Remington No 1 Creedmoor

[Fogman01]

I also put some of this on the ASSRA blog - just an update on my Creedmoor. I bought a 44 S original Creedmoor. Chamber cast showed it was a 44 2 1/4" case and I found I could seat a pp bullet about 1/8" and still chamber it. So it is just like the chambers you read about in Creedmoors. It is in great condition and has a beautiful bore of about .451. I didn't have a good bullet for that size chamber - just for my Shiloh 44-77 which is a much smaller bore. So I just wrapped some paper around what I had so I could shoot the rifle and fire form the brass. The chamber is also much larger that a modern version of a 44-77.
Here's the first range report:
Finally made it to the range and shot my RB Creedmoor original. I used two different bullets both paper patched. I tried a .441 pp bullet of 450 grains wrapped to make it just feel snug when chambered. All my brass is for a Shiloh 44-77 so I used this pp bullet because it would just fit into the brass. I also tried a .446 grease groove bullet of 485 grains with a pp wrapped on it. (I don't have many 44-77 bullet choices laying around) I used a .45 bell die to gently expand the mouth of the case to accept this one. I put 70 grains Swiss 1.5 into the case because I do not see a need for more right now in this original rifle. But I used a two .060 fiber wads with a thick grease cookie between them so the bullet was only seated about 1/8th of an inch down with no air gap. Both cartridges chambered in the original with just a little "push" to close the breach. So the rifle was definitely made for a 44 S meaning a 2 1/4" case with a bullet seated out far enough to allow 90 grains of powder if I so choose. The groups were nothing to write home about yet - they will improve with load development. The pp grease groove load shot a 2 7/8" three shot group at 100 yards. Now that I have some fire-formed brass I expect I can get it to do much better if I get some bullets more suited to this particular rifle. I just wanted to see how they would fire in the original and get some fire-formed brass. The chamber cast had the chamber pretty big for a 44-77 and the fire formed brass will in no way go into my Shiloh without resizing. I was worried the cases would crack or deform in some way, but they all fired and extracted perfectly. What an experience to shoot an original! I will definitely be keeping this one and be working on accurate pp loads. I don't think I will try grease grooves in it; it was made for pp after all.