New guy needs info on max 40-82 bullet weight (1886 pics)

[geobru]

I've put in a few posts recently, but I consider that this is my first real post because I have a question that I hope some of you can help me with.

My dad bought an 1886 40-82 in 1929 in an auction for $1.50. The auctioneer handed it to him and said, "Here kid, use it for a crowbar." It was in one piece, except that the rear sight was missing and the receiver had pinhole pitting all over. The stock has a couple holes where a sling screw was put in, and the fore end has three sling screw holes and a small split. That old gun sat in his closet all the while I was growing up, and I wound up with it a few years before he passed away. He said he had only seen one box of shells for it in all those years, but didn't buy it because it was $15, which was too expensive for his budget. (If any of you happened to buy that box of shells, I'd sure be glad to buy it from you for what you paid for it! )

Last fall, I bought 3 boxes of shells from Gad Custom Cartridges, and fired the old girl up for the first time in at least 80 years. It hadn't been fired for a long time when my dad bought it. The serial number is 5xxx, making it a second year gun.

The bore slugged out at .409 and the bullets in the hand loads were .406. Even though the bullets were undersized for the bore, the smokeless loads shot into a 4 to 4.5 inch circle at 50 yards. The black powder loads didn't generate enough pressure to obturate the bullets and they tumbled out of the barrel.

I am going to reload for this gun, which has the 1:28 twist which was designed for lighter bullets. I believe the original bullet weight for the 40-82 was 260 grains. I have several articles by Mike Venturino describing his learning curve in reloading the 40-82, and one of the loads he experimented with used 310 gr cast bullets. They performed well in his gun according to the article.

Have any of you guys used 300 grain bullets in your Winchester 40-82's? The reason for this question is that I will reload with .411 bullets and I can buy 300 grains bullets from LTD Bullets. I really don't want to buy 250 bullets without talking to someone with some experience in loading this caliber for the old 86 rifles. The lighter bullets are all too small for my bore. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

The 40-82 is on top, the other gun is a 45-90 that was modified in some interesting ways that I will go into another day.

[KirkD]

I had a 40-82 original at one time. You are right about the 260 grain bullets. I'd recommend that you not go too much higher in weight. The '86 in 40-70 was an almost identical cartridge, but shot 330 grain bullets ... but it had a faster twist to handle the heavier bullets.

Since your groove diameter is a bit on the large side, here's what I'd recommend you do for accuracy. Use soft-cast bullets and keep the velocity under 1,500 fps. It works for me. The soft cast bullet easily bumps up to fill the bore. Use a medium burning powder like 5744, 4227, or even 2400. It sound like you were using a hard cast bullet. I've had no luck with hard cast bullets in the larger bores.

[Gun Smith]

You may not be able to chamber .409-.411 bullets as the loaded cartridge won't fit the factory chamber throat. My 40-82 needs .410 bullets as the bore is worn and oversized. I opened the throat on it and now use the .410 cast bullet. 260 grain will work OK but you can go heavier if you want to. The factory (1:28) twist might not spin a 300 to 330 grain bullet though.

[Sixgun]

Different rifles chambered for 40-82's, like 40-65's have different groove diameters. The ones I have owned and loaded for have never been able to chamber a bullet larger than .408. The one Hi-Wall that I shoot on a regular basis (btw-it shoots like a scoped bolt gun) has a .408 groove diameter. In order for me to load a .408 bullet, I have to inside ream the brass. I am lucky that it shoots so well with a bullet the same diameter as the groove.

The bullet I use is the NEI 300 Semi-Spire point that was designed for the .405 Winchester. I incrementently size it down from .412 to .408 (Don't believe everything you hear about excessive resizing) As you use a levergun, you will need more of a flat point. Maybe Joel at NEI can do this for you. ( WWW.NEIHANDTOOLS.COM ) If not, measure the 300 grain bullet (for the .405) on his website. If your bullet does not exceed the length, go ahead and buy them as this 300 gr. bullet shoots into 4" at 300 meters in my Hi-Wall which has the express rifling that is 1-28". My velocities are 1400 @ 75 degrees. 23.5 gr. of AA 5744

Another bit of advice--use a gas check design--This will help accuracy a whole lot, especially with worn barrels, worn crowns, and only marginal acceptness with the sizing diameter of the bullet.

[geobru]

Thanks to all of you for the advice and sharing your experiences.

The bullets were 1:20 alloy that were used in the BP load. I was really surprised that they didn't fill the bore and engage the rifling. The other two loads I tried were 30grains of H-4198 with the same bullet as the BP load, and 34 grains of 3031 capped by a 215 grain jacketed hollow point. As I said before, the smokeless loads were stable and didn't tumble like the BP loads.

When I shot the BP, I was lucky to hit the piece of 3x6 foot cardboard that I had nailed on an old growth fir stump.

I just have a lot more work to do before I go hunting with it next fall!

Sixgun, how did you determine the size of the reamer you needed to do the inside neck reaming? I thought about sizing the neck to .406 and measuring the outside diameter of the case, then measuring the diameter of the case with the larger bullet in it. The difference should be the amount of metal that needs to be removed. Is there a better way?

[otteray]

Okay, I did some research with my late dad's article about his 1886 Winchester in .40-82 (From Handloader magazine no.184)
He had bullets getting slightly better than 3" groups at 100 yards with no evidence of tipping at about 1600fps, using a 310gr cast bullet fired with the 1 in 28" twist bore (26" barrel.) He used his own Old West Cast Bullet Mould for that, I'm sure. He recommended a gas check.
Further on in my dad's notes, he mentions Venturino using cornmeal filler to get the smokeless powder to burn uniformly resulting in good accuracy (Hanldloader Magazine no. 84.)
Additionally, in "Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West" (M. Venturino)
mentions using RCBS dies and reamers for inside neck reaming (as just recommended also by Sixgun.)
As far as fillers go, my understanding is do not do it with AA 5744 or you risk chamber ringing.
Hope that helps a little.

[Sixgun]

Thanks to all of you for the advice and sharing your experiences.



Sixgun, how did you determine the size of the reamer you needed to do the inside neck reaming? I thought about sizing the neck to .406 and measuring the outside diameter of the case, then measuring the diameter of the with the larger bullet in it. The difference should be the amount of metal that needs to be removed. Is there a better way?

Geobru,
In my case, it was fairly easy. I experimented with different sizing dies until I found out what diameter bullet my Hi-Wall would accept. I determined it would accept a .407 bullet, a very tight fit with a .408, and a no-go with a .409. I wanted to be able to load a .408 bullet.

Because the chamber was a tight fit with a .408 bullet, I just wanted to reduce the inside diameter by .001. So....after resizing and neck expanding, I measured the inside diameter of the neck and added .0005.
(1/2 thou.) As you know, 1/2 thou will add to 1 thou when reaming the case. I then called Foster, got a hold of their tech. man, went over the whole thing with him to make sure I did not screw something up and he made the reamer and sent it out. I think it was about $40 and that was about 8 years ago.

I use it on my little Foster case trimmer and she works great. I even have an '86 Winchester in 40-65 that had the same problem with the exact same tolerences so I use that reamer on the reformed 45-70 brass. You can e-mail me for any additional questions or give me a call as I know this whole thing is confusing the first time around. I'm half Italian and I had a heck of a time figuring it all out.----------Sixgun

[KirkD]

I used .410 diameter, 320 grain cast bullets in my .40-82. As others have mentioned, the cartridges would not chamber with that size bullet. Instead of inside neck reaming, I stuck the base of the cases in a chuck and while they were rotating, thinned the outside of the neck by lightly holding a fine flat file against the side of the neck as they were rotating, moving the file slowly up and down the neck at the same time. This worked fine and seems to me to be a lot easier than inside neck reaming. When the case neck walls got down to about .011 in thickness, this was good enough to allow me to chamber a .410 bullet. Here's a photo of some outside-neck-thinned cartridges. They worked perfectly fine.

[Sixgun]

Instead of inside neck reaming, I stuck the base of the cases in a chuck and while they were rotating, thinned the outside of the neck by lightly holding a fine flat file against the side of the neck as they were rotating, moving the file slowly up and down the neck at the same time. This worked fine and seems to me to be a lot easier than inside neck reaming. When the case neck walls got down to about .011 in thickness, this was good enough to allow me to chamber a .410 bullet.

Kirk, great idea. I bought the reamer because my outside neck turner would only go to .375. Did you make a mandrel for it to keep the "grinding" even?-----------Sixgun

[KirkD]

Sixgun, I must admit my method was pretty crude .... I didn't use a mandrel. Instead, I kept the revolutions of my hand drill fairly slow (say about 120 - 300 rpm) so that the file 'rode' any oscillations of the neck if the cartridge was off center. If I got going too fast, then the file pressure on the neck would start to vary with the oscillations. But keeping it slow, it worked just fine. The final variation in neck thickness was only about plus or minus half a thou, which was as good as the variation before starting to file.

[geobru]

I managed to salvage the thread on the old forum site when some of you discussed the methodology of taking the excess off the outside of the casing. I was more prone to inside neck ream, but as I thought about it, it shouldn't make any difference.

I will try that method when I get the bullets. I will PM some of you to get more details as needed.

Thanks so much!

George