Case life for the various 'pistol caliber levergun' cartridges...?

[AJMD429]

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The thread on 'case life for 357 Mag in leverguns' got me wondering...

Do you guys see much difference between the various 'pistol cartridges' (new 'magnum' ones like 357 Mag, 41 Mag, 44 Mag, and even the 327's in high-pressure iterations - and the older 'hyphenated' ones like 38-40, 44-40, and 32-20, and the century-straddling 45 Colt, with its 'Cowboy' level loads all the way up to 454 Casull-lite loads)...?

I see alot more case bulging in the 45 Colt than I do my 44 Magnums, but I've not paid enough attention to say whether it is a 'Marlin' phenomenon or a 'Rossi-92' phenomenon. Perhaps the chamber dimensions are looser with that cartridge, or it is just the larger the cartridge the 'sloppier' it has to be to feed into the chamber in a levergun...? Are the older, tapered, cartridges the guns were originally designed for able to feed without the excess chamber space...? Of course I'm sure 'Ruger Only' loads in any cartridge will wear the brass out faster, but are there other factors...? I've always heard 32-20's thin brass at the case mouth is an issue, and I've collapsed my share of cases during reloading, but I've not reloaded enough 32 H&R or 327 Fed to tell if the thicker brass will make a number-of-reloads difference other than being hopefully more difficult for me to crush accidentally.

Lots of questions, and maybe they don't all even matter, but for someone just starting out levergunning, and deciding what they want their 'main cartridge' (or perhaps even 'only' one) to be, such answers might be a tie-breaker.

I could definitely see ANY of the 'pistol caliber' cartridges being the mainstay for someone living a rural lifestyle where hunting, predator control, target shooting, and home protection are all important, and of course there are component-availability considerations, but if I had to pick right now, I'd either pick 357 Mag, because it is so versatile and I have a threaded Marlin 1894 csx and Mystic suppressor for it, or 44 Mag, just because I have tons of components and it does bring a bit more power in case something big needs thumped a bit more authoritatively.

[Bronco]

When I bought my Marlin AND then started to learn about the large bore for the 44 mag, which is the one I bought. I remember that the 44 mags suffered from large bores, as compared to pistols, SAAMI specs. different from pistol to rifle; that the 45 Colts suffered from large chambers. Do not know if that was different specs. or just quality of the manufacture.
Don't know if that helps answer your question but it did bring that up in my memory !

[piller]

As of yet, I have not lost a single piece of .327 Federal Magnum brass to bulging or case mouth splitting. 7 or 8 loads on each. The ones using lead bullets, which are .32-20 115 grain flat nose bullets, are using Universal as the powder and show no signs of any trouble at all. The ones using 115 grain Speer Gold Dot only have 3 reloadings on them. They are using Hodgdon's published max load of WW296. All brass is Starline that was purchased in a 500 count purchase. Out of the Ruger SP101 barrel, the Universal is a little smoky. The 296 comes out clean in both pistol and rifle. The rifle is a Henry. I do find that the stronger cases are easier to use. They resist those few times where a slightly off center bullet crumples a case mouth.

[COSteve]

Done

[JimT]

This was in a handgun so it is Off Topic a bit .. but my Dad had one .44 Magnum cartridge that he reloaded over 1200 times without any failure of any kind.

It was never crimped so the case mouth was not worked.
It was fired in the same chamber.
It was never loaded above light .44 Special pressures.
Because of the light pressures it was never resized.
The primer pocket never loosened.

If you don't work the brass it will last indefinitely.

[Sixgun]

This was in a handgun so it is Off Topic a bit .. but my Dad had one .44 Magnum cartridge that he reloaded over 1200 times without any failure of any kind.

It was never crimped so the case mouth was not worked.
It was fired in the same chamber.
It was never loaded above light .44 Special pressures.
Because of the light pressures it was never resized.
The primer pocket never loosened.

If you don't work the brass it will last indefinitely.

Ya beat me to it Jim......what I can add is people have become addicted to "easy living" which means "no messy case lube for me!"...by using carbide dies which habitually resize more than standard steel dies just aggravates the issue of working the brass resulting in a short life, especially the mouth.

The old dash cartridges ...32-20, 38-40, 44-40 have thinner brass than magnum named cartridges but.....they use steel dies which work the brass less.....in properly dimensioned guns.....and in properly dimensioned guns the brass lasts a long time. If you get "unlucky" and get yourself a single action Colt in 38-40 that for some strange reason has chambers as big as the 44-40, well, your out of luck and brass life is short.

I'm still using 32-20 brass that I bought in the early seventies loaded possibly hundreds of times in a tight chambered 1892. ALL bets are off in modern guns chambered in any pistol caliber.....they have all been "fat" in my experience, allowing the loaded cartridge to "dip" in the chamber and upon firing only aggravating an already aggravated situation.......then this brass is put through a carbide sizer.....can ya hear the empty hollering "help, please put me in an American gun and use a steel die please"-----006

[JimT]

IMG-3946.jpg

I had a .45 Colt New Service and cut the barrel short like that. I also bobbed the hammer and cut the front of the trigger guard off. AND I reshaped the grip to S&W K-frame.

It was still bigger and heavier than my Model 10 S&W!

[Jay Bird]

I had a .45 Colt New Service and cut the barrel short like that. I also bobbed the hammer and cut the front of the trigger guard off. AND I reshaped the grip to S&W K-frame.
It was still bigger and heavier than my Model 10 S&W!

Yes Jim.....the Colt you cut down is a REAL Fitz Spl.....it's a handful ain't it especially when pushing 260 grainers? Mine shoots very high, just like that single action slip gun....point of aim does not become point of impact until about 150 yards...

That Colt I have is the scarce target version and would be worth 3-4 big ones IF it still had the uncut barrel....can you beleive some dope cut down a target barrel?----6

[JimT]

can you beleive some dope cut down a target barrel?----6

Some years ago they were not worth anything. Hardly anyone wanted them. When I was a kid my Dad bought a shipment of Remington 1858's from James Serven .. all Civil War guns ... some marked with owners name and rank. $10 a gun. They were not collectible due to cracked cylinders or missing grips etc.

Dad converted some to .22 Rimfire .. some to .38 Special ... and sold them for a profit.

Heck ... I bought 303's for $15 each ... Webley 45's for $10 and Enfield 38's for $7.50 ... If I had any foresight I woulda bought a hundred of each and kept them for 50 years ....

[Sixgun]

Yea....we know the good ole days.......and in REALITY, many of these guns WERE cheap....my dad told me in the early sixties the going price for m1 carbines were $20....old timers, probably around your dads age told me no one wanted the old 1886 and similar model Winchesters and could be bought very cheap.....even single action Colts didn't catch on until westerns became in vogue....

Cap and ball Colts? Nada....dash calibered guns...nada....of course during this time the deluxe and presentation guns always held their value.

In my early buying days pre war 1894's could be had cheap and the same with standard condition 1892's.....'66' s have always been out of range for me.

People ask me what's the gun to buy today and the answer is what I've been buying for 45 years...pre war Winchesters and Colts. (Preferably WW One) The stuff people are buying today like post war Marlins and Winchesters will never be worth much more than inflation as there's lots of them out there...we all know what happened to commemorative Winchesters.

Ahhh..I'm going to bed....----6 & Jay Bird

[Griff]

I'll only speak to the 2 pistol caliber leverguns I own... 2 Rossi .38/.357 and 6 45 Colts. Both of the Rossi have been worked over to make them smooth and easy functioning carbines. I've had no issues with brass in either gun. I'm still shooting the initial batch of .38 Special brass my wife was given when she started using the 1st of them for cowboy action. When I got the second one for my son's use, he used the same batch of brass. Some of which was large primer stuff, well used, even the nickel pieces had little to nearly NO nickeling left. The only work I've found and brass I've discarded were the large primer ones... I don't care to have them run thru my Dillon on their way to being loaded cartridges... (the powder falls out too easily)!

On the other hand, 45 Colt chambered leverguns I routinely have brass that is split longitudinally. Often from about 3/16" above the web, to nearly the mouth of the cartridge. I've had very few pieces that have split all the way to the mouth. These are used in one of 3 main leverguns I use in cowboy action. I've had the split after being shot with black powder and smokeless. The reason for the longitudal splits? Chambers on these 3 Uberti rifles are generous. All within SAAMI specs, but, on the wider side of the spec. Low charge weights with lighter than normal Colt bullets a heavy crimp to keep said bullets from telescoping in the mag tube, and one area of the brass gets bulged more than the rest. After more than 35 years of being sized, expanded and then resized again and again... I'd say the odds are that a few cases are going to orient themselves in the chamber in a very similar manner... repeatedly. and said expansion on one area will work harden that area until it finally gives up the ghost! I've bought all my brass in 500 or 1,000 piece lots over that 35+ years of shooting 45 Colts. And I have upwards of 10,000 pieces, most of which is still new in it's packages. I have a 3 lb Folgers plastic coffee can (3 actually), in which I place all my cleaned and ready to process 45 Colt brass. I'll reload out of that one can, refilling it as I clean and tumble used brass. So before that can is totally empty, it'll get refilled and that brass reused before the 2nd or 3rd cans get started on. Usually, once a year or so, I'll stockpile a bunch of 45 Colt rifle ammo and end up with 1 empty coffee can and one about ½ empty. These are light cowboy action loads, 200 & 160 grain bullets with loads that push them out at 800-850fps. I firmly believe that it's solely the generous chambers in rifles chambered for the 45 Colt that leads to the longitudinal cracks I get in my brass. That brass and other pieces that meet a demise are kept until I make a trip to the recyling house and fill up on some lead wheel weights.

BTW, I'll have a new 45 Colt rifle in 3-4 months... Uberti just accepted an order from Taylor's & Sons for 5 Uberti 1860 Henrys with their 18-½ "carbine or trapper" barrel. Mine will be picked up by a nearby custom shop and have a Cowboy45Special Carrier from the Smith Shop installed along with lightening the carrier and lever springs, and a custom "short stroke" installed! Unlike the Henry "Trappers" that have been offered in the past, these will be built on the "Steel frame"! While the Henry trapper only holds 8 = 1, with the C45S carrier, you can get 12 of the ACP length cartridges in the mag tube... (If I've done my math right... always dubious)! If you might be interested... contact "Tammy" at Taylor's to reserve yours! Tell her "Griff" told you about 'em! (Anything so I don't have to buy all five)!