Argentino M1879 Rolling Block. Is it worth restoring?

[Claven2]

I’m not talking from experience but won’t these heavy walled Jamison cases need a full load to fully fire form on the first shot? I don’t mind a stiff load. I bought one of those old Steyr Mannlicher M95 rifles that Big 5 was selling. It took me awhile to find some old Nazi crap to shoot in it but boy did those old loads put some wood to my shoulder, and a smile on my face.

Essentially you do not want empty space in a BP cartridge or you could risk rupturing the case and/or ringing the chamber, if not blowing up the gun. With some calibers, it's not an issue if you just fill the case minus the volume of the bullet, but you would still use a card and preferably a small grease cookie to keep the fouling soft. Patrick will likely cover that later.

I'm not sure if .43 Mauser is one of those rounds that requires filler or not. I shoot a lot of .577-450 and you DEFINITELY need a filler. Filling a modern extruded case would likely grenade a martini action.

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[Patrick Chadwick]

Patrick will likely cover that later.

Yup, it's coming. But I want to see some pics from Joel first!

I'm not sure if .43 Mauser is one of those rounds that requires filler or not.

All my BPCR cases are full. Either grease cookie or grease + filler.

I shoot a lot of .577-450 and you DEFINITELY need a filler.

100% agreement there!

[killforfood]

Hi all,
Patrick was kind enough to shake me from the doldrums with a PM yesterday.
It’s been quite awhile since we’ve made any progress on the ole Rolling Block but since work has somewhat released its death grip on me, maybe we can answer the final question; Will this rifle shoot? More to the point, will it shoot accurately?

First I need to bring our progress up to date update.
I’ve continued to apply the occasional coat of BLO to the stock and not only does it look pretty good but I am also curiously beginning to like the smell. I also applied some stain to the repaired area under the forearm and it no longer stands out so badly.

All of my latest attempts to take indoor pictures with artificial lighting have been less than presentable. I’ve wanted to use outdoor lighting but the weather has been bad and lately I’m rarely home during daylight hours. I did manage one short opportunity between sprinkles and I’ll post a couple of those shots tonight. Nothing fancy though. I literally ran outside between showers and leaned it up against a tree trunk and snapped some shots. I also tossed it on the burn pile and snapped a couple more. Even with overcast and sprinkles, natural light far exceeds anything I can do inside.

Patrick wrote a nice tutorial on how to determine proper “cartridge overall length”. His method was quick simple and surprisingly accurate. I do have some concerns though with the variability of how deep my selection of bullets seated in the lands. I used the first five bullets from the end of the box and found up to .050” difference in how deeply they would seat into the lands with light pressure using a ballpoint pen as the pusher. My results varied from 3.010” to 3.060”. This was repeatable. Erring on the safe side requires that I use the smaller value and to reduce it by an additional .040” (per Patrick’s tutorial).
The final C.O.L. will then be 2.970”, which is still .125” longer than the C.O.L. listed as maximum on the Lee reloading die instructions (2.845”). I believe with more consistent bullets the C.O.L. could safely be increased to 3.000”. To obtain this level of bullet quality, I may need to mold my own.

One last item that I would like to complete is slugging the bore. I pushed a couple 45cal balls through but they did not fully deform enough to fill the grooves. I pushed through a couple 44cal pistol bullets and they did fully deform into the grooves. I’ve yet to accurately measure them. Curiously the last 8” or 10” near the muzzle was the tightest section of the barrel. This may be nothing more than increased friction due to rust pitting or it may actually be smaller there, I’m not sure. My idea is to cast the muzzle end of the barrel just like I did the chamber with my sulfur graphite mix and compare the dimensions.

Regardless the results from slugging the bore or does the barrel need re-crowned; what I really need to do is load some cartridges and see how it shoots as is.

Patrick, I believe I have all of the hard goods you previously listed to load cartridges. I’ll review the list but I think I’m ready to go. In addition I ordered a neck only sizing die that also doubles as a compressed load die, if needed.

As always I patiently await your instructions.

Thanks, Joel.