Thread: Resurrecting a 159 Year old 44 Rimfire

amazing. i thought it was like a 22 case but huge

Wait till you see a 56 Spencer rimfire then that's "huger"

There are some that look like rimfire but are not.

That inside priming never really caught on an evolutionary dead end like pin fire

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Wait till you see a 56 Spencer rimfire then that's "huger"

The 56 Spencer would be a fun case to make and shoot

Shame its a repeater and against my religion

Originally Posted by akaroa1

So I could cram 24 grains of BP under the 210 grain heeled bullet

And outside to fire the first shot about 4 hours after I started
In that time I've stripped and reassembled the entire rifle
Cast the chamber and muzzle to get meaningful data to make the case from

Made the one reloadable case

First shot from a rough rest at 25m and of course safety glasses so not a perfect sight picture

Attachment 258365

Two more trips inside to deprime and reload the one case and this result

Attachment 258366

I think that's as good as you could ever hope to do first up.

Once I've made 20 reloadable cases it will be off hunting asap
Just think of it as being as effective as a sub sonic 44 magnum
And way cooler

It's around 8 pounds so a joy to shoot and being a Ballard it has a superb trigger at 3 pounds

That should have been [B]1864[B] dual ignition patent

220 grain bullets and 28 grains of BP in the originals so your on the money so to speak.

So very close to the peacemakers/henrys 44/28 then. I BELIEVE the colt dragoon was more powerful than the rifles of same time for a while,till they caught up.

The Henry case was a little shorter so would hold slightly less now

You just can't match those original load numbers
Typical of all sales hype

But my 24 grain load is very useful
And the mint bore and perfectly sized bullets from a 30" barrel will very giving me some decent speed