German Jim

Good idea with the shell holder. I've done that myself. Just make sure that the cartridge you're trying to disassemble does not have a high primer. It may come in contact with the edge of the hole in the shell holder and you may end up with a bad accident.

Abilene's is the only one without an ejector rod, but it doesn't have the birdshead grip. I guess you can always buy a birdshead grip frame.

Here's one of my Colt revolvers.

I sometimes use my .45 Colt pistols and my .38-40 rifle at a match. All my .45 Colt cartridges are marked on the head so I don't mix them up and try to put one in my rifle, because it will load into the magazine, but it won't feed.

Warden: My collet looks just like yours and it works just fine. I only load BP, so once in a while I pull the collet and clean the slots out. Just a thought here. If the collet was placed in a 44-40 die body, I wonder if that would create the problem you are having. I don't load 44-40, but I'm thinking that the "ramp" that starts to squeeze the collet fingers has a larger diameter that the "ramp" on the 38-40. Just a thought. Do you also load 44-40?

+1

After I got married, I kept getting this constant ringing it my ears. Then one day I realized that the ringing was caused by that damn bell my wife hung around my neck, so I cut it off! (The bell, not my neck). pfft...ringing gone.

John Boy, could you post your findings? I would like to know the difference. I would greatly appreciate it. I tried sending a message, but was told you were unable to receive messages. Thanks

Lee case feeder will not work with .38WCF, .44WCF or .45 Schofield cases. The inside diameter of the tubes seem to be about (I'm guessing) .001 or .002 too small. When I used it for these calibers, I would always have to use a wooden dowel as a follower to force the brass down the tube.

The rear sight can be drifted left or right. Front sight may need to be cut down, notched or replaced. I have a 1911 with factory unaltered G.I. sights that I use for Wild Bunch. I just use Kentucky windage and Tennessee elevation for my sight adjustment. Maybe that's why I miss the targets so often.

Driftwood, you said that the military reduced the load in the .45 to 30grains (as your photo shows). Do you know what they used as a filler? Did they just leave air space?

Thanks. Ordered some powder today.

I've been using the Lee Auto-Drum for a little over a year. It works great for both Real Black Powder and Smokeless Powder. I don't use black powder subs, so I can't comment on those. It's very accurate with smokeless, but for some reason, with black powder I will get very slight differences. Nothing that affects the load. I always get enough in the case to get slight compression. I load .45ACP and some .45 Colt with smokeless and .38WCF, .45 Schofield and some .45 Colt with Black Powder. I've never cleaned the Auto-Drum and I use the same plastic powder reservoir for both smokeless and black powder. Before I got the Lee Auto-Drum I had used the Lee Pro-Disk for about 10 years with smokeless and black powder. Never cleaned it, never a problem. The Lee Auto-Drum works as well as the Lee Disk set up if not better. For me, it's a quicker change when doing different loads. All black powder that I use is 2F.

When I first started loading SG with BP, I would reuse the hulls and reload. After reloading, I would mark them with a black marker on the base so I would know how many times I reloaded each hull. I've had as many as six reloads, but usually because of hull condition, I would get a lot less. Now I have so many once fired hulls that I chuck them after shooting. The same with my smokeless rounds. Once fired, I chuck them. I usually collect more once fired hulls from other shooters than I shoot at each match.

Ms. Mo, I did just that (Google "single action shooting society) and clicked on the first 7 links listed and I had no problem. I also went to all of Pat Riot's links in his original post and had no problem. Everything appeared to work fine. I always got into the SASS website. I don't know......maybe I don't understand the problem.