Is 44 CF Long the same as 44-40 or not?

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svt-40

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It appears as 44-40 is sometimes referred to as 44 CF, but I was offered a gun in 44 CF Long and not sure which is it.

I was only able to find a confirmation that 44-40 is 44 CF, but the 'long' part left me baffled.
 
You're mixing up 2 cartridges here..... the .44/40 was referred to as the .44WCF(Winchester centre fire) not the .44 Long centre fire or other wise.... the .44 long centrefire was a Ballard cartridge from the golden age of shooting and long obsolete. There was also a .44 extra long centerfire, again obsolete. To jumble things up more, there was also a .44 long rimfire and a .44 extra long rimfire, all are long obsolete. All started as black powder rounds but the .44/40 was the only one to make the leap to smokeless and survive.
 
Just received a word - 44/40 does not chamber by about 1/4, and if it did, it would protrude about 0.1". The front of the chamber is .425 and the rear is .461. The length of the cylinder is 1.425", so a 442 Webley long would be too long. A mystery round, eh?
Ben, do you have a drawing for 44 long CF that you could share?
 
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Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions shows .44 Ballard Long as 1.08" case length, 0.506" rim diameter, 0.052" rim thickness, 0.441" head diameter, and 0.440" neck diameter. The .44 Ballard Extra Long is the same, except 1.63" case length. Both show a 0.439" bullet diameter.
I have an antique Belgian 6 shot centre-fire revolver, made in an unspecified caliber during the transition from pin- to centre-fire.
It's chambers taper from 0.485" to 0.465", the cylinder is 1.328" long, and it's bore slugs to 0.427"
I initially tried shooting it with cut down .44 Magnum cases, using .44 Russian specifications, but the case-heads expanded way too much.
I now shoot it using .45 Long Colt cases shortened to 0.98", with the front 0.4" of the case sized down in a 44 sizer die to provide neck tension for the 0.429" lead bullet over 20gr. FFFg black powder. Kind of like a squatty 44-40, but it works.
There are several other US .44 handgun cartridges listed in HMofCC, and who knows what the various European manufacturers were making.
If you can, do a chamber cast, slug the bore, and go from there. You should be able to get it up and running with a bit of experimentation.
Regards, DaveF.
 
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