2 - Assembling the BP cartridgesBP cartridges are loaded with widely varying techniques, and discussions of these may become contentious. Here I'm describing what I did this time around; other BP cartridge rifle shooters may find glaring faults. Feel free to post them.
I selected four Hornady cases that had been fired eleven times with assorted smokeless loads. Case lengths were about 1.690". I primed the cases with CCI 200 primers.
I decided to use sufficient powder so that a seated bullet would sit directly on top of a compressed powder charge. The flat-nosed bullet-seating stem included with the Hornady 450B die set seemed an admirable compression piston. The stem fit snugly inside of unsized cases, but would not enter sized cases.
I used my single-stage reloading press to compress a charge of black powder in a case. In place of a die I screwed into the press a short headless 7/8-14 bolt to serve as a compression anvil (term?). After adding powder to the case, I put the flat-faced seating stem into the case mouth and started it into the case with hand pressure. Then I put the case and stem into the shell holder in the press and raised the ram, causing the head of the stem to contact the anvil and compress the powder.
It required a couple of tries to find the amount of powder that when compressed would produce the proper height for the bullet. I used cast lead 300-grain .452 LFNGC bullets left over from some trials reported in this forum six years ago:
Cast bullet trials. I found that 52 grains of Goex FFFg would compress to allow these bullets to sit on top of the powder charge when seated to the cannelure. OAL was 2.110".
Here's a photo showing the box of bullets and the bottle of powder:
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Here's a photo showing the powder, bullet, loaded cartridge, compressing tool (=seating stem), and anvil:
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A problem appeared when I tried to crimp the cases to hold the bullets. As stated, did not resize the brass. As a result the bullets were not held firmly in the case, and could be twirled in the case mouth. I tried the Hornady taper crimp die, squeezing the case mouth to 0.475. This didn't solve the looseness problem because the soft lead bullet was also squeezed, and the lead bullet didn't spring back as much as the brass case mouth when released. Applying a side crimp with the modified Lee 45-70 failed for the same reason. So, I fired the cases with the bullets not as tight as I'd have liked. Usually a tight bullet seat is needed in the 450B to aid powder burn, but with BP this isn't a concern.
The obvious solution to problem is to have a compressing stem slightly smaller than the present one to fit into a resized case. Maybe next time.
I lugged the heavy 450B bolt gun to the local range with a chronograph and four cartridges with somewhat loose bullets. A grandson tagged along to make photos and to pick up body parts in case something went wrong.
edited to update image url