I hope you all will indulge me - this is not for a single shot rifle. Its for an 1870s vintage Colt Derringer.  But since some of you have shown interest in my other reloadable rimfire endeavors, I thought you might find this interesting.

I have never made a cartridge case from scratch. But this afternoon I spent a good 2+ hours setting up, measuring, checking, double checking, figuring out tooling and the proper order of machining. All this in an attempt to make a .41 rimfire short case from solid brass bar stock. 

I've said it before - I'm not a machinist. I'm just a bubba with a lathe in my home shop. So making something like this is a real challenge to my skills. But I have nothing to lose but my time and a little brass. But nevertheless, it is nerve racking knowing that one wrong measurement or wrong cut and the whole thing is ruined.

Well, to my surprise it came out pretty well. It chambers properly and the headspace is good. It still needs to be chambered for the offset .22 starter blank and annealed. I'll do that later this weekend.

Knowing how much work it is, I'll gladly let guys with the expensive CNC equipment make them

Looks like a single shot to me!  Great pix, keep 'em coming!

My first loaded round. It held 8.0gr of drop tubed Old Eynsford 3f. The bullet heel is .100".  The bullet  compressed the powder maybe .030". The original load is listed between 11-13gr. With the starter pistol blank adding a little umph, it may be similar to the original cartridge.

I'm using C360 brass. C260 might have been better, but I couldnt find it in the size i needed.

4570mike wrote on Jul 31^st, 2021 at 6:42pm:


Maybe... This was my first time, so still figuring out what is best. I needed to establish the rear of the rim first to determine how deep to bore the hole. I could have done the OD turning later. But the wall thickness is only about .013". I worried that the turning bit might cause the wall to flex in if I had bored the hole first. But as it is I drilled it with a 3/8" bit followed by a 3/8" end mill to get the bottom of the hole flat. Then a boring bar to open it up from .375" to .382". I may try it the other way next time. Its a learning experience

I went to the range to try out my ONE shop made .41 rimfire short cartidge in the Colt 3rd model derringer. The little .32 rimfire short Remington ring trigger was brought along too for a comparison. The Remington had a fail to fire on one round. That turned out to be a dud .22 blank primer. No fault of the pistol.

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It looked like it rotated up quite a ways in the video when I saw it the first time. Ha! Just how far were the targets you used to get it up that high?

Not to be a cold-water-thrower, but way back when you could still occasionally find shootable vintage .41 RF ammo and the Navy Arms remakes were quite easy to get, I shot my Remington Model 95 (the "double derringer") quite a lot.  Never did I experience recoil like ndnchf did, let alone a blowtorch flame coming out of the barrels.  Perhaps his reload was a little hot?

Bill Lawrence