43 spanish

I stole an idea from the Austrians, based on this clip of 1880s 11.15mm Mannlicher rounds---



Snider rounds with a wax jacket---



The wax is from toilet seal rings and I have no idea if there's paraffin in it. Never goes solid though and neither does the wax on the Austrian rounds.
Fouling in the Snider remained soft through the ten test cartridges and accuracy at 50 yards was good.



-----krinko

I use a mixture of olive oil and candle wax in my 45/70 rolling block. I stuff as much powder in the case as it will hold, usually pyrodex, put a cardboard wad on top and push it down, put a wad of lube in the case next then seat the bullet. Works good for me.

In all the Mike Venturino articles on BPCR shooting he always used SPG lube. You can buy it at Midway and I seem to remember someone else came out with a cheaper version of SPG lube. I don't know how well wax rings will work for your use. I did long ago make a lube for Minnie bullets in my BP rifles by melting half a wax ring, a big dollop of Crisco and enough paraffin to add some stiffness. It worked for what I wanted and was cheap to make.

http://www.woodcentral.com/woodwork...07/md/read/id/168172/sbj/beeswax-toilet-ring/

Forgot to add, we need pictures.

Hi there, i picked up a 43 sp argentine model earlier this year. Very neat round, although you should do your research. These guns have vastly different bore and chamber dimensions from one to another as well as the differences between 43 mauser, 44-77, 43 sp bottleneck and 43 sp reformando. Being a canadian unable to obtain 44-77 or 43 sp brass, i formed it from 45-90 with 43 spanish die, with a 3/8" wide belt of 1/2" id brass tube from a hobby shop, turned to chamber dimension (used drill press with ring slid on a 458wm case) slid down to the base to take up the slack. After fire forming the case swells ahead of the belt holding it in place. The chamber is so long i could use 45-100(45-2.6). Ive reloaded my set of 20 cases 7 times i think and are holding up fine (annealed once). I currently shoot 480 gr, .430 hollow base pp bullets over 90gr of fg, essentially making a 44-90 bn, which should do well long range. I started with the .440 43 sp bullet from old west bullet moulds but they keyholed. With the pp bullets the rifle is shooting better than i can hold it (it is pretty jumpy lol). Good luck, i have learned a lot and had a blast so far with my 43 spanish! Hope to get a wt buck with er next month. As for bp lube, lots of options, as mentioned above toilet ring wax works great, its mostly beeswax, others use lard/beeswax concoctions witg neetsfoot oil or other additives. Some lube thier patches lightly, some use none at all. I use dry patches and wipe, but can easily shoot 3-4 rounds without and have no issuse loading.

I shot my .43 spanish for several years before converting it to a 45-70. The lube i finally setteled on was SPG. Never looked back. I saved the .43 bbl and plan to use it on a new rolling block project, its land groove measurments allow for a .44 caliber bullet, and with a 44-77 reamer im set. I've seen several 43 rollers with a land groove large enough for the 44 cal slug, wether Remington just had a bunch of 44 blank barrels when they landed the contract or they built them over bore on purpose is still a mystery to me. If you want some dies, cases and maybe a bullet mold for that rifle shoot me a private message.