44-40 bullet diameter?

I picked up some Hi-Tek Coated .427 Dia to try.

I loaded up 50 with some Trail Boss, but have not been able to test them yet.

I size mine .430.

My Redman reline Winchester is .428". It and my Colt will take a .429" bullet in thin WW brass, but Starline is thicker and .428" is about it. Not a common diameter, so I just shot the usual .427", fine accuracy is not needed for CAS.

RP won't even chamber in the sixgun and takes a heavy hand on the lever of the rifle. So I shot it one last time and left it where it fell.

For best results, you really need to measure your barrel's groove diameter, and use bullets of at least that dimension. Original arms vary widely - my original (1891) 1873 Winchester measures .430", and I use bullets of that diameter in that and all my other .44 caliber arms.

PRD1 - mhb - MIke

A Smith and Wesson product "inheriting" anything from Winchester and Colt? Not likely. .44 Russian was a complete revamp of the caliber, not much left from the .44 Smith and Wesson, aka .44 American.

The scarce Remington 14 1/2 pump .44-40 is said to run very small, maybe .425" groove.

I agree. The 44-40 barrel diameters seem to be all over the place so your best bet is to slug your barrel and go from there. Then choose your brass and experiment for accuracy. It will be worth the effort I am sure.

The American and the Russian have no actual dimension in common that I know of except length which is controlled by cylinder length.

Jim Watson said:

A Smith and Wesson product "inheriting" anything from Winchester and Colt? Not likely. .44 Russian was a complete revamp of the caliber, not much left from the .44 Smith and Wesson, aka .44 American.

The scarce Remington 14 1/2 pump .44-40 is said to run very small, maybe .425" groove.

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It does happen. A similar situation happened with the .38 Long Colt and the .38 S&W Special. In the 1890s, the bullet diameter of the .38 Long Colt was reduced from .375” Heeled to .357” to allow an inside lubricated bullet to be used in the case. The barrels retained a .375”, so a soft hollow base bullet was used. Later when Smith & Wesson developed the .38 Special, they took the .357” inside lubricated .38 Long Colt cartridge and lengthened it to allow for a more powerful charge. The thing they did differently was to reduce the diameter of the barrels to match the diameter of the bullets.

So when talking about the .38 Special in terms of the gun, its design was not inherited from Colt; but when talking about the .38 S&W Special cartridge, it did directly inherit the case dimensions (except case length) and bullet diameter from the Colt cartridge.

jski said:

What do most reloaders use? What are the bore diameters used for modern reproductions, e.g., Uberti?

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I have had three Uberti revolvers in .44-40WCF. The first was a 1873 Model P pattern from 2001 and it had .427" cylinder throats and a .429" barrel bore. No bueno! I got a straight swap from the distributor for one with .429"/.429" and used .430" lead in it no problem. I sold that one to a hunt-club guy who wanted it for CASS.

My currently only Uberti .44-40WCF is a Remington Model of 1890 knock-off with the tighter .427" cylinder throats and a .427" barrel bore. Evidently, Uberti got a clue? I use .428" cast bullets from Meister Bullets. They work pretty good. There's a drop-down where you select your size option and they also sell bore-slugging kits. If you get a kit or just some pure lead to slug your revolvers, get enough so you can slug your cylinder throats AND the barrel. If you have oversize throats-to-bore, that's fine, the forcing cone will squeeze it down some; but, if you have undersize throats-to-bore, that's no good and you end up with oversize groups, keyholing, and barrel leading.

Mr_Flintstone said:

So when talking about the .38 Special in terms of the gun, its design was not inherited from Colt; but when talking about the .38 S&W Special cartridge, it did directly inherit the case dimensions (except case length) and bullet diameter from the Colt cartridge.

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What S&W were doing was improving the .38 Government, which was based on .38 LC because the Army was wedded to Colt.
I doubt they would have started from .38 LC if it had not been GI.
If the Army had stayed with .45 and the .38 LC been only a commercial product, the S&W Hand Ejector might have introduced a new .38 S&W Long. Or the N frame .45 might have been first, to try for military contracts.

Jim Watson said:

What S&W were doing was improving the .38 Government, which was based on .38 LC because the Army was wedded to Colt.
I doubt they would have started from .38 LC if it had not been GI.
If the Army had stayed with .45 and the .38 LC been only a commercial product, the S&W Hand Ejector might have introduced a new .38 S&W Long. Or the N frame .45 might have been first, to try for military contracts.

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That very well may have been, and was likely to be the case. Nevertheless, the .38 S&W special cartridge was a direct descendent of the .38 Long Colt. I understand your reasoning behind the lack of likelihood of a Colt commercial product influencing the development of a commercial S&W product, but the point is moot now. Things happen for a variety of reasons, and we can argue all day about the probable causes, but that would be counterproductive.

And does not shed light on the genesis of the .44 Russian. It is not clearly developed from .44 American and certainly not from .44 Colt. I would have guessed than either the American or the Russian was related to the .44 Henry, but not so. (There was a .44 Henry centerfire, but most were sold in Latin America.)

Which cartridge is the.44WCF’s granddaddy?

GeoDudeFlorida said:

Which cartridge is the.44WCF’s granddaddy?

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The .44 Winchester Centerfire (.44 WCF) was introduced for the Winchester 1873 rifle. It was a new cartridge design to solve black powder repeating rifle problems. It might be hard to see, but it is a tapered or bottleneck round with a pronounced rim, for better feed and extraction in a rifle, compared to the .44 American and .44 Russian revolver rounds which like the .45 Colt revolver round had cylindrical cases and did not need a thick rim for extraction and ejection.

The .44 WCF was the parent of the .38 WCF.

Opening post question was: Original bullet diameter of .44-40?

I found .427 inch, 10.8 mm often.
Often over the years I have seen .44 WCF bullet diameter rounded up to .43 inch, 11 mm.

Aside from the tangential discussion... All the manuals and expository articles I've read claim .427" is the correct bore diameter, WITH A NOD to various manufacturers and the vagaries of barrel making machines.
Given the rather low pressures of the .44WCF (black powder origin) and the use of primarily lead bullets, the actual bore diameter is more of a suggestion than a rule. Slugging the barrel and measuring is the best way to determine the bore diameter.
However, if the bore diameter is larger than the throat diameter (the front end of a revolver chamber) the bullet is going to be undersize when entering the barrel. In fact, no matter the bullet diameter when purchased or sized, the throat diameter will determine the bullet diameter when it leaves the cylinder.

All this means the bullet diameter is quite meaningless, UNLESS one measures - and perhaps reams to uniform size - the cylinder throats. Matching them in the process to the barrel size.

So if the bullet is a bit large, it's not a problem unless the loaded round will not chamber. And also, one should always start at a low pressure/velocity loading and work up carefully.

I have dissected several original cartridges from the early 1880's and found them to be generally .427. Some as small as .424. By the advent of smokeless powder and the JSP, Winchester offered .4255".

Original bores varied from .424" to .432".

Most Modern gun manufactures tend to use .429" but I think Winchester still used .427".

Some revolvers have .427 chambers and .429 bores.

All of my Uberti rifles and revolvers use .429 as well as my Marlins

If you have a deep desire to learn about the 44-40, there is tons of information here: https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester

According to Lyman Number 46 the 44-40 diameter for the bullet was .427.

Savvy Jack said:

I have dissected several original cartridges from the early 1880's and found them to be generally .427. Some as small as .424. By the advent of smokeless powder and the JSP, Winchester offered .4255".

Original bores varied from .424" to .432".

Most Modern gun manufactures tend to use .429" but I think Winchester still used .427".

Some revolvers have .427 chambers and .429 bores.

All of my Uberti rifles and revolvers use .429 as well as my Marlins

If you have a deep desire to learn about the 44-40, there is tons of information here: https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester

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^^^^
This

44-40 has historically been all over map, depending upon what time period and what manufacturers.

If the manufacturer can not be contacted, slugging your bore is the best way to go to be sure.