[Square target]

I bought this old rolling block about a year ago chambered in .43 Egyptian and didn't think it would be too tough to pick up the reloading gear. That was my first mistake. Found some brass rather quicky and picked up 2 boxes of 20 cases of Bertram brass for a hefty sum. Then I went looking for a bullet mold and pretty much everyone was saying the RCBS 400gr .448 was the one I wanted. Out of stock everywhere and I searched quite a bit for 2 months straight. Ebay, RCBS, buffalo arms and many other places. So now it got put on a back burner and often times forgotten about. I would do a search here and there and continued to read up and watch videos the little that's out there loading this round. Dies for this round run about $250 but many people were saying you could use a 45 colt neck sizing die and 45acp die providing your brass fit the chamber and full sizing was not needed. My brass fit so I was good there. Around Christmas time I was searching for the mold again and RCBS finally had it back in stock. when it arrived I was on a reloading tear loading up all my normal calibers so I set this aside. Ordered the shell holder which was $25 with the shipping. Finally last week I made bullets and pan lubed some. All of the reading I was doing was giving me 3 loads for this. One is the typical BP running 70-75gr of 2f, another "nitro for black" load which is 30-34gr of 4198 and a mouse load of 10gr of unique. Both smokeless loads require a wadding to keep the powder on the flash hole to prevent flash over. The other night after work I decided to load up 5 rounds of the 4198 loads. Flared the cases, charged them, adding wadding and went to seat the bullets and I had very little neck tension. Now at this point stupidity kicks in and not once did I remember using the 45 colt die to size the neck. So I seat the bullets by hand and calipers and was going to use a lee 45acp crimp die to hold them in place. Should of the case hits the die before I hit the crimp part of the die. My first thought is to shorten the die but I have no way to cut the hard steel. I bring it to work the next morning and ask our top mechanic if he can do it without messing up the threads too bad. He cuts it with a diamond wheel and the locking nut threads right on and off, perfect. I get home and with the size of the case I can't raise the ram all the way so I crimp them slowly by feel which is easy enough. I did a quick measurement, meaning i lined it up with my finger and cut a piece of copper pipe for a stop collar. With the collar and die adjustment I can use all of the dies except the universal flare die without having to feel for anything. Then it hit me about neck sizing the brass so I did a couple, then flared them and I'm good to go there. Still need the shortened 45acp crimp die to close up the flare and not once did I see any mention of this problem or solution. Maybe they were using different dies? Went to load the unique mouse loads tonight but I'm out of it and didn't know it. Hopefully my LGS has some so I can load those and the BP rounds this weekend. Hoping to shoot 5 of each within the next couple of weeks to see which works best and finally shoot this 150 year old rifle. Honestly hoping the unique loads work great...My only other fear is after shooting the brass won't fit back in the chamber. If that happens I'll have to buy the die set or the single full size die for $150. It shouldn't be a problem but won't know until I shoot them.

 

[gvaldeg1]

Buena suerte mi Amigo!

 

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Thanks for doing all the work on this. I also have a Rem Rolling Block in 43 Egyptian. My dad bought it when I was about 12-13 years old. I've always wanted to shoot it but .... no ammo.... Some time back I looked into buying dies, molds, etc. and it was turning into a project... Now that you have done all the work I know just what I need to get, what to do and how to do it... I'm anxious to read/see a range report.

Alan

 

[Square target]

Thanks for doing all the work on this. I also have a Rem Rolling Block in 43 Egyptian. My dad bought it when I was about 12-13 years old. I've always wanted to shoot it but .... no ammo.... Some time back I looked into buying dies, molds, etc. and it was turning into a project... Now that you have done all the work I know just what I need to get, what to do and how to do it... I'm anxious to read/see a range report.

Alan

It will probably be a couple of weeks. I forgot to send in my club dues on time so I'm waiting for my new card and gate combo and I'm hoping some of this snow we have will melt down by then too. You can buy ammo for it from Buffalo arms but it's like $150 for a 20rd box. I LOVE shooting BP but I HATE cleaning it which is why I'm doing all 3 styles of rounds and hoping one of the smokeless loads works good. While doing all this searching I also found these types of loads for the 450/577 and .577 snider. I don't know if I would trust one in the snider though, that's a very weak action compared to the rolling block and Martini Henry.

Thanks Gvaldeg1....I had to look that up.