Resurrecting an 1892 44-40

[geobru]

For the last couple of years, I've had a hankering for an original 1892 in 44-40. Early this year I saw one that fit my parameters. It was under a grand, appeared o be in shootable condition, and it looked like it would be a good shooter. This one has its flaws. There is an extra hole in the upper tang that was probably put there so the owner could mount a tang site that he had that didn't fit the factory hole spacing. I put a Marbles tang site on it to allow my 74 year old eyes an chance at having a decent sight picture. The barrel doesn't appear to be the original barrel Judging by the 44-40 stamp on top of the barrel and a lack of proof marks on the barrel or the receiver.

!892 Winchester 44-40.jpg

This is an original Winchester barrel. No proof marks and hand stamped caliber markings. Any ideas on what happened to this gun?

!892 Winchester 44-40 Barrel Caliber marking 2.jpg

So I ordered a box of Magtech ammo and took it to the range. The first two shots key holed at 25 yards, so I went home and slugged the barrel. That revealed a .429 bore diameter which explains why the .427 bullets tumbled. I ordered some 200 grain bullets sized to .431 from Bullshop and I loaded some loads with 25 grains of R7 with CCI large pistol primers. The results at 25 yards were terrible. I'd shoot 5 rounds, two would be within an inch or two of each other then the next one would be 7" from the first two shots if I was lucky! Sometimes I would shoot a round and it missed the entire 18X24" target area! There was a lot of unburned powder in the barrel and things got really out of control after about 10 shots. I would quit shooting and go clean the barrel before shooting again.

A few weeks ago one of he members here had a thread on getting lead out of a barrel that got me wondering if that could be the problem. Along with that, I reslugged the barrel and found that there was about 8" in the receiver end of the barrel where the bullet that I was using to slug that barrel slid down the barrel without much pressure on my part. I was starting to think that the barrel may be shot out. So the first thing I did was clean the lead out using Hydrogen peroxide and white vinegar. I corked the muzzle and poured the mixture into the barrel from the receiver. There was a lot of bubbling going on, so I knew that leading may be part of the problem. After 15 minutes, I drained the barrel and rinsed it with a baking soda solution to neutralize the acid. I ran tight patches through the barrel with Hoppes #9 and they came out filthy with lead. Patch after patch, so I did the chemical cleaning again. That time not much more happened, so I ran patches through until they were light grey.

At this point, I'd done more research on loading for this round and found out that you need to use Large Pistol Magnum primers when using RL7 or 2400 while you can use Large Pistol primers when using fast burning powder like Unique. Since the barrel was clean I loaded four different loads with 5 rounds apiece.
With the 200 grain lead bullets, I loaded one load each with Unique, RL7, and 2400. I wanted to see if using jacketed bullets would help with the accuracy issues, so I had one load with 2400 and 240 grain Hornady XTP JHP bullets.

This load had three good shots, a flyer, and one that missed everything.

Load test 1 Unique 021926.jpg

This load was all over the place. One shot was 1.75 inches off the paper.

Load test 2 2400 200 gr PB 021926.jpg

All of the shots hit the paper, but poor group size for 25 yards.

Load test 3 RL7 021926.jpg

This load gave me hope that this gun could shoot accurately.

Load test 4 2400 240 gr JHP 021926.jpg

Next step was to order some 200 grain Hornady XTP bullets and load them with 2400 powder and Large Pistol Magnum primers.

This target was shot without changing he sights.

44-40 20 gr 2400 200 gr JHP #1 030226.jpg

This is the final target after finally Moving the front sight enough to get the POI to the right of center. The first three shots were a very small clover leaf at 2:00.
I moved the front sight back, took a shot and lowered the tang sight, Took the next shot and lowered it again. Shot #6 was the final shot\. I think its pretty well sighted in now! The two holes in the paper were left overs from earlier shots before I got the lead out of the barrel. That gives you an idea of how bad it was shooting before.

44-40 20 gr 2400 200 gr JHP #2 030226.jpg

I was one happy camper when I shot the first three shots into the same hole. Especially after not eing able to keep the shots on the paper!

44-40 20 gr 2400 200 gr JHP Cloverleaf 030226.jpg

I am going to try one more thing. That is to resize the lead bullets to .434 to see if that will improve the accuracy of the lead bullets. If not, I have a load that is accurate!

[geobru]

This rifle was made in 1903.

[Bryan Austin]

Great report!!

[ywaltzucanrknrl]

Neat stuff Geobru, I hope you keep posting on your experiments with this rifle.