Anyone heard of a 3.5 inch bpe cartridge - 11.88x90?

[Diz]

Axel's chamber cast clearly shows the rim and end of the chamber while cordite's does not. Placing a straight edge on the photo of cordite's casting does not show any change in taper along the whole length that I can determine. It does taper somewhat just before the rifling begins but gauging this from a photo is difficult at best. The chamber in my black powder Hanquet cape rifle is much like cordite's and doesn't show a real end to the chamber, it just goes on into the rifling. I am only going to venture to say that this may not have been that uncommon back then.

I might also suggest trying to just run the case back into the die just far enough to hold the bullet tightly with the expander removed. With luck you may be able to bell the mouth with the regular die or make a tool for it. Putting the bullet in may be an issue though and you may have to do it by hand then straighten the bell in the sizer. This would allow you to use a larger bullet and not work the brass as much. I am sure one of the die makers would be happy to make a set as well. Mike or Sharps may have some suggestions.

Thanks, Diz

[Axel E]

After rereading Nathaniel's post and a closer look at cordite's chamber cast with the heavy reamer marks in the neck area I have a suspicion: Maybe a former owner of the cape gun tried to do the same Wright did to his first .577 BPE?
Graeme Wright writes in chapter 4: "My first black powder double was a .577 x 3", and with my first attempts I could not even get "barn door" accuracy. At this stage, I hadn't given barrel size much of a thought, and just assumed it would be standard. I then measured the groove diameter – it was .594" ahead of the chamber with about .003" taper. This still left the groove oversize at .591" instead of the nominal .584". I felt that if I wanted to use cast bullets, then they would need to be the larger diameter or even up to .002" larger. With these dimensions in mind I ordered a mould that would cast .595". When the mould arrived, I cast up some projectiles and loaded some rounds , but now they wouldn't go into the chambers! The larger size projectiles made the neck diameter too large. When I measured the case neck area, I soon discovered that not even neck reaming the cases would solve this problem! The solution was to enlarge the chambers to accept the oversize cartridges. As you can imagine, by this stage, I was loosing my sense of humour with black powder rifles. The chambers were duly enlarged, and, after all this mucking around, the results were very pleasing – the rifle shot very well."
He did the same to his next blackpowder rifle, a .500 x 3" BPE.
I now suspect, someone wanted to use smokeless "nitro for black" loads with oversized lead bullets in cordite's barrel too. He enlarged the neck area with a makeshift reamer, and thereby reamed the chambers longer than the former 3 ¼".

[sharps4590]

Excellent possibility!! Even during my short career with old German firearms and cartridges I've seen some "different stuff"!

[mike ford]

I suggest trying Diz's suggestions. If removing the expander doesn't leave the case small enough, you can size a half inch, or so, of the neck in a 45 Colt die.I use larger than normal bullets in my 71 Mauser, to fit the larger barrel. I do this by seating the bullet with a couple lube grooves outside the case, then size the neck in a 444 sizer. This essentially makes the bullet into a "heeled bullet", with the front part fitting the barrel, and still it will chamber.
Mike

[Axel E]

The blackpowder M71 11.15x60R rifles depended on their 385 gr paper patched, soft lead bullets to upset from the push of 77 gr blackpowder. The colonial troops in German East Africa and the Cameroons were equipped with the Jaegerbuechse M71 until WW1. The thick smoke of black powder was the only drawback for fighting in the tropical jungles and savannas. So about 1910 Spandau arsenal tried in vain to develop a smokeless load for colonial use, without success. With the special smokeless "Kolonialpulver" the bullets did not slug up to fill the grooves any more, resulting in abysmal accuracy. So Lettow – Vorbeck's Askaris fought WW1 until 1917 with blackpowder. Mike's solution with a heel type bullet would have been out for military use because of exposed grease grooves.

[cordite]

I really appreciate all of your thoughts and ideas. I loaded the fireformed cases with 125 grains of goex ff blackpowder, two thin card wads with a cookie of spg lube between them, and a paper patched 360 grain hp. Diameter after patching was .469 and all rounds chambered just fine. Now I have to wait for the snow to melt to get access to the range.
20160202_112042.jpg

[cordite]

Oh, forgot to mention that I hand seated the bullets and then ran the cartridges up into a 450 number 2 musket sizing die which gave a nice taper crimp to secure the bullet.

[Diz]

Good going, the cartridges look great and it sounds like a workable combination. If you want to have some fun try rolling up a line of big snow balls (like the base of a snow man) and pack snow between them then shoot into it. See what expansion you could expect on game. You may need more than a couple to stop that slug though. I use this method to test jacketed bullets for it will rip the jacket off a poor one and I have been condemned by a couple bullet makers for using it when theirs failed. I never tried a lead slug so it would be interesting to see what sort of penetration you get and what the slug looks like.

One caution though is make sure the range is safe in case it comes out the side. Thanks, Diz

[mike ford]

Snow?-We don't need no stinking snow.

[Diz]

The only reason for snow in winter is to test bullets! Diz

[sharps4590]

The only reason for snow in winter is to test bullets! Diz

....and cross country skiing, downhill skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling and tracking critters....

That bullet being of the Express type, ie, light for caliber, and hollow pointed it might stop in a snow ball. 'Course if the ball is big enough it will stop. Then Montana snow is not as wet and dense as ours. Diz, did you ever try your 450/400 in a snowball? I would think it would not hesitate going all the way through.

[Diz]

sharps, yes I suppose all those other things could be done with snow too!

I have extensively tested my 450/400 NE in snow usually the wet eastern kind that packs very well. Ten to twelve FEET of penetration is usual for a good soft point like a Woodleigh and will stay straight. You need a lot of snowballs!

thanks, Diz

[sharps4590]

Geezo Pete!! That sounds more like a "snow beam"!!!

[Diz]

Snow beam indeed! Here are a couple of pictures to let you see what this test does. The perfect mushroom is a 450-400 Woodliegh 400 grain soft point that penetrated between 10 and 12 feet straight as an arrow. The other shall remain unnamed as a well known custom bullet maker and the same caliber and weight. It exited through the side about five feet in. I was lucky to find it because I happened to see where it hit in the snow down range. It was the only one that I found that day. Which would you use on dangerous game?

450-400 Woodleigh Test.jpg


450-400 Test Fail.jpg


By the way I don't actually use snowballs anymore but make a sort of snow wheel by rolling it up like a cinnamon bun maybe a foot thick and three or so feet in diameter. It's about all the weight I can handle but it is easy to roll them up against each other without any space in between. I use a metal detector to find the bullets before I dig into it. The whole thing started with a friend shooting a snowman with a 44 mag and I went digging for the bullets. Well they had all blown to fragments after a very short penetration. Not good!

thanks, Diz