Blackhawk Convertable
Single-Sixer
I have both Lee and RCBS die sets for the 38-40 and 44-40 chamberings. I have been frustrated trying to size them to fit my Ruger hand guns. They will both chamber and cycle fine in my 2 Uberti 1873's but not in the Rugers. I have tried different shell holders and lubes all to no avail. I even thought that I would have to send them to the Cylindersmith to get opened up a tad. Not a cheap option when I have 3 of the 38-40 and 4 of the 44-40 Ruger pistols.
I happened to run across a couple of virgin 38-40 cases and compared them to once fired. Here is a picture of the difference:
The one on the left is virgin and the one on the right is fireformed and sized in a die. As you can see, the virgin brass has the shoulder much lower than the fire formed and sized brass.
It was at this point the little light started to flicker. So as a "what have I to lose" option, I took my Lee 38-40 sizing die to work the other day and here's what I did. I removed the decap pin and put a second lock down ring on the die so there was one at each end giving me a level base to work with. I went over to our 6" belt sander machine and proceeded to remove about 1/16" or so of metal from the base of the die. What this did was to effectively move the shoulder back that tad little bit when sizing a case. The result is that now they will all chamber nicely in the pistols. So, the next day, I proceeded to do the same thing with my RCBS 44-40 sizing die. And guess what? They too all now chamber nicely.
I don't know if I got the only two dies at the forward end of tolerance or not. (I suspect that there are tons more just like what I have) I do know that I was not expecting to find both Lee and RCBS to have the same issues.
I thought that if anyone else out there was getting frustrated with the 38WCF and 44WCF rounds, that maybe my experience would help them out a bit.
I happened to run across a couple of virgin 38-40 cases and compared them to once fired. Here is a picture of the difference:
The one on the left is virgin and the one on the right is fireformed and sized in a die. As you can see, the virgin brass has the shoulder much lower than the fire formed and sized brass.
It was at this point the little light started to flicker. So as a "what have I to lose" option, I took my Lee 38-40 sizing die to work the other day and here's what I did. I removed the decap pin and put a second lock down ring on the die so there was one at each end giving me a level base to work with. I went over to our 6" belt sander machine and proceeded to remove about 1/16" or so of metal from the base of the die. What this did was to effectively move the shoulder back that tad little bit when sizing a case. The result is that now they will all chamber nicely in the pistols. So, the next day, I proceeded to do the same thing with my RCBS 44-40 sizing die. And guess what? They too all now chamber nicely.
I don't know if I got the only two dies at the forward end of tolerance or not. (I suspect that there are tons more just like what I have) I do know that I was not expecting to find both Lee and RCBS to have the same issues.
I thought that if anyone else out there was getting frustrated with the 38WCF and 44WCF rounds, that maybe my experience would help them out a bit.
