40-65 Shooters

[J.Murphy]

This question is for those proven successful 40-65 shooters, ignorant shooters, such as myself, need not respond, no reason to further muddy the water. In the quest for accuracy and low ES, most straight wall cases can have their bullets slip fit or slight neck sizing in order to start the bullets flight, but the 40-65 is a tapered case and a slip fitted bullet gets very little alignment at it's base. I have tried slip fitting the bullet, but I get better accuracy with a partially resized case. My thinking was that a fireformed case would have better ES, due to no inconsistant energy wasted reforming the case and no neck tension issues each shot. I believe I have seen postings of 40-65 shooters who slip fit, how do they do it?

[marlinman93]

Although the .40-65 is a tapered case, those I have fired or sized for my various rifles chambered for .40-65 are a straight neck for just under .5" down from the mouth. So even heavier .40 caliber bullets don't have much base below to not be supported when loaded with a full charge of BP.
I've never been too concerned with what little, if any, base is below the straight part of the neck, even with my heavier 410 gr. Snover bullets.

[bpcrshooter62]

marlinman93 hi may i ask are you saying that a 410 grain bullet is heavy for a 40/65 ? I shoot a 431 grain bullet in my 40/65

[Woody]

There are no Saami specs for the cartridge. You will need to cast your chamber if you want to know what you have. If you look at the 50th Lyman Reloading Handbook, you will see they spec the cartridge with a .610 long straight neck at .432 OD. I have shot 440 grain bullets at !.4 inches long but I found a 400 grain produced more consistent groups and scores. I always shot with neck tension, obtained using a Lyman .40 neck sizing die. I now longer have this rifle as I sold it a couple of years ago to a new shooter.

Woody

[gunlaker]

I use slip fit exclusively in 40-65. I've been shooting two different loads very successfully for a few years. Last year my spotter and I set our clubs all time silhouette record, the rifle generally gets all ten turkey on at least one day of our two day provincial championship. The same load has shot quite well in midrange to 600 yards when my wind reading is in a happy place .

Rifle is a Shiloh #3 with add on pistol grip. 30" heavy, 1:16 twist.

The load I've been using for years is this:
Remington brass, fireformed & annealed
Fed large pistol match primers ( I have a pile of brass with shallow primer pockets to have to use pistol primers ).
62gr Swiss 1.5, lot 270.213
drop tubed
0.060" LDPE wad + newsprint wad
BACO 409400M4 bullet cast in 16:1, unsized, DGL lube
3.167" OAL
slip fit.
fouling control is two damp patches ( I do not dry the chamber or bore between shots ). 30% Napa cutting oil/70% water. Tipton brush.

Here is the 200m group 10 shot group with this load in the 2020 postal match here. The x-ring shot was cold bore and the one above it was a bit of a flyer. Still only 2.5" including the cold bore shot and flyer.



That load is also pretty good in my 1:14 twist long range express, but that rifle works better with a little more powder.

Another excellent slip fit load for the 1:16 twist rifle is this:

Rem brass, fireformed, annealed
Fed Large Pistol match primers
58gr Goex FFFg Express ( 1.565" on MVA measure ), same volume of Swiss 1.5 is also excellent.
0.060" LDPE + newsprint wad
Saeco #740, 20:1, DGL
slip fit
2.775" oal
same fouling control as above load.
this load has shot lots of MOA groups at 200m but never worked quite as well at the rams as the money bullet for me. The variation of this load using Swiss 1.5 has shot a number of perfect targets at 300 yards with my 1:14 twist rifle.

I know a number of people have mentioned the taper of the 40-65 case before, but it's never been an issue for me. I've actually had a lot more trouble getting my 45-70's to shoot well. My 40-65's and 45-90's have been the easiest to get shooting very well.

If I could only have a few rifles, it'd be those two 40-65's shooting the above loads, and my 45-90's. I have 100% confidence in their abilities.

I hope that's useful.

Chris.

[J.Murphy]

There are quite a few 40-65 chambers. My first chamber had no straight neck at all, the second was from PT&G and was listed as a Shiloh reamer, it has a more defined neck, but no where near enough to give bullet support. I didn't know enough to be specific in my request, I am considering a 40-60 Maynard to avoid the whole issue.

[bpcrshooter62]

Sorry but i think you are really over thinking there is a problem I have shot a 40-65 for many years now and have never had a problem like you are talking about. The only thing i have ever seen a problem like that with was in a 303 and i believe it was more of a fowling problem than anything else Keep shooting and having fun that's what it is all about

[gunlaker]

There are quite a few 40-65 chambers. My first chamber had no straight neck at all, the second was from PT&G and was listed as a Shiloh reamer, it has a more defined neck, but no where near enough to give bullet support. I didn't know enough to be specific in my request, I am considering a 40-60 Maynard to avoid the whole issue.

I imagine that is the same reamer that Shiloh orders. I am not 100% certain, but I believe that's where Shiloh gets their reamers.

Chris.

[TexasMac]

J.Murphy,

The .40-65 Win. does not necessarily have a tapered neck. Since there's no SAMMI spec., mfg. have somewhat of a "free hand" when designing the chamber. In the Browning .40-65 the chamber neck is cylinderical (no taper) for 1/2". In my Shiloh Sharps there is a slight taper. Over 1/2" the neck tapers 0.004". I have no problems slip fitting which is my standard practice.

Starting in front of the rim seat the chamber diameter drops off (tapers) uniformly from 0.502” to 0.436” until it's about 0.5" from the chamber-to-throat transition step, at which point the diameter reduction continues but at a reduced rate, diminishing another 0.004” over the last 0.5”.

Lastly, keep in mind that a case neck wall gets thicker moving away from the lip or mouth - about the same amount as the chamber neck taper. So the result is the neck ID of a fireformed case is essentially a cylinder with no taper.

My fireformed Rem. brass wall thichness is 0.011" at the lip and 0.013" 1/2" into the case. That's a total of 0.004" - perfectly compensating for the chamber neck taper. Since I don't seat my bullets more than 0.5" the neck tension is the same over the length of the bullet.

Wayne

[gunlaker]

Interesting about the Rem brass taper. I chose it because I had a bunch and it was all set up for pistol primers which are sometimes good in the smaller cartridges, I had no idea on the amount of taper in the brass. Seems to work very well.

Chris.

[Coltsmoke]

Well Dang it gunlaker, you missed with 9 of them.

[gunlaker]

Well Dang it gunlaker, you missed with 9 of them.

Yeah, since the first shot cold bore shot was an X I didn't mess with the sights. Then I just let the group form where it was after that

That rifle is as good as it gets for a black powder cartridge rifle. I remember once shooting at our 300 yard targets and one of the TR shooters watching my impacts on the berm, he thought that since they were all low that I was way off target and dropping them into the pits and got a bit irate with me. I told him to have a look in the spotting scope and he could see that they were all in the 10 ring with lots of x's

The funny part was that I hadn't intended to buy that rifle, but one day the Shiloh catalog showed up in the mail and it featured a gorgeous saddle rifle in it. I bought this #3 configured the same way ( extra fancy wood, ebony schnabel, ebony grip ) but with a 30" heavy barrel in .40-65. Luckily the thing is laser beam accurate

Chris.

[desert deuce]

Just hanging around here in the background waiting for Gunlaker to post one of his better targets.

[gunlaker]

Just hanging around here in the background waiting for Gunlaker to post one of his better targets.

I'm happy to oblige Zack

Here are a couple from a practice session last year. 3 on the pig and 6 on the turkey. One lucky flier on the turkey but the rest are good.




Just looking into my notes from a practice session on paper at 300 yards with some left over match ammo. Of 36 shots fired, 20 were x's, 13 were 10's and 3 were 9's. That was probably my best 300 yard day with the rifle I suspect. The target I kept from that day had 12 shots in it, all came in at just over 1 minute of angle, 7 in the x-ring.

Shiloh sure makes a good rifle.

Chris.

[desert deuce]

Shiloh makes great rifles that are accurate. As in your case, in particular, it is up to the shooter to determine what loadings in their rifle will produce similar results to those you posted. In both target and steel, the vertical is the holy grail proofing the rifle load combination.