Old School Shooting and Reloading

Over on Blog O'Stuff, I've been writing about a Cimarron Firearms Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle that I bought in March, along with handloading .44-40 ammunition for it. The gun is a replica of the Winchester 1873, "The gun that won the West."


Although it's a 19th Century design and by modern standards it's considered an obsolete weapon, one advantage these old guns and replicas thereof is that they can be kept going with low tech reloading methods. Ammunition can be loaded for these cartridges on modern equipment or with simple hand tools.

A modern reloading press like my Lee Classic Turret press is a lot more efficient than the hand tools. The hand tools are slow and don't allow you to resize fired brass, so it can be used only in the same gun in which it was first fired. That said, with a hand tool you can put together a portable, complete reloading kit that will fit in a toolbox. Perhaps the best of both worlds would be a Lee hand press, which uses standard reloading dies.

If chambered in one of the original centerfire rounds -- .44-40, .38-40, or .32-20 -- they are ideally suited for use with black powder or black powder substitutes like Pyrodex or Triple 7 and cast bullets. (Modern replicas are also available in .45 Colt, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum, all of which work great with cast bullets but don't seal the chamber as well when used with black powder, because of their thicker brass.)

Other lever action models have been chambered for the WCF cartridges, including replicas of the Henry, Winchester 1866, and original and replicas of the Winchester 1892.

This is an original Winchester Model 1882 reloading tool that I got off eBay, along with the original matching bullet mold. (The mold isn't pictured.)

This tool can perform the following functions without any adjustments:

1. Deprime fired cases, if you have the original decapping pin, or can substitute a Lee Precision case length gauge in the right caliber.
2. Seat a fresh primer.
3. Seat and crimp a bullet cast from the original mold, or a bullet design with the same overall length (since it's not adjustable).

Under the tool, from left to right are a 200 grain bullet cast from the original mold, a charged case with bullet pressed in ready to be seated and crimped, and a complete cartridge. Above the tool are some cases charged with 35 grains of Swiss 3Fg black powder. The bullet was cast from reclaimed plumber's lead and lubed with a mix of beeswax, mutton tallow, and canning paraffin. There are other black powder compatible lubes you can make at home, e.g., a 50/50 mix of beeswax and Crisco.

The Ideal Tool Company (bought by Lyman in the early 1900s) offered similar tools, some with built-in bullet molds, and some with adjustable seating chambers to allow different bullets to be used. The Lyman 310 tool remains in production and can neck size spent brass, and has an adjustable seating chamber.

During the panics of the past eight years, black powder and BP substitutes remained largely available. In extremis, black powder can be made. There is plenty of info available online on how to do so, just be careful.

Primers are one component that tends to disappear quickly when panics hit, and cannot be easily made or reloaded, so it would be wise to stock up ahead of time.

Likewise, if you are setup to cast your own bullets, if you can obtain a suitable lead alloy and make some kind of bullet lube, all you need to worry about stocking up on are cases and primers. As of the time this was written (April 2016) cases for these "obsolete" rounds are easily available in quantity online. The primer supply is good now, too, either online, in stores, and at gun shows.

As a side note, the capacity of these leverguns is 14 + 1 for the 24" barreled rifles, or 12 + 1 for the 20" carbines. Either one has more firepower than a pump shotgun, with a lot less recoil, and a longer effective range.

The .32-20 is suitable for small game and varmints up to coyotes, but the .38-40 (really a .40 caliber) and the .44-40 are good on deer out to about 100 yards. The latter two also work well for defense, but when shot from a rifle, even the .32-20 is comparable to a 9mm handgun, so it's no slouch. The black powder WCF rounds may be "obsolete," but they are just as effective today as they were in the 19th Century.

In my opinion, the ability to load cartridges using components that you can get in times of scarcity or make yourself has value for preppers. It's something to consider if the rest of your preps are squared away.

Rambling Thoughts on the Ammo Situation

We are now about 8 months into the biggest and longest guns and ammunition buying panic ("Banic") that I can remember, and I've been following these things since the '80s.

Yesterday on Facebook, ammunition manufacturer Hornady posted a link to this statement on ammo and component availability. Additionally, they linked to this list of the ammo and components that they will be producing for the remainder of 2013.

So, I offer the following thoughts and observations. Please pardon the rambling.

First, if this hasn't brought home to you the necessity of keeping a significant supply of ammunition on hand for your firearms, I don't know what will.  The reelection of Barack Obama and the Sandy Hook school shooting, with the ensuing push for gun control by (primarily) the Democrats and their propaganda arm, AKA the mainstream media, has caused a panic the likes of which nobody has seen. As observed by Bob Owens back in December, the American public's response was to buy up every firearm of military utility designed in the past century, and the ammo to feed them. If the Dems' goal had been to cause the American populace to arm for war, they couldn't have done better.

If you're concerned that buying online or paying for guns or ammo with a credit card will land you on a list, join the rest of us already there. Frankly, if you're not on a list, you've been slacking in speaking up in defense of the rights that both major parties have been so eager to trample upon. If you can't find ammo locally or at a gun show, there's a good chance you can find it online. The website gunbot.net will help you find ammo in stock.

I am starting to see some kinds of ammo come back in stock, e.g, 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .223/5.56mm, 7.62x39, etc. .22 rimfire remains in short supply with only expensive, match grade stuff remaining in stock for more than a few hours.

.22 rimfire is essentially a commodity, and IMO, what we're seeing with the.22 LR shortage is a feedback loop. I.e., more people own .22s than any other gun, but they've been used to being able to pick up a box or two whenever they want to go shooting. Now, people are buying .22 LR any time they see it in stock somewhere, even if they don't plan on shooting it immediately. This in turn furthers the shortage. We've seen the same effect with other commodities like gasoline.

12 gauge birdshot seems to have been readily available even during the Banic, but slugs and buckshot have been scarce. Birdshot/trap loads are relatively cheap, and with some ingenuity can be remade into ammo more suitable for defense or hunting medium game. (Also Google "cut shells" and "wax slugs," neither of which are ideal but under certain circumstances may become necessary.)

As supplies catch up with demand I'd urge you to lay in a good stock of ammo for your most important guns. If you can afford it you should have enough ammo so that you can go out and practice even if you can't buy ammo that day. So, having 500 or more rounds per gun on hand at any given time is far from unreasonable.

I've seen online that many preppers prefer to keep only guns in common calibers, thinking that they would be most easily available if the SHTF. This panic has given the lie to that train of thought. The most popular calibers -- 9mm, .38, .223, etc. -- were the first to disappear from shelves. If you think about it, this makes sense. Thus, even if your primary guns are a 9mm Glock and a 5.56mm AR15, you should have guns in other calibers in case you need to fall back on them. Over consolidation in calibers limits your options for resupply.

One caliber that has remained available has been 7.62x54R, as used in Russian surplus Mosin-Nagant rifles. Most Americans regard Mosins as crude but they are solid, dependable rifles capable of good accuracy, and available even now at low cost.

Likewise, if your primary handgun is a semiauto, there are a wide variety of police surplus revolvers in .38 Special and .357 Magnum available at moderate cost. A well maintained wheelgun is still a formidable arm even in this day of semiautos, and is not dependent on the quality of ammo for reliable functioning.

Reloaders haven't been immune to the effects of the panic. The supply of primers became tight months ago. Not only are reloaders buying them up, I suspect that a lot of production that would normally go to the reloading market is instead going into commercially loaded ammo. Aside from primers, projectiles have been in short supply. It's going to be time for me to get into bullet casting.

A serious prepper should have on hand guns suitable for reloading with scrounged or self-fabricated components. Older large bore cartridges have an advantage in this regards because they can more effectively use cast, non-expanding bullets, and may even be able to efficiently use black powder. For example, the .44 Special and .45 Colt were originally loaded with black powder. The .44 Magnum case is the same as the .44 Special, lengthened by 1/10". Large bore rifle rounds like .444 Marlin and .45-70 (originally a BP cartridge) can be reloaded with it. Even in 2013, a competent man armed with a lever action carbine and a single action revolver is not someone to be trifled with.

Speaking of black powder, it's one area that's been relatively unscathed by the panic. However, at a couple times I noticed that Cabela's had their Remington 1858 percussion revolvers and round balls on back order. A black powder revolver would be far from my first choice in 2013 for a defensive gun but it beats any non-firearm for defense. They were effective weapons in the 19th Century and remain so today, especially given the advances in metallurgy. They  provide a way to practice your marksmanship without cutting into your supplies of modern ammunition, and in extremis ammunition can be fabricated from scratch (with percussion caps being the most difficult).

Likewise, airguns have flown under the panic radar. Modern high quality airguns offer a way to practice marksmanship at low cost, the ammo is low cost and low volume, and many of them are powerful enough for small game and varmint control. These are not the BB guns we all used as kids. A good primer on what air rifle to buy is available here, on Arfcom.

A nice bonus is that in most states, airguns and black powder guns can be obtained with no paperwork or background check, on a cash and carry basis.

So, what's my point? I guess what I'm trying to get across is that if you're serious about remaining an armed citizen, you need to:

(a) Maintain a good supply of ammunition during "normal" times. By "good supply" I mean one that will allow you to go out and practice even if commercial supplies are short.

(b) Do not over consolidate. Rather, keep guns in a few different calibers, including some that are less common, in case you need to resupply during the next panic or extended shortage.

(c) Look into reloading and stocking up on components when they are available.

(d) Look beyond modern firearms to those that are considered obsolete, because having something like a black powder revolver and/or precision airgun as part of your armory increases your ability to be self reliant.

As for myself, I'd been stocking up for awhile before the panic hit, so I was in good shape ammo-wise. I was caught short when it came to reloading components and dies for a couple calibers I want to reload. Additionally, I need to get setup for bullet casting. As funds and supplies permit I plan to rectify these gaps in my preps.