Talk:.44-40 Winchester

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• http://www.leverguns.com/articles/44WCF.htm
  • In .44-40 Winchester on 2011-05-20 21:37:25, 404 Not Found
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--JeffGBot (talk) 12:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I went to Leverguns.com and looked through their list of articles. I found these two on the .44-40 cartridge:

http://www.leverguns.com/articles/4440.htm http://www.leverguns.com/articles/44wcf.htm

Note that second one. With the capital letters in "44WCF.htm" the page does not display, and browsers give a 404 error, but with all lowercase the page loads and renders. It looks like the filename at the end of the URL is case-sensitive. According to RFC4343 this is permissible--domain names are case insensitive, but the rest of the URL is sent to the server via the GET method, and how it is handled can vary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:400:8000:4526:394C:F778:4954:2EF1 (talk) 05:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Sections and reference

I just added the sections to make this article more inline with other cartridge articles of the same era. I've added an inline citation to George Madis' "The Winchester Book", each and every article that references Winchester firearms or any cartridge associated with them should have at least one Madis reference. He is the standard reference on all things Winchester. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 01:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Ballistic performance?

The velocities and energies on the table seem VERY optimistic for a blackpowder era revolver cartridge, unless all of them were measured or claimed from a rifle barrel, and even then.

I cannot source this--it is something I read in a gun magazine from the 1970s or earlier--but I have read that, as a general rule of thumb, with any of the large-caliber (.32 caliber or larger) blackpowder era service revolver cartridges, ammunition loaded with blackpowder would have used the FFFg grade. And in all instances, the cartridges were designed to be loaded with an unjacketed lead bullet over a charge of blackpowder that filled the case to the bottom of the projectile, with no airspace. And, all else being equal, fired from a Colt Single Action Army or similar revolver, if it were from the 4 3/4" barreled "Infantry Model," velocity was almost always about 800 feet per second, regardless of caliber. If the 5 1/2" "Artillery Model," then 900 feet per second. And from the 7 1/2" "Cavalry Model," 1000 feet per second was the usual muzzle velocity.

So if the original factory .44-40 ammunition used a 200 grain lead bullet over a charge of 40 grains FFFg black powder, muzzle velocity would vary depending on barrel length and other factors, but if we assume it is fired from a revolver with a 5 1/2" barrel, I would expect muzzle velocity to be 900 feet per second, more or less, which calculates to 359 foot-pounds of kinetic energy. For the time and place, this was a very powerful pistol cartridge, only slightly less powerful than the .45 Colt revolver cartridge. I would expect its terminal ballistics to be on par with other such cartridges.

The pressure curve generated by blackpowder propellant is highly limiting. From the sources I see online, even from a 24" rifle barrel the original blackpowder ammunition generally did not much exceed 1300 feet per second, and this, of course, would tend to be less in rifles with shorter barrels. 1300 gives us 750 foot-pounds of kinetic energy at the muzzle, which hunters of whitetail deer and similar animals in the present day generally consider marginal except at the closest ranges, with the most precise of bullet placement. For comparison, a 200 grain bullet at 1300 feet per second is a very mild load in .44 Magnum, and that's with the velocity measured from a 4" revolver.

But 1600+ foot-pounds of energy, from a .44-40? This would surprise me. I am imagining this would have to require a combination of a modern jacketed bullet, modern smokeless powder, and much higher pressures than the blackpowder cartridges generated, pressures that just might explosively disassemble a period iron-framed Winchester 1873, though later designs like the 1892 are known to be much stronger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:400:8000:4526:CD1E:6AD4:72F4:8CF4 (talk) 05:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Hornady XTP

I'm by no means an expert but the figures given for the performance of this round seem wrong. Using the weight and velocity listed and the calculator here I get a muzzle energy of 1620 ft-lbs/2197J which is very different to the value listed in the table. Hornady's website doesn't seem to list an XTP round in 44-40. Can someone with experience of this round take a look? -- Boreas74 ^{You'll catch more flies with honey} 07:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Hornady XTP Performance And Other Performance In General

I performed some personal amateur tests not long ago. My tests were done using a 20" 1 1/4" diameter MGM custom barrel with a Pressuretrace II strain gauge system and my custom test platform.

Pressure Tests Results (Using the Hornady 200gr XTP) yielded 1,400fps using a caseload of Reloder 7 @ 13,000psi (SAAMI MAX IS 11,000psi). 20gr of 2400 yielded 1,554fps @ 13,772psi, 10gr of Unique yielded 1,292fps @ 15,400psi, 26gr H4198 yielded 1,247fps @ 11,641psi, 22gr IMR-4227 yielded 1,449fps @ 15,022psi. That is all I tested with the MGM and Pressuretrace system with that particular bullet. Total, I performed 83 tests @ 10 shots per test (830 shots) using various powders, bullets and loads. The absolute highest pressure I recorded was using 12gr of Unique and a 200gr lead hardcast "Magma" bullet sized .429 yielded 1,635fps @ 21,786psi. The highest velocity I obtained was 1,733fps using 25.5gr of IMR-4227 with a Winchester 200gr .4255" Jacketed Soft Point bullet which yielded 19,652psi.

I also tested some 40gr black powder loads using Swiss FFg and original pre-1884 semi-balloonhead cases. Powder compression approx .015" with a Lyman 427098 cast lead bullet. Pressures yielded a surprising 14,285psi @ 1,373fps. The same exact load but using modern Starline cases (approx .21" compression) yielded a not surprising 8,953psi @ 1,226fps. Various vintage cases by REM-UMC and WRA simi-balloonhead cases yielded 10,000 to 12,700psi respectively but using Goex FFFg. This should give an idea on the reported nearly 2,000fps XTP I am replying to in the previous posting above. The nearly 2,000fps load probably produces upwards to 30,000psi and is not recommended for use in any firearm by me. Sharpe lists some hefty loads in his 1937 manual using older powders like SR-80, IMR-1204, 2400, Unique to name a few. Many come in at 1,600, 1,700, and even 1,800 with 200gr JSP ans some 200gr lead bullets. Surprisingly he lists normal loads for both rifle and revolver at 16,000 pressure but does not specify which method was used...maybe cup. Some loads as high as 20,000 which relates to Winchester's 1903-1945 High Velocity pressures. However, one in particular load used 27.5gr of 2400 (1937 remind you) that produced 2,100fps @ 33,000 pressure (method not reported...maybe cup) BUT ONLY USED the small diameter Winchester .4255" JSP. My work can be found at https://curtisshawk21.wixsite.com/44centerfire BryanEAustin (talk) 02:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

The only pressure testing method that existed in 1937 would have been the old copper-crusher setup. For those reading along at home, CUP are only very very roughly equivalent to PSI, and modern piezoelectric pressure testing tools that became available in the 1980s and 1990s can give pressure peak figures rather different from the figures from the copper crusher. Piezoelectric tests are vastly more sensitive and can discern very brief pressure peaks that do not have sufficient duration to displace a significant amount of copper. Which is why when there is a significant discrepancy between CUP and PSI, the PSI figure will always be the higher of the two, as it is an actual measurement of true peak pressure and not a SWAG based on a deformed copper foil cap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:400:8000:A140:8099:9990:C5B1:3F22 (talk) 04:50, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

What I really got out of this is that Brian has done original research, which might be fine to leave here but does not go on the main page. Hornady lists no such round, they have a 205gr .44-40 Cowboy, that is the only .44-40 round they say they have. I am deleting the XTP line as it seems like bullshit. 142.120.125.127 (talk) 04:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)