Load question ?

[xring1]

I just read a post on here where a guy was talking about someone getting great accuracy by breech seating a bullet and then chambering a charged case behind it.
I have done a lot of regular loading and new to BP so I know there is a lot to learn....BUT my immediate reaction was erratic if not dangerous pressures among other things.
Anyone else ever hear of this method?

[waksupi]

This has been done for over a century. Harry Pope and his crowd loaded like this. There are many who still do. Just know what you are doing. It is meant for straight wall cartridges.

[Don McDowell]

Quite common practice among the Schuetzen shooters of old, along with muzzleloading the bullet and then chambering a charged cartridge. The distance some of them left between the case and the bullet base , puts some wonder into the no airspace thing...
Go to Cornell Publishing and get a copy of Ned Roberts Schuetzen Rifle book, lots of great info contained in there that is still pretty useful.
Lots of modern myth dispelling as well, like powder sifting, Roberts never mentions sifting blackpowder but he does mention sifting the smokeless powder tells about the screen sizes and how to use the different sizes of powder screened from a batch of smokeless powder..

[felix]

The ultimate is breach seating without the case! These folks get football field accuracy at 26 miles (computerized aiming and firing). You are free to guess who THEY are! I think the very last one retired THIS year. ... felix

[xring1]

Thanks
A member PM'ed me and explained the whole procedure. Very informative

This has been done for over a century. Harry Pope and his crowd loaded like this. There are many who still do. Just know what you are doing. It is meant for straight wall cartridges.

[oldracer]

I have watched the Schuetzen shooters at our range and one or two have won some championships so I figure they know what they are doing?! The bullet seater they use just slides in the chamber so the bullet is centered very accurately in the lands. They use the same force for each shot and I guess that comes with load development time. I also noted they use the same case over and over and do a decap, clean, reprime, powder load, wad seat and then insert into the gun. One of the shooters said he had about 1000 shots on one case and that was average he noted.

Since the case is slightly larger than the bullet, any air in the case will get expelled easily and the wad depth is set he said so it is touching the bullet when everything is ready to shoot. He did not like air gaps with smokeless any more than we do although I have read articles that it does not matter? The breach load in a percussion Sharps is an example of this where the bullet is seated, powder is poured in and then the block raised. Black Powder Cartridge News had a review of this years ago and shot as accurately as a regular cartridge rifle.

[Texantothecore]

Some questions about breech-seating:

When loading the boolit, do you push it in until the base is fully engaged in the rifling? In other words is the boolit fully in the barrel? The reviews I have read are not at all clear to me on this point.

The air gap (1/16th) does not seem to matter. Is this correct?

[Texantothecore]

One more. For a .45-70 rifle (Buffalo Classic) would I start with a .45-90 cartridge and cut to size for the charge, leaving 1/16th inch to the bullet?

[Don McDowell]

No you would start with a 45-70 cartridge and experiment with powder charge and bullet seating depth.

[John Boy]

Quite common practice among the Schuetzen shooters of old, along with muzzleloading the bullet and then chambering a charged cartridge.

Don, recaps it nicely ... BUT the Schuetzen shooters of yore and modern times never breech seated a 22 LR! I'm here to tell you all - it has been done in 2012!

John Kort, 44wcf, instigated several of use to reload 22 LR empty primed cases. I too was one of those reloaders. One day, while reloading a box as fix cartridges - I said, Hey, why not some breech seated 22 LR black powder rounds? So, I made a plug, fitted it in a spent 22 case with 1/16" of the plug extended past the neck. Then 25 empty primed cases loaded up with 4.5gr FFFFg capped with a construction paper wad only.

Went to the range with the JM Ballard and shot the breech seated bullets at 50 yds. Groups were really pretty good for an open sight rifle. Before the snow blows, intention is to do a comparison between them little 46gr bullets, breech seated and fixed cartridge

[dragonrider]

Used to watch an old feller in our club load his Shutzens in just that manner, he had a bunch of them, use a tool that attached to the rifle in some manner and pressed the boolit into the chamber. it was fasinating to watch. Sadly he is dead for some years now.

[Lead pot]

I breach seat for the sharps and for the 85 winchester when I want all the accuracy from my rifles I can get. Breach seating works for the bottle necked case as well as the straight walled cases.
I use a groove diameter PP or close to groove never at bore diameter or under because if they are patched to loose there is a chance that they will move forward by the air that gets pushed ahead of the case when it is seated to fast. I found this to happen using a bullet under bore diameter so I dont do this. The GG when I breach seat at groove or as much as .002" over groove diameter.
There are basically two stiles of seating tools one is a palm seater that has a solid case usually filled with lead to the end of the case mouth and a bullet is pushed ahead of the tool at the correct depth so when a charged case is chambered the case mouth is in contact with the bullet base and using a black powder charged case there will be a wad flush with the case mouth and there is no air space with a properly adjusted tool like the one in the photo I use.
For the schuetzen shooters using a caliber like the 32-40 with smokeless there is a little different prosidure loading a charged that round.
The tool I use was made by Russ Weber and I have several interchangeable cases for different calibers from 40-70 to the .50-90.

[.22-10-45]

Hello, everyone. For breechseating..some rifles are specially throated, or tapered bullet can be used in a std. throat. I had Dave Farmer make up a tapered bullet for a .38-55 Win. high-wall.
If you are using an action with camming action when closing..Ballard, or Stevens, you can use a plugged case..brass or wood plug extending out from case mouth... 1/16" or so..(I make mine adjustable). This way, you drop a bullet in breech, insert plugged case & close action, remove p. case, insert primed & charged case..faster & easier than with seperate tool...If you don't try & force too big a bullet in there..and if it's nicly tapered to fit.

[Don McDowell]

BUT the Schuetzen shooters of yore and modern times never breech seated a 22 LR! I'm here to tell you all - it has been done in 2012!

John I know a place where there's a specific rimfire section where the details of your trials and tribulations with that may just go wild....

[af2fb751]

I just read a post on here where a guy was talking about someone getting great accuracy by breech seating a bullet and then chambering a charged case behind it.
I have done a lot of regular loading and new to BP so I know there is a lot to learn....BUT my immediate reaction was erratic if not dangerous pressures among other things.
Anyone else ever hear of this method?

Several years ago, I saw a demonstration of a revolutionary war era Ferguson pattern breech loading rifle that had two interesting features. The first was that there was no significant fouling using Goex 2f and the second was the the ball was rolled in 'til it engaged the lands and the powder only filled 70%+ of the chamber volume. I had always been taught and practiced moderate powder compression with an on-powder seated projectile. Interesting demonstration based on 18th century sources that challenge some current-day BP rules.