WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

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Bryan Austin
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WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

Post by Bryan Austin »

I was looking at the WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO and it brought some questions. I noticed all of the boxes I could find on the net were coded LE which would be May 1976....of course right? Well, I also noticed a few that had flat primers rather than the "oval". So far the only days of production I can find are the 19th, 23rd and 25th. I also noticed that the hand-loading components "White Box" with the red W were produced from 1974 to 1977. Any idea if this was the transition from one primer design to the other?
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J Miller
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Re: WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

Post by J Miller »

Bryan,

I started reloading in the late 60's. At that time most of the primers I was using were CCI. They were flat.
The Federal and Winchester primers were domed. To keep from detonating them I had to grind the priming punch (original Lee Loader) to a concave shape. By the mid 1970's all the fresh primers available were flat.

Factory ammo continued using the domed primers for many years then finally went all the way to the flat ones. I don't know for positive when that happened as by then I was loading 98% of my ammo.


Joe
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Bryan Austin
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Re: WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

Post by Bryan Austin »

J Miller wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:21 pm Bryan,

I started reloading in the late 60's. At that time most of the primers I was using were CCI. They were flat.
The Federal and Winchester primers were domed. To keep from detonating them I had to grind the priming punch (original Lee Loader) to a concave shape. By the mid 1970's all the fresh primers available were flat.

Factory ammo continued using the domed primers for many years then finally went all the way to the flat ones. I don't know for positive when that happened as by then I was loading 98% of my ammo.


Joe
Thanks J Miller

I know I need a life but we all gotta do something for a hobby right....LOL?

Correct.....so far, for Winchester, I have narrowed the dates to at least the mid 70's as a transition period. Some factory Winchester 44-40 ammo I have seen in this 1976-1977 time-frame are Oval and some Flat. Some of the Little Big Horn ammunition appears to have been loaded with both. I have some Western boxes and some WW boxes both oval and flat. The date on the flat primer LBH box (belongs to a friend) is LE32 L=1976, E=May and 32=23rd. Then another box with oval primers is May 25th, 1976. The ammunition itself was nothing special, no special markings, so I guess they just pulled any production ammo off the line and shoved into the LBH boxes when needed. That's just a guess.
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Re: WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

Post by elmo123 »

I have some Winchester 209 primers from the mid 70's that have domed primer cups and later ones are flat. Quite possibly that punches wore out and were replaced with new ones that were flat.
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Re: WINCHESTER LITTLE BIG HORN CENTENNIAL 1876-1976 44-40 AMMO

Post by Bryan Austin »

elmo123 wrote: Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:33 am I have some Winchester 209 primers from the mid 70's that have domed primer cups and later ones are flat. Quite possibly that punches wore out and were replaced with new ones that were flat.
Thanks Elmo


Also, it has been reported......
Pre-WWII, Winchester flip-flopped several times between oval and flat primers. The following was found in Vol.I of Dan Shuey's "W.R.A.Co. Headstamped Cartridges and Their Variations":
"When smokeless powder cartridges evolved in the mid 1890's, the No.'s 1 and 1 1/2 were adapted with a different formula. They were also marked with a form of "W" to denote for smokeless loadings. All of these primers used an oval-shaped cup until around 1900 when it was thought that a flat or pan-shaped cup would give better and more positive ignition. According to (George) Watrous, this thought and trial process was repeated several times for a number of years with the results being the same. After a period of use, the shape of the primer cup was always returned to the original oval shape because the results with the flat shape were unsatisfactory."
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