What brass would be the best to use in an original 40-65 Ballard chamber?

Great info. Thanks for all the input.

SSShooter wrote on Jun 7^th, 2015 at 1:52pm:


The .40-82 Crossno is .3" longer than the .40-65 Ballard.

The 40/82 Crossno is 2.4" long which is .3 longer than the 40/65 Winchester, not the Ballard. A friend of mine has one. I've got a case from his rifle.

OK, I did a little checking and the cartridge developed by Dave Crossno about 1998 is actually called the 40-82 Silhouette. Shiloh chambers their rifles in this caliber also. Here's what Dave Crossno had to say about it sometime later.

“At the request of a customer about 5 years ago to come up with a .40 cal. ctg. suitable for silhouette and long range compitition. I also, had the 40-65 blas because of rams hit and not knocked down and just a lack of 500 meter stability. Both 40-90s use too much powder with inherent fouling problems. One is a bottle neck which does not work well with Black Powder - the other has far too tall a powder column to light with any consistency. The new ctg. had to be made from easily obtained brass and work in the 70 -75 grain area with 400g+ bullets. 70 - 75 grains is about ideal "bore capacity" for a .40. Most 400+ grain bullets used in silhouette have approx. 5/8 bodies, so I wanted a .600 length neck to avoid having the bullet base below the neck or having grease groves hanging out. Lead angle of all of my chambers is 1 degree 30 min. Bullets normally fully engrave rifleing with a half grease grove or less out depending on style of bullet. This ctg. also had to relate closely to an existing ctg. in order for it to be approved by the NRA for compitition. With these criteria the choices became simple - .40 - 82 Winchester 2.4. So I simply did to the 40 - 82 what was done to the original .40 - 65. Real rocket science, huh? A .6 neck with a straight taper to the rim would provide the additional 10 - 12 grn. powder increase I wanted. Brass would be easily obtained and formed and with velocitys comparable to 40 - 90s in a much more efficent package. C & H makes the dies and Dave Gullo said he would offer the brass already formed. It is what I use and from Buff. Arms it is formed and a drop in deal. 

"With all of this, I petitioned the NRA sil. committe to approve my ctg. for competition. It was approved in '98 if I remember correctly and to my knowledge is the only modified .40 - 82 actualy approved for comp. Along the way was it was pointed out that is - or should have been called the .40 -75 winchester. However the 40-82 is the parent chamber and 40-75 ctg. was fired in the 40-82 chamber. I have the original winchester chamber prints. The 40-75 was made in order to shoot a heavier bullett (330gr) with 75g pwder in the 40-82 chamber. Both ctgs had a shorter bottle neck which I did not want (so did the 40-65) and were basically "express" loads. At any rate, you see where we are. 

"I have chambered over 50 rifles and repaired many 40-65 chambers as this was also a factor in reamer design. By all accounts I believe, with my customers that this is an inherently accurate design and not nearly as picky as a 40-65. Also much less recoil than any of the .45s I believe best silhouette accuracy is achived somewhere between 1275 - 1325 fps. with Saeco, Paul Jones creedmore type bullet. I have some loads with a Paul Jones Creedmore @ 1448 avg. I shoot a 455 LBT at 1355fps for a long range loading the easily make the NRA power factor. In fact my silhouette loads are legal for LR comp. I have not had a single customer unhappy with this ctg. Quite the opposit, everyone believes that this will be the .40 cal. competition ctg. I have told every body that if you have the 40-65 blaas - I have the cure. I have not tried to generate lots of fanfare & B.S. about this ctg. as I prefer to put it out there to stand or fall on its own merit. It is standing quite well. Once some one wins a big match with it, we believe it will really begin to take off. 

"I have used this ctg. in my Hepburns and my Rolling Block with 16 twist. I am currently shooting a Ballard with a 14 5/8 twist and am very impressed. I think 16 should be the minm. twist but have done a lot of 18s and they shoot very well with proper bullet wts. 

"I'm about out of steam here, so I thank you for your interest and hope to be in touch with you in the future. Any more questions will be appreciated. 

"Sincerely, 
Dave Crossno”

John, thanks for posting Dave's info. So now I know even more about the 40-82 Hepburn that Dave built for me....

Dutcher's listing is a bit 'different'. His 40-65 Everlasting mouth is larger than a couple of the 44's he has listed and a couple of the other 44's are 0.487 (if I read it correctly), which is considerably larger than any 45.
Edit - wonder if the oversize mouth in Dutcher's listing may be the result of the heavier wall on the 'Everlasting' case?

DaveW - you made some cases from 40-82WCF cases. Have you made any starting with 45-90 cases?