Ye olde 44-40 ammo problem

[chriske]

Not to make anyone jealous, but the owner of my local habitual gunshop must like me.

He sold me a case of assorted Winchester-Western 44-40 ammo (550 rounds) for 10.- Euro
Sweet deal, no ?

Some of it is packaged in yellow cardboard boxes & looks quite old.
When fired from my Rossi "Puma" 16" barreled lever action carbine (a Winchester mod. 92 copy), the primers back out. This is not the case with ammo of (seemingly) more recent manufacture.

What could cause this ?
Should I consider those old cartridges dangerous & not shoot them ?

 

[Walkalong]

Most likely just a bit underpowered and not reseating the primer. Yep. Sweet deal.

 

[Afy]

Whereabouts in BE?

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

They may be blackpowder. Still a heck of a deal.

 

[chriske]

Afy, the gunshop I mentioned is "Lang & Son"' in Antwerp.
I've been a customer there ever since I got "into" guns, some ... 25 or 27 years ago, doing business with Lang Senior first & Lang Junior now.
Thorouhgly good folk..

351 Winchester : Blackpowder ? ?

 

[Afy]

Sounds like they treat you right.
In france the customer is always wrong.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

They could be blackpowder. The .44/40 in it's original loading was bp for sure. I don't know when they switched to smokeless though. I wouldn't be suprised if for a while they loaded it with bp and smokeless.

Maybe someone with more knowledge could chime in and give us a hand.

 

[Maj Dad]

Ventre Bleu!

En France, le client a toujours tort?

Vive La France!

I think 351 was suggesting that the old rounds may be loaded with black powder - don't think it's likely, but if so, the box should say so (I have some old 44 Russian black powder rounds & the box clearly states they are BP). I think they stopped loading them in the 30s or 40s, but it's been a long time for sure. These old BP cartridges tend to corrode around the neck with verdigris and the like and unless they have been stored in a hermetically sealed environment, they will be corroded a bit. The brass will also be corroded & unusable and even if it weren't, those old cases are balloon-head and not strong enough for modern loads. A modern 44-40 case will not hold 40 gr of BP, nor will a 38-40 - stronger case, more brass, less space. I used to shoot BP rounds in a 38-40 1873 Winchester, and the best I could do was several grains under. It was fun, but too messy, anyway...

(Il y a quarante ans j'etais un linguiste francais dans l'armee; maintenant j'ai oublie presque tous )

 

[chriske]

Rassurez-vous, Maj Dad, vous vous exprimez encore toujours très bien !

Anyway, indeed, some of those old cartridges have some corrosion showing : green on the brass, white on the exposed lead tip (they're semi-jacketed softpoints).

The primers look funny as well : kind of hemispherical instead of flat.

Haven't checked the cases themselves yet, to see if they are folded ("ballooon headed") or not.
I think I'll "pull" a few to see what's what.

I'll let you know;

 

[Maj Dad]

Merci - vous etes trop aimable!

The semi-jacketed ones are almost certainly smokeless, and the hemispherical primers were common prior to the 60's (maybe then, too). There used to be primer seaters for that type of primers available to reloaders when I started in about 1969. I still have some old 1950's era 45 Colt rounds with them, also the old 44 Russian BP rounds I mentioned. I don't think there were ever jacketed BP rounds produced dans les Etats-Unis - may be wrong, but I have never heard or seen of it. The corrosion on the brass would lead me to believe that reloading would not be a good idea; shooting them probably wouldn't be dangerous unless you had a squib load that lodged in the barrel & you loaded & fired another round: BOOM, etc. At the very least, you can clean them up & used them for display, or throw them at cats yowling in your garden...

 

[chriske]

De rien, très cher.

Nope..... solid-head cases & about 12.3 Gr of what appears to be some sort of ball powder (not unlike HS-6).
No blackpowder here.

I wasn't going to shoot the most "corroded" ones anyway (only about 30 or 40 or so
rounds show real discoloration)

The rest of the "oldest" cartridges I'll use up "petit-à-petit" (maybe even single-shot-wise) checking in between shots for impact, to avoid "les squibs dangereux".

Thanks to everyone for the info, advice & all-round friendly interest !