Beaumont ammo

mooncoon

mooncoon

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I ran accross a beaumont rifle recently, that I needed badly :>) and have spent the last couple of weeks making dies and shells with the hopes of winning a turkey with it in our local (Nanaimo Fish & Game) turkey shoot this weekend. I think I finally have it working. Being frugal (which some might mistake for cheap) I turned some steel bases that matched the base of the beaumont shell then bored them out to accept a 45-70 shell and fire formed it to match the chamber. I had to reduce the rim in diameter plus thinned it from .065 to .040" which allowed it to fit inside the beaumont rim which is .085" thick
I am currently shooting it with smokeless powder because I was getting case separations with 85 gr of 1F powder. I think these separations, which occur in the middle of the shell are because I compressed the powder too much combined with a bottle neck case and the powder is dragging the brass forward. Hard to explain any other way.
Now to keep my fingers crossed that I can shoot straight in the Milsurp class we intend to hold in addition to the regular matches. For anyone tempted there are matches at 100 yards and 200 yards ; 6 shooters at $5 each shooting at a silhouette ram about 10" long.

cheers mooncoon

Beaumontb.jpg


there is one 45-70 shell in the above, for comparison

Beaumontbrass.jpg


brass above is a Bertram brass shell, a home made shell and a 45-70 shell for comparison

Beaumontbase.jpg
 
Great work Doug :)

Thats a great Idea.

I was makeing 30 RF Ammo useing brass tubeing on a 27 Cal hilti cap and the Brass tube was Shooting or being pulled into the Bore locking up the Cylinder.
I think its the Crimped Bullet pulls the brass into the rifleing not the powder charge.
A little hi temp locktight solved my problem.
Its a ##### to get a piece of brass tubeing thats half in the Cylinder and half in the barrel out.
 
That's a good idea.

I use Starline 50-90 brass. Its rim is a bit thin (0.058" vs. 0.090"). I could contrive a way to shim it, but for now I find that after the first firing it forms a shoulder, and I seat the bullet to just engage the rifling (OAL of 2.600"). This has worked well for me - it keeps the cartridge base tight against the bolt face.

I use smokeless only. With the 400gr Lee bullet I use 32.0 - 34.0 grs of H4198. Gives me between 1400 and 1500 fps.

A 243 Winchester Seater Die works well for neck-sizing and crimping.

There's a bit more here: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138594
 
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Andy said:
I use smokeless only. With the 400gr Lee bullet I use 32.0 - 34.0 grs of H4198. Gives me between 1400 and 1500 fps.

A 243 Winchester Seater Die works well for neck-sizing and crimping.
Click to expand...

Sounds like I could up the charge some. I am currently using 25 gr of 4198 and a 350 gr bullet (45-75 mold) because the only load I could find in Donnelly was 27 gr for a Comblain I think the shell was. The load is accurate but definitely very low pressure. I didn't shoot the gun today because didn't seem to be any interest is a military gun match although there were several Enfields and a Springfield there. Maybe tomorrow there will be more interest. I intend to take the beaumont plus a 3 shot berthier as well
We had quite a few new faces, including several families of kids which was good to see. The squirrel match with .22s was quite popular this year and I just finished branding up more targets for tomorrow --- didn't want to run out. The squirrel is actually a black powder target for .40 cal and under muzzle loaders but we use it in the turkey shoot as a fun thing to shoot at.
I had to modify my dies to match the chamber of the gun. It is considerably oversize and initially I made my dies to match the factory shell but that meant a lot too much resizing of the case. I opened them out to match the chamber so now I only am only neck sizing them.

cheers mooncoon

BrandingSquirrels1b.jpg


40calSquirrel-1.jpg
 
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chamber adaptors

I have a chamber adaptor system that I use for my 455/577 Martini. It uses steel adaptors that you put magnum rifle brass in. I aneal the necks and then fire form them to blow the necks out and then trim the necks. The end result is it changes it from a bottle necked case to a straight walled one. In addition the case size is reduced. I can get around 70 grains of powder in a case.

Cheers. Steve
 
The squirrel idea I copied and refined from a competition at Heffley Creek so that one was not original to me. The beaumont is not suitable for making a full length liner like the Martini because the diameter of the body is too small. I did make a chamber liner for my Martini and it worked well until I used a load that was a bit too hot in it. That stretched the neck area of the liner, a couple of thousandths which makes it a nuisance to remove the empty cases. As I recall that happened with a fast burning smokeless load and I am not sure if it would be a problem with black powder because I suspect I would have lower chamber pressures.

cheers mooncoon
 
Interesting on the chamber adapter for your 577-450. Curious what accuracy you get, since Martini bores are more like .462 or higher.
I also have two chamber adapters.
One for .22
One for .22 pellets driven by a shotgun primer.
 
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