.44/77 Rim Thickness

[mrhunterken]

I'm proceeding to order a #1 Sporter in .44/77. I've noticed, on the BACO site .44/77 brass in different rim thicknesses. They are stating a rim thickness of .076 for Shiloh. The brass is made by Capstick (formally Jamison). I have found some Jamison brass that states a Maximum rim thickness of .080. Should this brass work, does this round headspace on the rim or shoulder? Or will .004 make that much difference. I do not want headspace problems.

[Nuclearcricket]

The brass will most likely run around .075 or so give or take. You should be just fine with the Jamison brass. It is much nicer and much better than the reformed 348 brass that BACO has made up and sold in the past. One thing I will caution you about is to be careful when working with this brass as I have found the case necks/mouth to be on the soft side and can be easily damaged. I actually had a mouth become bent out of round by dropping it about 3' onto hard ground when I fumbled a case when depriming at the range.
Sam

[J.B.]

You should be fine with the brass from Captech. My first order of Captech brass came through BACo and the rim thickness hovered around .072 - .073". Once fire formed the case shoulder sets up nicely and any headspacing issues are history. A second order of brass I obtained through BACo. indicated they had made some in-house adjustments to rim thickness to better suit the variations in manufacturers chambers. By stamping the brass heads they swell up to .076" or so and better fit a Shilohs chamber from the get go. Personally I didn't find this a problem but I gather some did and hence the adjustment. The Captech brass has been good stuff although I do wish they'd made the case necks a little longer to allow for the shoulder setting back and shortening the case. Its not a huge issue though. You'll enjoy the 44/ 77 as it performs well with a minimum of fanfare.

Another option for brass would be Rocky Mountain Cartridges as they helped me out when I had a rifle and Captech had yet to tool up for the 44 cases at that time. Good people to deal with and they've probably still got the measurements recorded.
Keep us posted on your 44... and perhaps a photo or two

J.B.

[Kurt]

I just finished a new reamer drawing for a .44-77 for my next rifle that will be build for the silhouette matches. It will be a tight necked PP only chamber.
For this rifle I will have RMC make the cases with a small pistol primer pocket and those cases will only get used for the matches for the new rifle.
Before Jamison made cases for the .44-2.5 Bn and the .44-77 all that was available over the counter was BA and Bell .44 basic. The BA brass had rims to thin and short life for the Shiloh. The Bell basic and HDS basic had rims to thick and needed to be thinned down to fit the .078" that Shiloh uses so a lot of that .44 basic brass I had to thin down with the lathe or figure 8 them on 220 sandpaper or draw them over a file a couple strokes. That shallow up the primer pockets so they had to be uniformed or just left them as they were and used pistol primers in them. That really was ideal. I would not worry about a couple thousands to thick.