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I love to shoot old guns. This one poses a special challenge, as I have to make the ammunition entirely by hand. It's a Remington Rolling Block Model 1867 Navy Carbine. In nice original condition, still showing some of the nickel plating required by the Navy contract of a hundred and fifty years ago. The contract called for only 5,000 of these carbines. It was the Navy's second order for rolling block guns, the first being for the 1866 Rolling Block Pistol. The carbines were chambered for the 50-45-400 cartridge, while later US military rolling block rifles used the 50-70-450. The Navy pistols were chambered for the 50-25-300. Caliber, weight of powder, weight of bullet. Cartridges for this carbine were loaded with 45 grains of black powder behind the 400-grain bullet, thus 50-45-400.
Now, no one has made this for probably over a hundred years, but I can make the cases by hand by simply shortening the 50-70 case about three-tenths of an inch. Since I'm only going to make a few cases, I'll use my Wilson case trimmer with a special-order case holder and 50-caliber cutter. It only takes a couple of minutes to shorten each case.
Once all the cases are shortened, I'll chamfer the case mouth lightly in and out.
So now that I have a handful of cases and they chamber just fine, what am I going to do for bullets? Not a problem. Lee makes a 50-caliber mold that drops bullets five-fifteenths of an inch in diameter, weighing 450 grains.
It's pretty easy to shorten this bullet by milling one lube groove off the top of the mold. Removing about 0.1650" will give me lighter bullets near the correct weight. I'll remove the sprue plate and place the mold in the milling vise, making sure it's perfectly level, then remove the material from the top of the mold, taking several passes.
I need to redrill and retap the sprue plate hole, remove the burr, and reattach the sprue plate.
I'm using a twenty-to-one lead alloy; twenty parts of lead, one part of tin.
The mold is slid in on the rails, and raising the handle on the casting furnace allows the molten lead to flow out and fill the mold.
It takes only a few seconds for the lead to harden, then a mallet is used to knock over the sprue plate, which cuts off the excess lead even with the base. Bullets from the modified mold come out at about 360 grains. For testing, I'm simply going to lube them with my fingers, then I can prime the cases, pour in 45 grains of black powder from a brass dipper, and seat the bullets by hand.
And, no surprise, it shoots just fine.
--Larry Potterfield
