Which Cowboy Rifle & Caliber

Whuz blowback?

I had a Rossi 92 in .357 and really liked it, but .357s a little lighter than I wanted so I sold it.
Eventually I'll probably replace it with a .44 or .45lc lever gun of some sorts.

I like those Winchesters, given a choice I'd probably take 92 even with the safety.

cowboy action loads did in fact have lots of blowby in my marlin 1894cb. I do not know if it is across the board with all the marlin 45c or just the cbs. my 44 40 in my 73 uberti does not. dc

So the case just isn't sealing the chamber?

.44-40 is a bottleneck case with thin walls, this design helps prevent blow-by. .45 is straight wall, and that doesn't help. .357 would also, I believe, be subject to blow by.

lonewolf, I believe marlin loosened up the chambers on the cowboy guns along with a action job so the could kinda hang with the Winchesters. btw my 32 20, 218 or 44 40 do not. and as tommygun mentioned thin walled bootleneck cases do not....

44-40. It’s historically accurate and leaves the action clean as a whistle. It’s also my favorite cartridge to reload.

I finally got my pair recently, though it's a bit nontraditional.

Rossi M92 with a 16" barrel and a S&W M29 6.5 inch barrel. Both in 44 Rem Mag



The Rossi is sSuper handy and 44 mag performers nicely from the 16 barrel. The M29 makes the 44mag very manageable.

dieselchief said:

lonewolf, I believe marlin loosened up the chambers on the cowboy guns along with a action job so the could kinda hang with the Winchesters. btw my 32 20, 218 or 44 40 do not. and as tommygun mentioned thin walled bootleneck cases do not....

Click to expand...

Ah ok, I was curious thanks! My .357 never had an issues, and none of the .44s I've shot have. But I've never shot an cowboy specific gun, or a .45lc rifle.

Im assuming the issues more prevalent with lighter loads.
Could that be solved by leaving the brass a little wide at the base, and or running a faster/heavier charge? Or will they do this even with regular pressure loads?

Fouling blowback into the action should only be an issue with black powder loads. And it's not due to .357 or .45 Colt being straight walled vs. the .44-40's bottleneck. Rather, it's that the .44-40 brass is thinner and therefore expands when fired, sealing the chamber very well. E.g., last weekend I shot 100 rounds of black powder .44-40s though my Uberti 1860 Henry and the action stayed perfectly clean.

The difficulty of reloading for .44-40 is vastly overstated. Yes, the brass is thinner than .45 Colt or .357, and therefore does require a little more care. If you bell the case mouth enough and ensure that everything is lined up correctly in your reloading press, it's not an issue. I've reloaded at least 600 .44-40s in the past couple of years and have lost exactly zero cases. My brass is mostly Starline, but I have around 100 late 1990s/early 2000s Winchester cases, too.

The only real disadvantage when it comes to reloading .44-40 is that you need to lube the cases before resizing, since as a bottlenecked cartridge, carbide sizing dies aren't available.

.357 heavier bullet loads really sail out of Carbine barrels ! They take deer cleanly. A Marlin 94 is really, really good choice as is the old Browning B-92 .

Whatever you choose, keep it hyphenated.

all I can say is I actually shot a marlin 45 cb in 45. the cases did not seal in the chamber and not only that they expanded to hugely oversize. neither of my colt wannabe 45 revolvers do that.

blue32 said:

Whatever you choose, keep it hyphenated.

Click to expand...

That took me a while to figure out.....

I'm a sucker for historical accuracy, especially in CAS.
So I'd say .44-40 all day.

If you're not concerned with that, then the .45 would be just fine.
It's mostly personal preference.
Any of them will work fine for plinking or whitetails.

I've experienced the blow-back in a Taurus Thunderbolt which will tie up within 100 rounds using light Cowboy Action level loads. The cases come out all sooty and each shot you feel a 'puff' in the face...and that soot blowing back through the action drags it right down in no time. As LoonWulf theorized the solution is to run hotter ammo which obturates the cases enough to seal. A couple other things that did help: Winchester new cases using .454 bullets sealed a whole lot better than Starline using .452...seems the Winchester cases are a bit thinner and expand easier. Then on the reload only resize enough to hold the new bullet leaving as much of the case as big as you can...so it has less distance to go to seal. Or just bite the bullet (pun intended) and use full power ammo which should run OK....blow-back wise.

My first cowboy rifle was a modern replica of the Winchester 1892 carbine chambered for the 357 magnum cartridge. I chose that because of the light weight and less recoil.

Since then I have used a Winchester 1892 rifle, a Henry rifle, a Winchester model 1866 carbine, a Winchester model 1873 rifle; all chambered for the 38-40 or 44-40 cartridge.

My favorite is the model 73 rifle and the 44-40 cartridge. That rifle is so perfectly balanced that it doesn't feel heavy at all. And the 44-40 cartridge using standard velocity "cowboy action" ammo and lead bullets feels to me to have much softer recoil than the 357 magnum. I would have never guessed it would be that way. If I had it to do over again I would start with a Winchester 73 short rifle chambered for the 44-40 cartridge.

They all shoot good, it is mostly just a matter of personal preference: and everyone is different.

As for using the 44-40 cartridge to hunt deer: I read that the 44-40 killed more deer than any other cartridge until the 30-30 became popular.

With three single action revolver chambered for .45 Colt my choice of a Rossi Model 92 was a no brainer. Love the handiness of the 16" barrel as it comes on target really fast. The action was nice and smooth when I got it (like new in the box), and overall I would say it has a decent fit and finish.

You're doomed to get blow-by in virtually any .45Colt levergun. Problem is the pressure level and the oversized chambers. Oversized chambers plague nearly ever .45Colt on the market. So at standard pressures, the case doesn't expand enough to seal the chamber. Which IS an issue if it hits you in the face like it did in my Winchester.

"Blowback" occurs with very low pressure loads that do not expand the case enough to obturate the chamber. If you are getting black marks on the outside of your cases, increase the charge slightly until they go away.

Vern Humphrey said:

"Blowback" occurs with very low pressure loads that do not expand the case enough to obturate the chamber. If you are getting black marks on the outside of your cases, increase the charge slightly until they go away.

Click to expand...

Faster burning powder can help stop this too in light loads. I was doing light 45ACP loads for USPSA Production and was having the blow back problem. I switch to Titegroup and without changing the resulting velocity manage to nearly eliminate the blow back issue.

I have 2 Rossi M92s. Both in 44-40. I had gunslinger spring kits put in both . Smooth fast action and the caliber is a delight to shoot . My niece called it a big bore 22.

I had a Italian 1873 . It could not match the smoothness and speed of the 92.

IronHand

If money is no option and/or you reload, I would go 45 Colt.

It gives me the warm and fuzzies.

Howdy

First of all, a fact check.

You said you already have a revolver. You do realize that you need two revolvers to compete in a CAS match, correct? You need 2 revolvers, a rifle, and a shotgun. If you don't have your complete compliment yet, you can probably show up and borrow stuff for a while, but eventually you are going to need the full compliment of firearms.

Regarding the Uberti revolvers with the retractable firing pins, while it is Uberti's intention to eventually switch over completely to that system, as far as I know there are still many of the older style single action revolvers available, with the firing pin fixed in the hammer. You may have to hunt around a bit, but they are still out there.

Regarding rifles, it is pretty standard these days for most scenarios to include 10 rifle shots. Rifles with really short barrels may not hold that many. The last thing you want to be doing is loading more rounds on the clock. So I would be sure whatever rifle you go for has a magazine capacity of at least 10 rounds.Ten rounds in the magazine, not nine plus one in the chamber. It is not allowed to start a shooting string with one in the chamber, one must start with the chamber empty.

A number of years ago the go to rifle in CAS was a '73 short rifle with a 20" barrel chambered for 357 Magnum. Generally speaking, most shooters used 38 Special ammunition in it. This is still the choice of most top shooters.

Regarding calibers, I wish I had a dollar for all those shooters who just had to have a 45, but discovered pretty quickly that a standard 45 load recoils too much to be able to shoot really fast, so they started downloading the 45 Colt, only to find that it does not perform very well when loaded down. The case is too big for small charges of powder, and ignition becomes erratic. I can say that when I am shagging empty brass for other shooters, I seem to always be picking up more 38 Specials than any other caliber.

Regarding blowback. Experience has taught me that this has nothing to do with the shape of the cartridge. Hot gas has no problem going around corners. It is all about how thick or thin the brass is. 45 Colt brass tends to run around .012 thick at the case mouth, 44-40 tends to run around .007 - .008 thick at the case mouth. Given the relatively low pressures generated by most 'cowboy' ammo, the thinner 44-40 tends to obdurate and seal the chamber better than the thicker 45 Colt brass. Regarding Black Powder or Smokeless, I have seen gas venting out the top of the receiver of plenty of 45 Colt rifles, even with Smokeless powder. When I fire one of my 44-40 rifles with Black Powder rounds, the fouling all stays in the bore, where it belongs, very little gets into the mechanism. Yes, 44-40 is a bit fussier to reload than 45 Colt. This is because of how thin the brass is. Easier to bulge or buckle a 44-40 round than 45 Colt. But I have been loading 44-40 for many years now, and all it takes is close attention to getting your dies set up properly, and running the press a little bit slower than Warp 10. Running a little bit slower allows one to recenter any piece that may rise off center and bump into the sizing/decap die. Yes, you pretty much have to use case lube with 44-40 (or 38-40, or 32-20) since carbide dies do not exist for these cartridges. Carbide dies do exist for 45 Colt and any other straight case, so case lube is not necessary for them. But loading 44-40 is not difficult, it is just a bit fussier than loading 45 Colt.

Corpral_Agarn said:

If money is no option and/or you reload, I would go 45 Colt.

It gives me the warm and fuzzies.

Click to expand...

When I had the warm and fuzzies, I sprayed my underwear with Deep Woods Off, and that took care of it.