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Originally Posted By: Shotgunjones
You might consider just cutting the case with a tubing cutter below the neck.

Then you can get the powder out and proceed with your bulletectomy via the Dremel wheel.

If you desire to measure this to the thou, are you concerned about pulling the bullet through the neck distorting it?

Jones - all good points. Can you give me an example of the tubing cutter you mean? I will appreciate that. And yes, I am concerned about pulling the bullet out of the case without relieving the neck tension. That has to happen somehow, either through my Dremel cutting wheel very gently cutting light relief grooves into the brass around the bullet, or in some other but similar attack on that metal.


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The cartridge is too long for an inerta puller? Well color me 'surprised' again. But come
to think of it - I said that in my original post.

The cartridge in question is 'rare' if you live in the American cartridge world. Otherwise,
it's anything but rare.

As to nominal bullet diameters, they were standardized in the early 20th Century. As you know already, what a literature search reveals is that nominal diameters are approximately .408 to .411 (Nitro) and .405 to .407 black. Bullet makers like Barnes would certainly know
what original factory diameters were.

Drilling a small diameter hole will somehow change bullet dimensions? You shouldn't be smoking that stuff.

Good luck in your circuitous search for the most complex solution.

PS - You might want to check with Superior Ammunition in SC. If they supply loaded cartridges, they likely have some 'grip' on proper bullet diameters.

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"The price of good shotgunnery is constant practice" - Fred Kimble
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pamtnman,
Like the others here, I have an opinion, and here it is. You are more or less whistling in the dark, worrying so much about precise bullet diameter in antique ammo that may or may not shoot in your rifle. My own experience shows that old lead bullets, including paper patched, are very often( usually) undersized and depend on obturation to fit the barrel. The wads are there to fill the space between the powder and the base of the bullet. Since you (or anyone else) are very unlikely to "match" the powder, you will likely need different wads and powder. On the other hand, bullet weight may be important. If you listen to it, your rifle will tell you which bullet it wants, the old factory bullet notwithstanding. Likewise, the target(s) will tell you the powder load your rifle wants, using the best powder you can find, which will be different( not better or worse-different) than the old powder. You will have to decide your own trade off between close bullet fit and the residue left by the powder you use. Since you seem to be planning to use black powder, my advice would not be nearly as helpful as advice from BPCR shooters, coupled with information the targets give you. However, as an academic exercise, the information you glean from breaking down the old cartridges will be very interesting. Just as a matter of interest, I once broke down a thousand 43 Spanish black powder cartridges to salvage the cases. I used a pair of linemans pliers with a "caliber size" hole drilled through the "cutter" part. By gripping the bullet above the press, I could pull the case off it. It was difficult to get the compressed powder out and it didn't seem like weighing one charge would result in good data( maybe an average of 10 or 100 would).
Mike

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If there were an award for the most colorful, funny, witty, learned, and interesting people on the web, our gang here would win it every year. Thank you for the many helpful responses, and every response has in fact been helpful.
"Good luck in your circuitous search for the most complex solution" wins the blue ribbon, and so thus is this endeavor named after "The Helsley Principle" - Defined as 'the commensurate joy received from deliberately making an already technically difficult project even much more so'.
Der Ami, it is a Lancaster oval bore. This means it shoots bullets that are smaller than than the muzzle diameter, which on this gun is .40825". So I bought a box of .408" 235-grain Hawk bullets and patted myself on the back when at sixty yards they shot perfectly. And then I cried when at 90 yards they scattered like 8-shot. The 230-grain weight of the bullet is in the gun's ledger entry, and the powder charge is engraved on the gun. Unlike conventional rifling systems, the Lancaster oval bore is notoriously finicky, because it operates the opposite. Conventional rifling can handle oversize bullets; bullets that fill the groove are standard. Oval bores shoot undersize bullets. So finding a bullet below the diameter of the muzzle and almost exactly the right weight left me confident of victory. Ha ha. In all the black powder double rifles presently in my care, I now shoot only Swiss and Olde Eynsford FFg and 1.5FG. These two powders shoot so well that they make up for the years of agonizing with GOEX. I like your pliers solution.
I plan to armor up and get out the Dremel. I will report back to you all from the hospital, I am sure.


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How about using a bullet mold or a making an impression of the bullet with denture casting compound? Saw the cured block in half and file or saw the edges flat. Then line with thin soft leather and squeeze, not too tightly as to deform the bullet, in a vise and pull?
I've used the latter technique to remove stubborn breech plugs from muzzle loaders with no damage.

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Originally Posted By: Hal
How about using a bullet mold or a making an impression of the bullet with denture casting compound? Saw the cured block in half and file or saw the edges flat. Then line with thin soft leather and squeeze, not too tightly as to deform the bullet, in a vise and pull?
I've used the latter technique to remove stubborn breech plugs from muzzle loaders with no damage.

Well, we may be in luck, because my oldest daughter is in dental school. She has access to all kinds of interesting dental-related compounds. This approach definitely qualifies for The Helsley Principle. Therefore, I will have to do it


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Excellent. A perfect addition to the complexity element. However, a caution. Using dental tools should only be used in conjunction with a spinning Tibetan prayer wheel.

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Originally Posted By: Steve Helsley
Excellent. A perfect addition to the complexity element. However, a caution. Using dental tools should only be used in conjunction with a spinning Tibetan prayer wheel.

Thank you. I was hoping for your blessing, Master.
The spinning Tibetan prayer wheel is an unfair addition, however.
I did follow up on your two suggested leads, Superior and Barnes.
Lonnie at Superior got right back to me at lunch time today: "Most of them started out as .408", later they began to use .410-.411 inch [I think he means later as in Nitro Express]"
David Little at Kynoch wrote to me earlier this year that he thought it was a .408" standard for the BPE.
As soon as I got the gun and slugged the bores, Accurate Molds made me a paper patch mold at .408. Have not yet poured any bullets from it, but it is probably time. My sense is these will have to be sized down to .407" and then paper patched up to .408" It is, after all, a Lancaster oval bore. Kind of the Tibetan prayer wheel of rifling


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pamtnman,
You should be able to safely use any diameter bullet that will easily fit into the unsized neck of a case fired in that rifle. If the case can't expand to release the bullet, pressure will go up, but if the bullet is able to move before it enters the rifling, pressure won't go up significantly. This is true even for jacketed bullets and lead bullets are even less critical. I regularly shoot .321" bullete in a rifle with .318" groove diameter and .364" bullets in a 9.3x72R with .358" groove diameter. By the time a bullet has traveled it's length in the barrel, it has been sized to fit. I don't think you would be limited to the smallest dimension of the oval bore.
Mike

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