Bruce,

I don't have a .40-85 Ballard, but have blown out 9.3 x 74 cases for a Remington-Hepburn in .40-90 3-1/4" Sharps Straight.  The Norma cases are typically in the 2.845"-2.850" range when blown out straight, while the RWS cases are around 2.90" long.

If these cases are all you are going to use, and with black powder only, it would probably be best to get a reamer specially shortened for the job.  I generally use the German cases for smokeless loads with grease groove bullets and Bertram .40-90 cases for black powder loads, as these are closer to the actual length of my chamber.

The rims on the 9.3 x 74 cases are a little thinner than those on the Bertram .40-90 cases and the rim seat in my Hepburn chamber.  The diameters at the bases are a little smaller than the chamber as well.  However, these differences do not seem to create any problems when the 9.3 cases are used.  My Remington is not a target rifle; if that is what you are trying to make up, it might be worth while to tighten up the tolerances on the rim thickness and base diameter when you get your reamer made.

Bruce,

Of course, I haven't particularly worried about reproducible lengths in my rifle because whatever I use is well too short.  But both brands of brass have fireformed very well, with pretty even case mouths after opening and no failures upon forming.

But I don't really see any "safety" issue with the shell lengths.  If you want to make sure all your cases are even at forming, you ought to plan to trim them to 2.84", just to be sure.  If you want every last iota of length, it might be best to find a shooter with a .40-90, lay in a supply of shells, and have him fireform them to see what the lengths are, and then trim to the max possibility and order your reamer and dies accordingly.  I don't know how typical my small samples of German brass would be of the brass you may wind up getting.

Bertram quality ranges from barely there to annoying but acceptable, depending on caliber and vintage.  The.40-90 has been in the latter category; after a thorough annealing, the main irritation has been varying length.  (You might be in a better position to pound on Bertram's desk and give him what-for than we are; the Home Market ought to be of more concern than the barbarians in foreign countries that accept any trinket offered. ).

Most of my Bertrams have stretched out enough to reach max length and more by the use of paper patch bullets and black powder.  I've yanked a few in half by being careless about drying the chamber, but that isn't Bertram's fault, and there seems to be enough brass in the walls so that the shells can be "drawn," as it were, into the leade and trimmed back.  I've either gotten a lengthened shell to trim, a two-piece shell, or a "kurtz" shell with the bullet having dragged the front part out the barrel.  No stuck front ends in the rifling yet; knock on wood.  But this lengthening seems to be a peculiar hazard of long cases and paper patched bullets; something to keep in mind and to have a contingency plan for.  By the way, they are cavernous; I can drop in 100 gr of powder with plenty of headspace left.

As for the mutant .40s based on the .405 Basic brass, they've made things convenient for some people at the expense of throwing the rest of us into utter confusion.  The thick rims and narrow bases of these shells generally make for an expensive misfit in original chambers, and nobody but the "stuck-ee" who has gotten the wrong brass or rented the wrong reamer seems to be unduly concerned about this.

bruce moulds
i just recently chambered my replacement ballard barrel in a approximate "40-85" by using a 40-90 ss reamer and short chambering it to 2 15/16 deep. the 9.3x74r will fire form to just short of that length. the hornady brass rim diameter is small, so i  made up a new extractor. i have been shooting this gun a lot in the last few weeks, and am closing in on a decent load for 100-200 yd shooting with was my original goal. i was too impatient and maybe cheap too to wait for, and invest in a custom reamer. by being a slighty undersize chamber (almost a tight match) it allows for opening it up if ever the need arises.
neck sizing or not, allows paper patch bullets to work too.
best.....kw

I managed to source some once fired Norma 9.3x74R brass and they form into useable, shooter brass for my Ballard No. 5 Pacific in .40-90 Ballard.  I've also been lucky enough that my Ballard seems to extract them without problem even thought the rims are a bit undersized.  My gun came with 20 rounds of Bertram .40-90 brass and they seem prone to splitting even with annealing and are FAR too expensive to buy in quantity which is why I went the 9.3x74R route instead.  I need to do some more load testing and I also need to break down and buy a decent tang sight for it ...

Haven't been on here posting for a while thanks to some ongoing health issues, but finally got up to the range yesterday with my No. 5 Pacific .40-90 Ballard to try a few shots in the reformed 9.3x74R Norma cases.  They work well in my particular rifle and as long as I am careful to ensure that the extractor is seated before I chamber a cartridge the fired cases extract without any problems.  Initially I pre-formed the cases using 8.5 grains of Nitro 100, a quarter sheet of toilet tissue, bulk yellow cornmeal up to the case mouth, and then another quarter sheet of toilet tissue to hold it all in place.  I held the muzzle vertical and fire-formed them.  The do come out a bit "wasp-waisted" with the blank charges, but then I loaded them with 10 grains of IMR4198 as a "kicker" charge over a Federal 215 Magnum primer, a small square of toilet tissue, 50.5 grains of 3F (didn't have any 2F or 1F on hand to try), a .410 hard card wad, a .410 fibre wad, and then a 400 grain RCBS Silhouette cast bullet seated on top.  This gives the powder charge about 1/4" of crush.  I've been using my .40-82 WCF dies to neck size the cases and seat the bullets.  (Didn't break down and buy a $200 US set of CH4D dies for it yet.)  They shot OK and the cases blew out fully formed to the bases now, but there was evidence of tipping or "key-holing" in the target holes so as I sort of suspected to begin with the 400 grain bullets I tried are likely too long and heavy for the rifling twist.  (They were all I had on hand to test initially.)  I've since bought a used 350 RCBS Silhouette mould to test in it and will try those the next time, but the eventual plan is to buy a proper smooth sided adjustable paper patch mould from Red River Rick out in Winnipeg and try shooting a paper patched 330 grain bullet in an attempt to match the original 1880's factory loading for the .40-90 Ballard cartridge.  (We can always use the 350 and 400 grain RCBS Silhouette bullets in my friend's .40-65 Uberti Highwall.)

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Rev Al,
I am using the RCBS 335 CSA mold and with my 30:1 mix it drops at 345 grs. I am loading mine with smo9keless at around 1350 fps., and it will group around 1.25" at 100 yds. It shoots as accurate fire forming as it does the 2nd loading with formed brass. 
I recently took mine to our annual long range fun shoot, and found it boringly accurate, as it consistently hit the 450 yd. dinger every shot once I got it sighted in. The 650 yd. was about a 70% hit ratio, but I can't blame the Pacific for that. More likely the shooter's lack of skill.
It's my new favorite caliber and gun combination for shooting!

Reverend Al wrote on Aug 12^th, 2017 at 5:46pm:


I've used a lot of 2400 and Unique over the years in old guns, but only tried 2400 in this Pacific, as it shot so well with it right off. I'm using 20.0 grs. of 2400 with the 345 gr. bullet. I have a lot of old Ideal loading manuals and found the load in it for another similar sized case. I believe the load in my Ideal manual was at 22.0-24.0 grs., and I reduced it down to this starting point. But it did so well I never bumped it up. Just too pleasant and mild to shoot, so why push any further?