Picked up an absolutely pristine Remington Rolling Block 43 Caliber Argentine in a trade. It actually appears unfired and certainly unissued.
The fun part now is getting it to shoot. I ordered dies, bullet mold, Lyman sizer die, brass etc and assembled a few rounds for tomorrow. One word of warning though, dont order large quantities of .348 Winchester brass expecting to reform or fire form brass for it. The base diameter is much too large to size it down for the chamber. The brass from Buffalo Arms, and Track of the Wolf is reformed .348 Winchester BUT its done with some sort of arbor press which increases the rim diameter and reduces the base diameter which cant be done on a reloading press. This rifle seems to have a minimum chamber with new sized brass a tight fit. Anybody need some new .348 brass at my cost?
I have ordered more brass which runs $2.25 each from Track of the Wolf and similarly priced from Buffalo Arms. Luckily I found some Jamison brass at Grafs for $36 for 20 which is as cheap as it gets in this caliber. For bullets I found a Lyman 370 grain mold. I also continued my paper patch experiments by patching some 240 grain cast bullets intended for the .44 Special. They come out of the mold at .431 and the bore diameter of the 43 Spanish caliber is .439, mine is about .440 a few wraps of copy paper brought them up to .441 which is about right with the soft cast 240 grainers.
The 240 grainers are loaded over a charge of #2400 for testing, with the remaining brass capped by the 370 grainers over a max charge of FFG and Pyrodex. With only a dozen or so cases on hand I cant shoot groups for accuracy yet but will see where these print in relation to the sights.
The fun part now is getting it to shoot. I ordered dies, bullet mold, Lyman sizer die, brass etc and assembled a few rounds for tomorrow. One word of warning though, dont order large quantities of .348 Winchester brass expecting to reform or fire form brass for it. The base diameter is much too large to size it down for the chamber. The brass from Buffalo Arms, and Track of the Wolf is reformed .348 Winchester BUT its done with some sort of arbor press which increases the rim diameter and reduces the base diameter which cant be done on a reloading press. This rifle seems to have a minimum chamber with new sized brass a tight fit. Anybody need some new .348 brass at my cost?
I have ordered more brass which runs $2.25 each from Track of the Wolf and similarly priced from Buffalo Arms. Luckily I found some Jamison brass at Grafs for $36 for 20 which is as cheap as it gets in this caliber. For bullets I found a Lyman 370 grain mold. I also continued my paper patch experiments by patching some 240 grain cast bullets intended for the .44 Special. They come out of the mold at .431 and the bore diameter of the 43 Spanish caliber is .439, mine is about .440 a few wraps of copy paper brought them up to .441 which is about right with the soft cast 240 grainers.
The 240 grainers are loaded over a charge of #2400 for testing, with the remaining brass capped by the 370 grainers over a max charge of FFG and Pyrodex. With only a dozen or so cases on hand I cant shoot groups for accuracy yet but will see where these print in relation to the sights.
