Loading 43 Spanish

[jmoore]

Gonna be ciphering out the best way of approaching this caliber, chambered in a Remington-Lee 1885. Don't mind sticking to black powder (or substitutes), but I have never messed around with these bottlenecked rounds before. Not even altogether sure what version of the spanish cartridge it is; the chamber LOOKS necked rather than tapered, and the bore is right at 0.431" w/ calipers at the muzzle. Haven't jumped in w/ both feet yet!

Any words of wisdom here?

Information

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[AKA Hugh Uno]

I was not aware that the Remington Lee was EVER made in anything but 45-70?? but here goes anyway.

you can substitute "trapdoor-safe" 45-70 load data fpr .43 Spanish with no problems to begin with, although the .43 is significantly larger case. Trail Boss woujld also be a no-brainer (but expect a mild load using even the MAX trapdoor 45-70 safe data (personally, I would add a grain or more over that).

Measureing your GROOVE diameter at the muzzle end with calipers may or may not be all that accurate (and if you have odd number rifling grooves it will for SURE be completely off).

A basic google search yields this data:

11.15x58R (.43) Spanish Cartridge - Load Data

here is BOOK on the subject:

http://www.chartingnature.com/books.cfm?book=B17902



43 Spanish RB - Cast Boolits

LoadData: 11.15x58Rmm / .43 Spanish Remington (11x53mm Spanish) Charge and Load Information/Data for the 11.15x58Rmm / .43 Spanish Remington (11x53mm Spanish).

[Bill H]

I found the .43 Spanish difficult to load for, but never really devoted a lot of effort.

The biggest issue I had was bullet diameter, as the bullets I could buy were all slightly smaller than the groove diameter. If I used bullets about
.001 larger than groove, as is usually recommended for black powder and lead bullets, they would not chamber, as the chamber neck was then too small.

I suspect they were intended for very soft bullets, which "bumped up" to fit the bore when fired with black powder.

I tried several loads of various type smokeless, with very little success. Black powder at least produced the expected velocity, but accuracy was not good after a couple rounds.

In my rifle, a Remington rolling block, the recoil was significant when used with black powder.

[jmoore]

A great start!
A whole pile of Remington Lees and Keenes showed up at a friend's store very recently amongst a lot of other 1860-1900's US rifles and some combat shotguns. I latched onto a Lee similar to the ones sent to England for serious trials. Some pics are on the CSP SMLE forum under the Remington-Lee header "Pre-topic" or some such. Been kinda exciting!