Uberti Cattleman - tight cylinder prob

Back to the topic. Having been distracted by researching, and purchasing a new toy in 38-55, a Uberti 30" Sporter, I'm back on the 44-40 prob while I await the rifles arrival.

I spent some time painstakingly measuring two cases with my Hornady Dial Calipers, possibly not the finest instrument to be had but adequate for me. I have two sample cases I'm working with and a Wilson case gauge alongside my Uberti cylinder. One case is once fired Starline brass I resized with Lee Die. Shot in my Rossi Puma 92 rifle. It gauges and chambers perfectly in the Uberti. When gauged in the Wilson it falls right in with the case head top neatly in line with the top edge of the groove in the Wilson gauge head, or fractionally below. The case mouth is exactly on the bottom edge at the other end of the gauge. This case drops nicely into the Uberti and the cylinder goes around sweetly.

The second case I bought used and primed fired in an unknown firearm, likely a replica Pistol for CASS but maybe a rifle. I decapped it and resized it in my Lee die. It stuck in the Wilson with the thickness of the rim proud of the Wilson head slot. I adjusted the Lee die progressively down on the shellnholder until no more effect was achieved. This resulted in the case moving further in to the Wilson gauge but still maybe 2 -3 thou higher than the other case. It would in the end go around in the Uberti cylinder if I forced it (minimally) past the breech face. Subsequent lowering of the sizing die made no further diff.

I conclude that the Lee die-shell holder combination simply cannot size close enough to the rim, and steps per advice above are required to adjust the length of brass that enters the Lee size die.

For the life of me, using my maybe not adequate Dial Calipers, I cannot find a significant difference in dimension of the two cases - mouth, shoulder, web or rim. But the difference is there somewhere..Humbled!

Now the interesting bit, I went ahead and purchased a new set of Hornady 44-40 Cowboy dies and set them up in my Dillon 550B. Resizing the "bad" case on this setup gives a perfect result. Next step is to swap the Hornady size die on the Dillon for the Lee.

More to come...

Update.

So, I swapped the Lee Die into the Dillon 550B and the Hornady die into the Lee 4-Hole Classic Turret. Same shell holder used in the Turret press. Lo, perfect resizing with tge Hornady again, and not so with the Lee mounted in the 550B.

So the Lee Die is the problem not the Lee Shell holder. Die mod to come.

Update, Update So having succeeded in obtaining perfectly sized brass, the next step was perfect loaded rounds. Alas. Sticking a projectile in the case stuffed everything. I painstakingly followed Hornady's endless instructions for setting up their complicated bullet seating and crimp die. I only managed to slightly collapse one case with too much crimp, which resized out. However, with a bullet now seated, the smallest dia 200gn 44-40 I have, a FMJ, the completed round now jams 3/4 of the way into tge Wilson gauge, ditto the Uberti cylinder. What to do?

Scratching my head I realized I still had the Lee size die setup in my Lee 4-Hole Classic Turret. On a whim I removed the decapping pin and ran the completed round fully in. Presto, a perfect fit now in gauge and cylinder!

So my Dillon now has the 4th Station holding the Lee size die sans decapping rod. 10 rounds completed- perfect result. Go figure.

Why I can't achieve this without the final resize I don't know. But it works.