Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Fun and Frustration. Somehow they just seem to go together

Any way, having some fun trying to find a load for the 1905. Only ammo seems to be in the states and they won't ship to Canada. No cases, no .351" bullets, although 2400 powder is available.

Filed down some .357 Magnum cases (as soon as the tool in my Emco Unimat lathe touched the case the carriage broke, so I was reduced to filing ) and got some 2400 powder and some .348" 200 grain bullets. Sorry Mark, I didn't want to try to figure out a load for an underweight lead bullet so I couldn't use the ones from the die you made.

I figured it was easier to modify a published load for a 180gr .351" bullet to suit a heavier bullet. I had to paper patch the .348" bullets, but didn't adjust the load to account for the -0.003" diameter difference.

I don't have the correct reloading dies, but the 9mm Luger dies work if I'm careful and get the paper patching right.

10.5gr 2400 seems to work ... sorta ok. 10.8gr doesn't but 11.0gr seems pretty good. All three worked the action and ejected the cases fine. I didn't try any of the 10.5gr through the magazine but the others I did. The 10.8gr ones, the top round stripped off ok and ejected but the next 3 jammed. Then the last one loaded fine. The 11.0gr rounds, the first magazine wouldn't even strip the first round out, but the next magazine of those, 4 of 5 loaded, fired, ejected and loaded the next round ok. Only one jammed. When they jam they go nose up coming out of the magazine.

One of the regulars at the range pointed out that the right lip of the magazine was a little "wavy" and also was a wee bit higher than the left lip. I gently tapped and pried the wave out of the lip but it didn't seem to help.

Right now I'm thinking it may be the modified rim on the cases. Spinning the cases in the lathe and using files to turn down the diameter, plus to thin the rim and cut an extractor groove, there is no way to get them all exact. All of them fit in the chamber so the rim diameter is OK there, but is it possible the magazine width is more demanding? And while a rim of 0.415 will fit the chamber it needs to be 0.405 to fit in the magazine properly? 0.405 is the published diameter. If they are a little too wide and grab on the sides of the magazine, they are grabbing at the back while the nose is free to move.

It takes a lot of filing to take them from .415 to somewhere between .420 and 410. And practically no additional filing to take them PAST .405, where the extractor won't grab them. I ruined 4 like that. Not good, but at least I got 46 that work.

I have a family function to go to on Sunday so I won't get to the range until next Wed. to see if increasing the loads 1/10th of a grain at a time work any better.

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.

Some of these homemade ammo projects can be a real challenge. Don't give up & post pics if you can. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

please , i would like to see them as well , it might inspire me - maybe ??

Gunny
Can US citizen send you a "birthday Package" from the US?
I may know where to get .351 bullets and brass.
If I think of it tomorrow I'll ask the guy how much per one hundred each.

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"Like a tank with it's tracks blown off, my turret still swivels and my cannon fires, so whenever the fight kicks off, I'll likely live or die right there, where the fight begins and ends"
John Connor

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.

I took my 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4 and 11.5 grain 2400 loads to the range today. Fired off 5 of the 11.1 and 5 of the 11.2. And stopped there.

The 11.1 had noticeable recoil and maybe a 1" larger group than last weeks 11.0 loads.
The 11.2 had an even stronger recoil and a 5" group (if you can call 5" a group).

I figured I'd better stop there or I'd be bringing home a 1905 parts gun, with some of the parts embedded in my skull!

So now I get to pull those unfired rounds and reload with the 11.0gr powder charge. And take that out to the range Sunday. The club has a chronygraph/chronyscope/chronysomething so I'll see if I can get someone to show me how it works and find out what the velocity is. I don't know if the instrument will also calculate energy as well but if not I can calculate it from the (MxVsquared)/450435. Probably useless info once I start using the correct .351" bullets.

The magazine still fed some and jammed on some. The base of the bullet is barely visible over the back of the mag and the nose is cocked high at the front. Once I got home I took the follower and spring out, turned the spring around and reassembled it. Loaded it up and then manually operated the action and it stripped each bullet off, ejected it and stripped the next one off. So come Sunday I fully expect the mag to function fine.

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.

Google "chairgun".
Their calculator seems to work well. If you have bullet weight and m/v, you'll be on your way.

For about 135 bucks you can have a shooting chrony of your own. That's the name of the company and they are made here in Canada. I really don't know how I got along without one. Don't reload much, but the shooting chrony comes in handy with the air gun modification and tuning work. Mine's the F-1 and it's been reliable over the time I've had it~ about 8 years now.

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

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"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

Finally, after several Wednesdays and Sundays when other stuff just kept coming up, I managed to take the 1905 WSL / 1905 SLR to the range and ran some shots over the Chrony. VERY confusing! According to Barnes COTW factory load is supposed to deliver 842 ft-lbs with a 180gr bullet.

I figure what with the rubric 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' that 842 ft-lbs is the optimum force to work the action properly. So since I am using a 200gr .348" bullet instead of the 180gr .351" bullet I should pay more attention to muzzle energy than to velocity.

My first magazine with 11.0gr loads of 2400 was pretty consistent with an average of 816 ft-lbs. (Of course the Chrony only gives velocity and I didn't calculate the energy until later.)

My second mag of the 11.0gr loads was even better with an average of 850 ft-lbs.

Then all hell broke loose! My third mag gave me an average of 1418 ft-lbs!

I had 5 rounds of 11.1gr loads and it gave me 847. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But that was with one round giving 1002 ft-lbs

Then Ron brought out some WRA Co. factory rounds. Should be close to the 842 ft-lbs, right? Not even close! These were probably the correct size 180gr bullets so I should be able to compare velocities to the Barnes COTW figure of 1452 ft/sec for the factory loading. The closest I got to that was 1590 ft/sec, and the highest was 1968 ft/sec. Calculated average muzzle energy was 1200 ft-lbs with that high one giving 1548 ft-lbs!

I think I'll wait until I can get the right size and weight bullets before I try again. One auction coming up next Sat. has a job lot of reloading die sets, one of them being .351 WSL. I think I should be able to use that to full length size and to seat the bullet, but not crimp the case. I'll probably have to go back to the 9mm dies to crimp. That's assuming I get the lot and no one else really really wants one of the other sets in the lot. Then the week following there is another auction with a .351 bullet mold.

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.

And I thought I was hot stuff with my pcp 18.1 gr JSB heavy at 760 fps~ about 16 ftlbs IIRC
Not as tragic as the numbers would have you believe though- a squarely hit grouse this side of 25 yds folds up no differently than a .22 LR h.p....

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

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"Ain't no Half-Way" -S.R.V.

"Oh Yeah!.....All Right!" -Paul Simon

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Them that know, know that they know. Them that don't know don't know they don't know.