43 Egyptian- I want to shoot it!

[bob4wd]

I've got this old Remington rolling block that I bought a real long time ago from, as I recall, Sarco, to use as a wall hanger. It's worked well in that capacity until last week when a friend gave me a couple of coffee cans full of ammo. Being the careful kind of shooter that I am (well, when dealing with green ammo and 140 years old guns anyway), I tried to verify what I had here. The gun has been polished so many times that the markings are all but gone, the front sight is down to a nubbin, the forearm iscracked and split and at least an eigth of inch has been sanded off. These are all normal, from what I can gather. But--- the bore is bright and shiny, the extractor is there, and everything seems to work.
The ammo, however, ranges from looks pretty good to green to corroded. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's not 43 Egyptian but measures out to be 43 Spanish, a different cartridge entirely, so that's the end of that plan. Or so I thought, which brings me to the point. Just out of curiousity, i tried one in the chamber to seewhat it would take to resize a couple. Lo an behold, it slid right in with no slop at all. So I rammed a bullet down the barrel and it took the rifling nicely.
So-- is anyone aware of these guns being rechambered at some time in the past? What's going on here? Are the books wrong on actual caliber or what?
If all works out, then I'll seeabout restoring it and trying some reduced loads and go from there- should be fun!

Information

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[Patrick Chadwick]

If you get the definitive work on the subject of "RBs" - "Remington Rolling Block Military Rifles of the World" by George Layman, you will learn that this type of rifle was made in several BP chamberings.

So the first question is - how do you know that it is an Egyptian RB?
- A .43 Spanish bullet would simply fall down the bore of a .43 Egyptian, and would not take the rifling at all. So rechambering would not be enough for a conversion - the rifle would require a new barrel. Not impossible, but not very likely.

I recommend that you measure the actual size of a fired case and post the dimensions here: diameter at base (not the rim diameter), at shoulder, at neck, and at mouth. Plus the length base-shoulder and base-neck. I will then (hopefully) be able to confirm that it is indeed .43 Spainish, or suggest a plausible alternative. As you have noticed, the trouble with these rifles is the sand-blasted condition, so a fire-formed case is a better clue than any markings.


Patrick

[bob4wd]

Answer to the first question- it has the standard Egyptian crescent and number on the receiver side plus the usual myriad of Arabic symbols on the barrel. Notmuch doubt about it.
In order to measure a fired case I would first have fire one- and that ain't happeninguntil all the homework is done!
Measurements of one of the rounds from the pile, however, are:
Rim dia.- .653"
Rim thickness- .082
Base dia.- .523
Neck dia.- .463
Shoulder dia.- 507
Case length- 2.48 to 2.235, depending on headstamp
Base-to-shoulder- app.1.45
Base-neck- app. 1.62

Actually, the bullet does not really take the rifling all that well- turns out I distorted it a little when pulling it, made it a little ovoid, so only engraved on acouple of sides, not allthe way around. A second one "kind of" fit, measured .435" dia.
So- it's a wide rim, narrow bullet, long .43???
But it does chamber, and block closes!
Any ideas?

[Patrick Chadwick]

A case length variation from 2.48" to 2.235" is way beyond any typical tolerance.
As the cases have different headstamps as well, it seems that you have a really mixed bag!

The dimensions are clearly larger than for a .43 Spanish, but close to an 11x59 Gras cartridge. To help evaluation, I have marked "in tolerance" dimensions bold, and "out of tolerance" dimensions italic:
Rim dia.-------- Spanish .635 Yours .653 Gras .667
Rim thickness-- Spanish .065 Yours .082 Gras .083
Base dia.------- Spanish .516 Yours .523 Gras .544
Neck dia.------- Spanish .455 Yours .463 Gras .468
Shoulder dia.-- Spanish .512 Yours .507 Gras .531
Case length---- Spanish 2.25 Yours 2.48 to 2.235, depending on headstamp
-----------------------------------------------Gras 2.34
Base-shoulder- Spanish 1.56 Yours 1.45 Gras 1.47
Base-neck------ Spanish 1.68 Yours 1.62 Gras 1.56 (this is a tricky measurement, so I would not worry about it at this moment)

As you can see, the impression is: definitely NOT .43 Spanish, looks like 11x59 Gras.

But all this does not say precisely what the barrel is chambered for. To do that, you must have one fire-formed cartridge OR make a chamber cast.


Patrick

[barbarossa]

My Egyptian Rollingblock Saddle Ring Carbine will chamber a .43 Spanish cartridge but the rim diameter is too small for the .43 Egyptian extractor to grab. .43 Spanish cartridge has a considerably smaller diameter bullet and will practically freefall down the barrel, not on very intimate terms with the rifling. If it's got the star and crescent markings and came out of SARCO that's likely whatcha got.

Good luck on the reloading. There's no such things as cheap .43 Egyptian ammo even if you roll your own. I was stunned to see how it would cost to set myself up to shoot my Egyptian Saddle Ring Carbine. Won't be shooting it anytime soon!

[Patrick Chadwick]

was stunned to see how it would cost to set myself up to shoot my Egyptian

Yep, that's engineering economics for you! I got "The Mahdi" (search and you'll find pics) with the RCBS dies for a price that would not have bought the dies alone. Or, looking at it another way, I bought a second-hand set of dies and got a free rifle!

Just out of curiousity, i tried one in the chamber to see what it would take to resize a couple. Lo and behold, it slid right in with no slop at all.

Whether the cartridges you were given are .43 Spanish, 11x59 Gras, or something even more exotic, you have already established that the bullets are too thin for the barrel. The lack of slop could be because the neck of the case is going right up into the throat, where the Egyptian bullet would be seated, and the rim fits neatly into the recess:
Rim diameters: Yours 0.653, Gras .667, Egyptian .670
In other words, your RB is probably in the Egyptian chambering, but very worn, and those cases are being held by the rim and the neck, and nothing in between.

This would make it feasible to fire one of your cartridges in the rifle and get a fire-formed case as a result. But as you have no idea as to the condition of those case you describe as "green to corroded" it would be perhaps advisable to take the case from the cartridge you have already dismantled and load that for fire-forming (search the forums here for advice on how to do this). Using BP, of course. Do not try any funny stuff with nitro loads in such a big case in such an old rifle!!!! I really, really mean that.

If it works (and I see no reason why not) you will be able to ascertain the real chambering of the rifle, and proceed accordingly.


LATE-BREAKING NEWS!
I just tried it out. The cases from my M66-74-80 Gras (i.e converted Chassepot rifle) will chamber quite snugly in my sand-blasted Egyptian RB, a.k.a. The Mahdi. Which confirms my suspicions as explained in detail above.
BTW. these cases were, in fact, fire-formed from Werndl cases! The Werndl case is a gnat's whisker smaller and shorter then the Gras, so the varying case lengths you report may be the result of a mix of Gras and Werndl cases. There were a lot of very similar BP chamberings in the 1870s-80s, like 11,43x55R Turkish (for the Peabody-Martini) and 11,43x59R Turkish Mauser. So one either has to be rich or get used to the idea of fire-forming!

And if you can fire-form those cases, you will not need an excruciatingly expensive set of dies, just a neck sizer. In fact, with the bullet sized to be a finger-push into the neck, you can get away with NO resizing at all!


Patrick

[jmoore]

You picked a good time to return to the forums, Patrick!

[bob4wd]

Barbarossa and Patrick-
You've both pretty much confirmed each other and my findings. So the next step is to clean out the chamber (the barrel is excellent!), and shoot a couple of rounds with the gun tied to a tree or some such. Since I've got about 100 or so of these rounds, I'll never have to worry about running out of experiments or extra brass, if they work at all.
It started snowing here (in California!) last night, so it may be a while before I get outside to try things out, but the plan is to try a one shot, if all goes well try a half dozen more, they should fireform. Trim to length, insert bullets, and go for it. One of the rounds I took apart was boxer primed, so should be relatively easy. There seem to be 2 main types of cartridge here (plus one 11.15x60R Mauser round was in the pile), which seem to be 11.5 Spanish Reformado, based mainly on the bullet and case length, and 11.15 Spanish, based mainly on case length and rim diameter. but hardly any other dimensions seem to agree, so who knows?
In any event, here are a couple of pics of the two types. Note that even though they appear to be different cases, yet both have similar headstamps????Attachment 27997Attachment 27998

[jmoore]

11mm Vickers? (The "brass" bulleted one.)

[Patrick Chadwick]

I must correct myself. I had previously written:

LATE-BREAKING NEWS! I just tried it out. The cases from my M66-74-80 Gras (i.e converted Chassepot rifle) will chamber quite snugly in my sand-blasted Egyptian RB, a.k.a. The Mahdi. Which confirms my suspicions as explained in detail above. BTW. these cases were, in fact, fire-formed from Werndl cases! The Werndl case is a gnat's whisker smaller and shorter then the Gras, so the varying case lengths you report may be the result of a mix of Gras and Werndl cases. ...

In fact, the cases that fitted in the RB were the original, unreformed Werndl cases. The ones fire-formed in the Gras will NOT chamber in my Egyptian RB. But they might chamber in a rifle chambered for the longer Turkish cartridge. Confused? Yes I am too!

What one can learn from all this is, that regardless of any doubtful data sheets one can dig out nearly 140 years after these rifles were made, each BPCR of that vintage has to be treated as an individual and have its own set of cartridge cases. A fire-formed case or chamber cast is essential to find out what the rifle in question really needs.


Patrick