Thread: 577-450 case forming

Starline 50 Alaskan is listed by reloaders and dead eye dicks but if it's in stock is another story

Originally Posted by norsk

Can you source .50 Alaskan brass in NZ? The fireforms to 12x44 easily and is nice and stout should you want to burn a bit of smokeless.

No
But ex Australia
I now have nearly 50 proper Bertram marked 12.7x44 cases and they will last a lifetime

Quite by chance I bought 30 rounds of an old guy the other day. BP loads he made for his rifle in new cases

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Starline 50 Alaskan is listed by reloaders and dead eye dicks but if it's in stock is another story

Searched both their web sites and came up with zero

Originally Posted by norsk

I would be a bit more specific with that advice.

Alot of blackpowder cartridge reloading tips relate directly to straight walled cases like the 45/70 not bottle necked cases.Where by any kind of filler wont have to be compressed upon firing as it goes from the case size below the neck to a much smaller diameter through the neck,then a even smaller diamter into the bore.From personal experiance using loose fillers like Corn meal or dried coffee grounds you can get a whopping ovepressure if you are unlucky as it can get compressed into a solid shug. Kapok,cottonwood,raw wool,or my favourite foam backing rod are safe and cheap alternatives to loose fillers. Remember to keep your wads in the neck too,they can fall onto the charge more often than you think.

577/450 in a Martini Henry is hands down my favourite black powder cartridge.

Have mainly no experience with bottle neck cases for black powder
I don’t use fillers except for my 577 snider ammunition in which i use semolina the Americans call it cream of wheat
For the same reasons mentioned in my post above as my brass is also 24ga magtec

I’ll have to look into what the best filler is for the 577-450 is

Just did a bit of checking of water capacity of .577/450 cases .

SPANZ 85gr
Kynoch 108gr (I know I checked it twice)
Bertram 130gr
CBC/Magtech 143gr

The Kynoch didn't have the card board tube liner as most do, even the Kynoch BP cases have these.

Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem

I’ll have to look into what the best filler is for the 577-450 is

More black powder

I've never used filler in my martini cases and occasionally load down to 60 grains, that's the max I can get in the SPANZ brass. The Bertram will hold a full 85 so there's a bit of air space with 60 but it isn't a problem. I also don't muck around with card and grease cookies or paper patching just a simple lee 405 or 500 cast bullet lubed with lard and beeswax. Not traditional but cheap and cheerful and it works

Originally Posted by akaroa1

More black powder

You know me mate
That’s what i do for the most part
Why own a 45-90 but use filler and run it like a 45/70 fill the fucker up

But I don’t like the idea of overloading an already stupidly powerful rifle if I filled these cases they would be atlest 20% over the period service load even I don’t think i have enough balls for that lol

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

I've never used filler in my martini cases and occasionally load down to 60 grains, that's the max I can get in the SPANZ brass. The Bertram will hold a full 85 so there's a bit of air space with 60 but it isn't a problem. I also don't muck around with card and grease cookies or paper patching just a simple lee 405 or 500 cast bullet lubed with lard and beeswax. Not traditional but cheap and cheerful and it works

Yeah Bertram would be perfect for just filling with a bullet ontop
These magtec shells would take like 100gn plus to load like that

so a more bulky powder is called for...home rolled that HASNT been compressed into pucks is bulkier...

I think thats an impressive achievement.

AS for the larger case capacity I wouldnt worry about it. You cant overload that case with blackpowder. If you want to go to a larger grade of BP - use FF instead of FFF. Or just F.

To save your brass life, dont even resize those case, just load them and seat the bullet, maybe give it light crimp if it seems necessary. I have loaded a lot of .45-70 without a set of dies.

I stripped a old brass foil case that was torn & weighted the charge 85gr then shot it out of a Bertram case it was way down the case & needed filler, I didn't chronograph it sadly but it had a lot of boot, more than 85gr of modern power which filled the case to the neck, saying that the old stuff looked like gravel compared to the other !!

I have been using FG for all my 50-70 and 12.7mm reloads lately because I'm getting short of BP here
It was a good safe option to function test a couple of very old original rifles

So gravel like FG is a good way to fill up a 577-450 case and it's pretty slow and gentle

But when I get a chance to re stock with Holy Smoke 1 1/2 FG I will get a few kgs because I'm running a lot of BP cartridge rifles now and some of them eat big meals

Just to add to the volumes already noted in this thread

I just put 70 grains by volume of 1 1/2 FG black powder into a SPANZ 577-450 carbine case and it comes to around where the base of the bullet would be in a SPANZ 577-450 full length case





I'm getting much closer to having one of these rifles of my own
Some full length SPANZ cases would be nice with 70 grains under a 420 grain bullet