Crisco

My wife has been shooting a pair of 4-3/4” .357 GWII Californians since about the time they came out (maybe 15 years? can’t recall…). Great shooters and never any problems. Hers came with checkered wood grips.

I put slime in my cart tires for several years and it worked well even with very little in there, but could not keep up with the damn goat heads (knapweed?). If you haven’t had to deal with them that’s a good thing. I ended up going to Schwab and buying solid rubber tires, around $20 apiece.

Current loading manuals are not of much use for the old cartridges. I believe the original .44 Colt was for the Colt Army revolvers based on the 1860 configuration, so had a very small rim and a heeled bullet that I see listed as .430" heel, .451 full diameter. That makes sense as the bore diameter was quite a bit more than .44 in the cap and ball guns. In that vein, we convert the modern black powder revolvers directly to .45 Colt, but only as 5 shooters or with precisely offset bored chambers to make 6 rims fit. There is ammo out there now days that is called .44 Colt, but it uses an inside lubed bullet of smaller diameter ( ~.430") and a larger rim than original (doubt 6 would fit in a straight bored cylinder), and I expect dimensions found in most references could easily be a mix of old and new. Just to further the confusion: Cartridges of the world shows .44 Colt bullet diameter at .443" Phil Sharpe's handloading manual from 1937 says .448" Neither even mentions the .44 Remington, which might be what started you down this path.

I have to think the .44 Remington is/was pretty scarce ( “Cartridges of the World” doesn’t even mention it; I found the above dimensions somewhere on the web), but that or an original .44 Colt are sounding more and more likely considering the small rim and heeled bullet. I think they kept the rims really small so they could chamber 6.

looks like a converted 1863. .44 Remington cartridge would be .480" rim, .448" base, 1.065 case length, .447 bullet, and I would guess cartridge length around 1.50 like the .44 Colt. Seems like it would be a sloppy fit for a .44 Remington, a little better for a .44 Colt, but not sure big enough for any larger cartridge of the period. Maybe hollow base bullets would justify the large cylinder throats.

Been a while since I used any, as they seem scarce around here even in good times, but I remember Remington primers being between Federal and Winchester for hardness, and nearer to Federal.

I’ve had a couple of square deal Bs in the past, but settled on 550s in the end. The SDB is great for a single caliber, but not nearly as easy to change calibers on as a 550. As mentioned above, the SDB does not use standard dies, which can be a consideration. I also prefer the manual indexing of the 550. When things go wrong, and they will, nothing has advanced automatically so it is easier to sort out where you were when things acted up.

I’ll take the pistol barrel & cylinder. PM sent.