Remington No 1 Creedmoor

[Kurt]

Bruce if there is a greater recoil shooting the bottle necked case I cant tell. I use the same powder load with in two grains in the .45-70 as I do in the .44-77 Sharps. The .45-70 I use a 512 gr elliptical and the .44-77 I use a 485 to 507 gr bullet. I cant tell any difference in recoil between them but I will say this, the dust kicks up faster shooting the .44-77 then the .45-70 at 800 yards using the elliptical bullet in both rifles but the torque is noticeable more in the 18 twist .45-70 over the 19 twist 77 but this could be because the straight grip stock the .44-77 has over the pistol grip stock on the .45-70. The .44-77 weighs 10# and it has a narrow crescent buttplate and the .45-70 weighs 12# and it has a shotgun buttplate.
Now the 12# 44-1/2 CPA chambered in a .44/2-5/8 Bn with a 1/16 ROT and a 12# 44-1/2 CPA chambered in the .44/2.6 Rem straight both using the same bullet 1.465" long at 507 gr the .44/2-5/8 Bn get my attention more when I see the orange ball of fire
Kurt

[Fogman01]

I am looking two original Rolling block Creedmoors. One is a 44-100 bottleneck, not the 44-100 2.6 straight as was used in the Hepburn - how would I find or make brass for it? Picture in Marcot's Remington Rolling Block Rifles p 155. He says the 44-100 BN was the case the Creedmoor rolling block chambered not the 44-100 2.6 straight that was designed for the Hepburn.
The other is an original rolling block Creedmoor in 44 S which maybe a 44-77. My Shiloh 44-77 uses Buffalo Arms brass with the .076 rim. The original is a .085 rim. Can I use the Shiloh brass in the original since the rim is smaller and would presumably seat? I would of course chamber cast to be sure of the original's actual caliber and chamber.

[Caprock]

The 44-100 BN is the 2 7/16 case loaded with 100 instead of 90(aka 44-90) gr of powder. Remember that the factories loads varied quite a bit so you have to pay more attention to case length.

[Fogman01]

The 44-100 BN is the 2 7/16 case loaded with 100 instead of 90(aka 44-90) gr of powder. Remember that the factories loads varied quite a bit so you have to pay more attention to case length.

[Fogman01]

I am going to look at the 44-77 Creedmoor and get it chamber cast. The 44-100 2 7/16 doesn't sound like something I can load and shoot as easy as the 44-77.

[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.

[Fogman01]

I re-read all these posts and thanks to all of you for advice and your loads, etc. I am getting some better bullets for paper patching closer to the original weights used at Creedmoor. I'll let you know what this rifle does with them. I have several Sharps BPCRs and dearly love shooting the black stuff in them... but shooting an original is just beyond any level of satisfaction I thought I would ever have. I'll never afford a Sharps original or probably never any other original, so this one is it. Worth it! Glad I did it! And a real education in getting to this point! Some one recommended "Long Range Rifle Shooting" from Forgotten Books Press. It is about the first few matches the Americans shot from the first Creedmoor in 1874 through 1877. I am really enjoying that history and shooting this rifle. Half of the Creedmoor rifles in the first match were rolling blocks.

[Caprock]

You mentioned your chamber is larger than standard/current shilohs. Diameter at the mouth or just more capacity in general?

[Fogman01]

The whole chamber is larger than a standard Shiloh 44-77 case but not longer. The chamber cast showed a 2 1/4" case but larger dimensions for the base, shoulder and neck. When I fire formed the brass by shooting the rifle, I tried to put the cases into my Shiloh 44-77 and no go. I could probably re-size them if I wanted to but I will just shoot them in the Creedmoor. The chamber allows the bullet to be seated all the out thereby allowing 90 grains of powder to be loaded into the 2 1/4" case like they did back then. I do not put that much in it (just 70 gr of Swiss 1.5) and I use a grease cookie and wads to fill up the extra space. I don't know what an original Sharps 44-77 chamber is like but others have said their original Remington 44-77s are a bit larger than the modern versions.

[Caprock]

Yeah, I loaded a few with 87gr pushing Don's behemoth tank buster and in a 9 3/4 lb rifle. Quite a wake up call