Good .38 Rimfire Work around

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Tyockell18

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Hey everyone,

Just curious what you guys are using to feed your .38 rimfires.

I'v heard that you can use 9mm Floberts either the super short ones or cut down the longs and load with any old .38 bullets.

Anyone using the off center .22 or .27 blanks method for them?.

What kinda brass did you use to modify ect or did you have to turn your own from scratch.

Looking forward to seeing your creativity, thanks.
 
I had a f&w .38rf DA that had a firing pin wide enough to set off even a centered .22 blank, and .38 special cases were the right diameter for the chambers. Never tried it though.
 
Interesting, hopefully my guns firing pin is wide enough as well, we'll see.

What charge were you using and what kind of filler?.

By the way I remember your F&W, it had ivory or pearl grips, it was a nice piece.
 
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I made my own from scratch and used an offcenter hilti shell for the primer, I think. Unless I am mistaken the base diameter is too large to center the hilti shell. I also more or less filled the available space with 3F and I think I swaged a heel on the slug. My gun is a Whitney Phoenix rifle but it has been a while since I shot it

cheers mooncoon
 
Also I'm sure I recently Saw a guy on the Ammo EE who had over 900 rounds of .38 Rimfire for sale.

Anyone remember which member it was so I can contact him, I can't find the add now.

It was within the last week or so.
 
An interesting read:

The rimfire cartridges used by the Henry were not intended for reloading, unlike the later stronger-cased .44-40 center fire rounds used in the Model 1873 Winchester (these had a replaceable primer in the center of the base). This fact did not deter the Indians from finding ways to use the expended cartridges again and again. A common method of reloading rimfire cases was to soak the heads off matches and cover the interior of the case's rim with the phosphorus, which, with luck, would give enough flash to detonate the powder when the hammer crimped the rim. It must have worked, for the Henry continued in use among the Sioux and Cheyenne well after the center fire arms became available. A survey of cartridge cases recovered from Indian positions at the Little Bighorn battle site registered the .44 rimfires as the second most numerous type at 380 cases, after the .45 Springfield carbine cartridges, which totaled 969. Some of the Henry cases bore two or three pairs of firing-pin indentations as proof of their reloading.
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http://rarewinchesters.com/articles/art_gun_voices.shtml

:)
 
It would only work if you could find some real old matches. The safety matches that we get today I'm pretty sure wouldn't have phosphorus in them anymore. If you just used the tips off the "strike anywhere" matches maybe that would work.
 
britarms said:
It would only work if you could find some real old matches. The safety matches that we get today I'm pretty sure wouldn't have phosphorus in them anymore. If you just used the tips off the "strike anywhere" matches maybe that would work.
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Yup thats what I mean, they are the only part currently impact/friction sensitive.

Cut off the white heads and make a paste out of it. I'm going to try it and document it as I go.

Supposibly you can using rubbing alcohol to dampen the phosphorus and make a paste out of it.




As for now though I have about 200 rounds of nice condition .38 rimfire comming.

I'll use the cases from those later.
 
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Yeah I think Reloading the larger rimfire cases is perfectly doable, time consuming yes, but still doable.

I will be giving it a try most deffinately. may even be able to figure out a way to lift the crimp out of a rim, I'v got some ideas on it, but it would only work for some crimps, sometimes the hammer damages the rim to badly.
 
britarms said:
It would only work if you could find some real old matches. The safety matches that we get today I'm pretty sure wouldn't have phosphorus in them anymore. If you just used the tips off the "strike anywhere" matches maybe that would work.
Click to expand...

Well... you don't have to look too far to find matches with phosphorous. I have a few boxes of strike-anywhere matches I got from Canadian Tire just a few years ago (3 or 4 years ago?). They are the 'Red Bird' brand or something like that... they're for lighting barbecues and fireplaces, so they're extra long and extra thick... with a generous amount of phosphorous on the tips!

As for applying it inside the case... here's what I would do: borrow a small wooden herbs mortar from the kitchen and crush phosphorous into a fine powder with light careful strokes (so it doesn't ignite). If ignition occurs nevertheless, add some water to the phosphorous before crushing it. Stir the phosphorous & a small amount of (preferably distilled) water into a light runny paste. Set the fired case vertically on the table and apply a few drops of the paste into the case. You have to make sure your solution is covering well above rim level, as the phosphorous' actual volume will be much smaller once water evaporates. Now let the cases fully dry for a few days. Then, find yourself a piece of plastic pipe (large solid straw, etc) that has a slightly smaller diameter than the mouth of the RF case you're working on. Insert the straw inside the case and use it to cut away the extra phosphorous from case walls, then scrape it away with a toothpick & recycle it for later use. Once the extra phosphorous is cut/scraped away from the bottom & case walls, you will end up with a case which only has the rim completely filled with phosphorous... with no missing spots!

Finally, add BP + an appropriate round ball or bullet on top and fire away!

:D

(In theory, this should work very well... but be advised that I have never tried it though. The idea came to me last night when I was reflecting upon how this could be accomplished in an easy, cheap and effective way).
 
By the way.. making a tool which would remove the firing pin indentations from inside the case would be fairly simple too... all you'd really need is a small solid steel hook which has a sharp point and is at a 90 deg angle. The kind of tool dentists use, but slightly smaller (so it can get inside the case). With that, you could technically travel along the rim and push out any firing pin indentations in it (if it proves to be to hard to do by hand, the other end of the tool could be adapted to be struck by a small hammer on a small anvil or something). That way, once you reload the case, you can be sure that the case will fire no matter where the pin hits.

Something like this should do nicely (middle and/or bottom tool) :

dental_tool.jpg
 
762mm said:
Well... you don't have to look too far to find matches with phosphorous. I have a few boxes of strike-anywhere matches I got from Canadian Tire just a few years ago (3 or 4 years ago?). They are the 'Red Bird' brand or something like that... they're for lighting barbecues and fireplaces, so they're extra long and extra thick... with a generous amount of phosphorous on the tips!

As for applying it inside the case... here's what I would do: borrow a small wooden herbs mortar from the kitchen and crush phosphorous into a fine powder with light careful strokes (so it doesn't ignite). If ignition occurs nevertheless, add some water to the phosphorous before crushing it. Stir the phosphorous & a small amount of (preferably distilled) water into a light runny paste. Set the fired case vertically on the table and apply a few drops of the paste into the case. You have to make sure your solution is covering well above rim level, as the phosphorous' actual volume will be much smaller once water evaporates. Now let the cases fully dry for a few days. Then, find yourself a piece of plastic pipe (large solid straw, etc) that has a slightly smaller diameter than the mouth of the RF case you're working on. Insert the straw inside the case and use it to cut away the extra phosphorous from case walls, then scrape it away with a toothpick & recycle it for later use. Once the extra phosphorous is cut/scraped away from the bottom & case walls, you will end up with a case which only has the rim completely filled with phosphorous... with no missing spots!

Finally, add BP + an appropriate round ball or bullet on top and fire away!

:D

(In theory, this should work very well... but be advised that I have never tried it though. The idea came to me last night when I was reflecting upon how this could be accomplished in an easy, cheap and effective way).
Click to expand...



Yup could work quite nicely!, could always just spin the case as well to force some of the phosphorous particulate into the rim as well making sure theres no unfilled gaps.

Good thinking 7.62!.

762mm said:
By the way.. making a tool which would remove the firing pin indentations from inside the case would be fairly simple too... all you'd really need is a small solid steel hook which has a sharp point and is at a 90 deg angle. The kind of tool dentists use, but slightly smaller (so it can get inside the case). With that, you could technically travel along the rim and push out any firing pin indentations in it. That way, once you reload the case, you can be sure that the case will fire no matter where the pin hits.

Something like this should do nicely (middle and/or bottom tool) :
Click to expand...

Yes I was thinking along the lines of modifying a nail so that you use the round flat head and make it half moon. Insert it in the case and use needle nose or similar to squeeze the head of the nail into the rim thus flareing it back out again. It would need some tweaking ect to not damade the rim but it could work.

pdgr076269.jpg


Now Question is what would be the Best Black Powder to use.
 
Tyockell18 said:
Yup could work quite nicely!, could always just spin the case as well to force some of the phosphorous particulate into the rim as well making sure theres no unfilled gaps.

Good thinking 7.62!.


Yes I was thinking along the lines of modifying a nail so that you use the round flat head and make it half moon. Insert it in the case and use needle nose or similar to squeeze the head of the nail into the rim thus flareing it back out again. It would need some tweaking ect to not damade the rim but it could work.
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Your nail idea is excellent. I think I'd go with yours first, actually. After all, simplicity is genius!

;)

As for the drill idea... it could work, but the time required for it to dry completely is not practical (in my opinion), as you would have to continue spinning the case until the phosphorous fully solidifies. You'd probably wear out the drill before you'd finish making a box of 50 rounds, lol! :p
 
762mm said:
Your nail idea is excellent. I think I'd go with yours first, actually. After all, simplicity is genius!

;)

As for the drill idea... it could work, but the time required for it to dry completely is not practical (in my opinion), as you would have to continue spinning the case until the phosphorous fully solidifies. You'd probably wear out the drill before you'd finish making a box of 50 rounds, lol! :p
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Lol too true, I'm going to try your method first and see how it goes, I think it'll work fine anyway.

I have a pound of Pyrodex P FFFG kicking round, I'll try it out. I don't much like pyrodex though its nasty corrosive ####.
 
Tyockell18 said:
Lol too true, I'm going to try your method first and see how it goes, I think it'll work fine anyway.

I have a pound of Pyrodex P FFFG kicking round, I'll try it out. I don't much like pyrodex though its nasty corrosive s**t.
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All BP is corrosive... hence why many of us on these forums have migrated to using smokeless in our antiques, despite flak from some of the hardcore "you should only use BP in BP guns" guys. :p

You could try smokeless too and use something like (let's say) 2.5 gr of Unique as a starting load, then chrony the results until you get to your factory-specs fps (at which pressures should remain low, even with smokeless). It is important to note that all RF cartridges were of a pretty low fps rating, hence indicating lesser tolerances for high pressure... most likely due to the pot-metal materials used in the construction of most rimfire antique handguns. I think 550-600 fps for a .38 RF would be tops... but don't quote me on that (it's second hand info, as I don't have much first-hand experience with antique RF ammo).

The only thing I'm wondering about is whether or not ignition would be reliable with such smokeless ammo... as I was once informed that BP ignites evenly with almost any spark, whereas smokeless powders need much more powerful primers to ignite properly and evenly. I guess the only way to tell would be to try both and see which one works best. Unburnt powder could be an issue when using smokeless in reloaded rimfire cases, I guess... but maybe not, all depending on how much spark that phosphorous is able to generate.

:confused:

But... that's what this hobby is all about and what also makes it so much more fun than collecting / firing modern guns. With antiques, you actually need to learn (and sometimes experiment with) many concepts that absolutely have to be taken into account for both adequate performance and safety. Personally, it's thanks to antiques that I finally got into reloading, despite having been collecting WWI & WWII firearms for 15+ years. Because when a cartridge has not been made for over 100 years... you have no other choice, lol.

Good luck on your project! ;)


P.S. Speaking of corossiveness, please be advised that phosphorous is very corrosive too... kind of like the corrosive smokeless milsurp ammo that you can get by the crate (it's the primers that are actually corrosive in it, not the powder). In other words, you will have to clean up the gun ASAP after firing, even if you're using smokeless loads. Smokeless will make a lot less of a mess though... so less cleaning will be required than with sticky BP residues.
 
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