Sharps 45-70 reloading Questions

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I'am reloading 45-70 in my sharps rifle. Who knows about where to seat a bullet in the casing. I 'am using a Lyman 525 gr bullet (457132). Also have a Lyman 480 gr (457658). Do you have to put a hard crimp on the bullets. What is a good powder charge amount to start out with.

This is being loaded into a Davide P rifle. What kind of a throat would these rifles have.
 
Buy a copy of "the Paper Jacket" by Paul Mathew; it will tell you everything you need to know. Bullet depth is really overall cartridge length; you drop a slug down the barrel (from the breach) and measure to the back of the chamber. The length of the slug plus the distance to the back of the chamber or barrel is the total loaded length you are trying for. You should also be using a drop tube for the black powder and filling to the base of the bullet so that the powder is compressed slightly beyond what the drop tube achieved.

cheers mooncoon
 
Take a fired case, and an unsized bullet that slips into the case. Place it in the case with a few grease grooves exposed. Chamber the dummy round and close the breech. Open the breech and carefully extract the round and measure without moving the bullet. That is a good starting point for seating depth. My Shiloh only lets me seat the Lyman Postell (457132) to 1/2 the first driving band... perfect.

As for neck tension, I use some pretty good tension, as a result my case necks is worked pretty hard, and I have to anneal every 3 firings. Maybe about .003" tension (interference) or so. Others I shoot with use none. You can literally pull their bullets with your fingers. They think I'm insane. Conversly, I think that is ludicrous. I'm also not a big fan of exposing grease grooves to gain powder capacity. Dirt and grit on lube is not the key to long and healthy barrel life.

I'm assuming you are using black powder or Pyrodex. Most black powder and Pyrodex need some compression to work properly. Swiss BP does not. Measure how much of the bullet shank is seated in the case. Make sure there is NO airspace. That wrecks things - puts a ring in the chamber. Calculate your compression with the difference of the bullet shank in the case and the powder column height from the mouth of the case (uniform length is critcal). Example. My .45-90 uses the Postell bullet - .650" seated into the case trimmed to 2.4" on the nose. The top of the powder column in the perferred load is .580" (about 51.5 grains by weight/83 grains BP eqivallent by volume) from the case mouth with a .030" veggie gasket wad on top. .650" minus .580" equals .070" compression. Typically, that's about right for Pyrodex. Goex likes over .100" and Swiss almost none. Don't forget some kind of wad over the powder.

BP and Pyrodex have to be dropped through a copper, brass, or aluminum tube at least 24" to work properly. This allows the powder to settle and compact better. The best thing to do is find as many Mike Venturino, and Paul Matthews books and articles and read them.
 
The orig. poster doesn't say whether he is using BP or not, but if he is, there is no set "loads", it is dependent on your bullet length vs chamber (OAL) and internal case cap.....And no, i wouldn't start load dev. by crimping, only as a last resort, as belling and crimping will shorten case life.
 
Yeah, I forgot. I don't recommend crimping. I do bell the case mouth to accept the bullet, but take out the bell so the round can be chambered. Ben, I assume he's starting out with BP. If he's using smokeless, then he can consult the Lyman 49th manual like a normal human being. Black doesn't need a crimp to burn properly, smokeless does.
 
Pedersoli rifles have usually a .458 bore or larger . You want just enough FFG in the case so the bullet just slightly compresses the powder about 1/8 . I find I keep the bullet just out from touching the rifling to give a little space for fouling especially for shooting long range with multiple shots between cleaning I found with the bullet engaging the rifling after a few shots it got hard to chamber rounds.
 
303 British Black Powder Question

Looking for information on reloading 303 British black powder? I have a bullet mold already, but do not know how many gr of powder is needed. Is something needed over the powder charge. What size of primer works best for this round.

The gun used will be a parkerized 303 British Enfield, 20 inch barrel.
 
Well it's the same answer as the 45/70, you decide the overall cart. length which might be decided by the magazine. Then you can determine how much compressed powder you can load in the cartridge without any airspace, just takes a little measuring with a vernier. A soft cast bullet lubed with Bp lube will be of benefit for loading all Bp cartridges.
 
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