It kind of worked but but in the end I still had to buy 41 Mag dies to properly size, seat the bullet and expand the case mouths to fit the lead heeled bullets in. The custom mold has a bullet nose that didn't match the Lee 41 Mag bullet seat profile. A little dremel work was required to smoothin things out and get the bullet to seat nice and straight. Once all was said and done, success!
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To my glee all four shot exceptionally well and I got the expected fps out that was close or matched the original specs.
I now have my Dillon 550 set up to stamp these out quick and complete the final crimp on the single stage Lee Classic Cast. Since this is an antique revolver I'm looking forward to shooting these at pop cans and ? on crown land up at my cottage this summer with my kids!
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What other antique obsolete calibers have you reloaded or could I seek out to make? This was very rewarding!
Here's stock pics of the gun from google, mine is devoid of all bluing but the bore and chambers look pristine!
View attachment 290631
View attachment 290632
The first thing was to find brass that could be used. In this case there wasn't a lot online who have played with this revolver / round but there was one who noted 41Mag brass would work.
The next was finding a mold to cast the special "heeled" bullets that were originally used. To my surprise all the custom mold manufacturers have a version of this bullet. The easiest path was through Old West Bullet molds because they also offer a retooled Lee FCD die to allow the crimp of a heeled bullet! I never even thought about the crimping difficulties of a heeled bullet until I saw the die being offered for sale. I'm glad I did!
Given the low pressure of this round I cast the bullets out of near pure lead with some tin and ended up with a BHN of 9. My practice for almost all of my bullets is to use 45/45/10 bullet lube. IMO this is not only by far the quickest way to lube bullets I've also found it to be the best performer from low pressure 38 Wad Cutters to high pressure rifle rounds upwards of 2300 fps.
Given that this was originally a black powder round I had some research to do on creating a load that will work. All of the online warnings say to never load smokeless powder in a black powder firearm. The revolvers from this era were in service right through the invention of smokeless powder and many were proofed for smokeless use later in their lives. I thought that if I could create a load that didn't go over the pressures the original black powder loads would have achieved, I should be good. There is quite a few debates online on this topic. Burn rates vs pressure curves between the two...
After much research and a number of quickload simulations I came up with 4 different smokeless loads that I thought would be appropriate to test out using Bullseye, and UNIQUE powder.
I had my 41 Mag brass trimmed to length, my bullets cast and lubed, now the assembly.
I had the Old West FCD for the 10.4mm Swiss and tried to use my 45 ACP dies and Lee universal case expander to make the test rounds. It kind of worked but but in the end I still had to buy 41 Mag dies to properly size, seat the bullet and expand the case mouths to fit the lead heeled bullets in. The custom mold has a bullet nose that didn't match the Lee 41 Mag bullet seat profile. A little dremel work was required to smoothin things out and get the bullet to seat nice and straight. Once all was said and done, success!
View attachment 290613
To my glee all four shot exceptionally well and I got the expected fps out that was close or matched the original specs.
I now have my Dillon 550 set up to stamp these out quick and complete the final crimp on the single stage Lee Classic Cast. Since this is an antique revolver I'm looking forward to shooting these at pop cans and ? on crown land up at my cottage this summer with my kids!
View attachment 290624
What other antique obsolete calibers have you reloaded or could I seek out to make? This was very rewarding!
