Making brass casings

[bigdawg]

I always wanted to get a custom big bore rifle (more of a pipe dream but fun to think about). My one question is alot of the real big bore rifle are chambered in really rare ammo 4 bore or 6-8 bore my question is how you would go about making a brass casing i know a little bit about reloading but in this matter i would't know where to start.



Can anyone point me in the right direction?



Thanks for you help!

 

[burnt_servo]

when i built my 45-120 , the only company at the time making cases was ballard , and they where machined from a solid piece of brass .

if you can't buy the cases , you could always machine them from solid brass , then aneal the case mouth

 

[Short Knife Johnson]

when i built my 45-120 , the only company at the time making cases was ballard , and they where machined from a solid piece of brass .

Geez, that would have been a long while ago then. Steve Garbe sold that little sub-business to Dave Casey, and it's now Rocky Mountain Cartridge. I stopped in at RMC when I was in Cody this last spring just to see their operation. As it happens, they were turning out 4-bore cartridges... 25 dollars a slice. Dave said "Well the guy paid 104 thousand (dollars, presumably U.S.) for the gun, so 25 bucks a piece is something he can handle." That would be the only place to get something that specialty. The 4-bores cost so much more because of increased handling - each chunk of stock had to be pre-cut, and a collar turned on each one - so that increased the waste material - and that is all factored into the cost. The 1 1/4" bar stock couldn't be fed through the CNC lathe spindle, so each blank would have to be fed by hand. So if you do build the monster, that's one facet. Then there would be custom moulds... each one requiring a minimum 1400 grain round ball to a 2160 grain Paradox bullet. Then powder charges ranging from 10 Drams (275 gr) to 16 Drams (440 grains) of BP to make it go boom.

The only justification one could find for building/buying/ownind one of these behemoths is "Just because I can." And that's good enough for me.

Oh, forgot. The issues of the Black Powder Cartridge News issues #69 and #70 have some pretty good articles on the 4-bores. You could phone SPG in Cody for back issues IF they still have some, it's around 10 bucks per issue.

 

[sunray]

"...go about making a brass casing..." Like Short Knife Johnson says, machined on a lathe, if you can find case dimensions.
There's a guy on Guns International who is selling some loaded ammo(1875 grain lead bullet in a 4" case) for $85US, each. The rifles are typically 20 pounds plus in weight. Mind you, that's what gun bearers are for.