Reeder Custom Guns - I was wanting to play with brass today if I can sneak away

from work for a diversion. With the promotion "work" is more real now than year's before, but I'm trying to keep my mojo. I want to manipulate a .45 ACP or cut off .270 etc. case to hold a .430" projectile. The latter would afford more length in the case of necking but I'd actually prefer more of a taper like the 9mm Luger. The cut-off 06' cases required nasty inside case reaming for the original AMP .44.

How in the world to take a straight wall ACP and make a graceful taper using a hodge-podge of common dies? Any ideas just to see what it looks like? Maybe on a shorter .45 GAP case to allow the longer 44 Revolver bullets to stick out to OAL? Capacity is not a big issue since the performance envelope is conservative and obtainable with faster powders. It's fun to ponder.

If anyone enjoys sharing in pointless endeavors...

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it was necked down there was a bad bulge at the shoulder. I tried tapering it down and that helped a bit but with that taper it would for sure back out of a revolver and lock up the gun. At the time I called one of the 1911 barrel makers about a barrel and he told me I would have to order a minimum of 250 barrels with a delivery time of a year. That pretty much killed the idea. I still have the prototype round around here somewhere. I will see if I can find it.

an old Gunsmithing technique, maybe called "stubbing". Basically you cut off the barrel just ahead of the chamber and thread the entire hood area of the barrel including the lugs. Then a prepared "barrel" is threaded in place and chambered to what's desired. A bit more work than a new revolver barrel but I guess they have done that in the past to acquire the unobtainable. Kind of like sleeving but more robust.

In the realm of profitability it may be too invasive. Just a fun idea, too hard to get to.

2 years ago a friend of mine as a gag asked me to make a 9mm-45 for one of his friends who constantly mixed up his mags while at the range, He would be shooting his 45 acp and grab a 9mm mag, when he let the slide go a 9mm round would fall out of the barrel on the bench where everyone could witness it, if I remember right to make the 10 finished rounds I went through 25-30 cases mainly just to get them evenly centered, They did look real odd

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38/.45_Clerke

actually .38 Full Wadcutters from a match .45 1911 chassis with a custom .38 cal. barrel installed. You still use .45 mags and such. A wonderful and valid idea for it's intended purpose of paper punching. It did not fare as well when pushed hard to compete with the .38 Super trying to achieve Major power. A Super requires a different chassis (or basically a second gun).

The .38 Casull was another cup if tea! It was blistering hot! Still it lacked traction. Ditto the excellent 9x25 Dillon, I still want one of those (10mm necked to 9mm).

I have some .400 Corbon cases I could indeed play with if I don't collapse the shoulders. It was fun, but OH MY, what troubles I personally had trying to get full 10mm power. A 10mm Auto is far, far easier.

he used in the military shoots and shot several records with it. He offered it to me when he was coming down with Alzheimers but I passed on it. It shot a very special 38 caliber cartridge, somewhat similar to the 38 wadcutter. He gave me his High Standard that he set a lot of records with, some of which still stand.
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At the time High Standard was the distributor for the 44 Auto Mags and he gave me his Auto Mag that was his display piece. I felt bad taking those guns but I knew he had a good reason for giving them to me. The 38 AMU didn't interest me but I should have taken it. The AMU stood for Army Markmanship Unit. And there were very few of them made by Colt.

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The ammo was like a rimless or semi rimmed 38 wadcutter.

I did not quite know what they were, other than special target rounds. I know the S&W Model 52 holds about (5) rounds of "normal" .38 Special FULL, flush, WADCUTTERS in it's magazine, and will literally stack them into a target.

.400 Corbon, 44/Corbin, tapered .44 ACP

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doing things. Wish it had been out several years ago when I was trying new things.

It is straight sided to the small shoulder, so no inline mag feeding issues as could manifest with a tapered case. Also it might be easy to mistake a tapered case for a regular .45 ACP.

Since these modern necked semi-auto cases headspaced on the case mouth and NOT the shoulder it's small size is of limited concern. I would petition for a necked length at least as long as the bearing surface on a Serria 180 gr. JHC (fantastic bullet). Might as well have as much neck tension as is reasonable. You don't need or would gain much capacity by keeping it minimal.

It's great fun to armchair quarterback.

proven to be of any benefit. One of the most accurate 7mms I have ever shot was the 7mm Super mag with a .050 neck. I try to keep all our necks at .200 or less and have never had any problems if one uses common sense in his reloading. The old wives tale that a neck had to be the same as the caliber, I.E. a 30 caliber cartridge had to have a .300 neck. Total bull hockey.

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sort of the same thing. He took a double barreled shotgun, a good all steel one, and cut the barrels off just ahead of the chamber. He then threaded what was left and made barrels in some of the old African calibers, I saw one in 425 Westley Richards. He chambered the two barrels, threaded the rear end and threaded the barrels into the shotgun stubs. He used small pieces of wood that he tapped into the space between the barrels and would shoot them. If the barrels weren't shooting to the same point of aim, he would get a smaller or larger wood wedge and tap it in. He did this until he got both barrels hitting within a couple of inches at 25 yards. Then he would switch the wood wedge for a steel wedge and would solder that to the barrels. Then he would make a rib and solder it to the barrels over the top of the steel wedge. Surprisingly enough they shot very well, and he could get a gun done in about a month. He had 2 young men helping that did all the shooting. He said he built 470 Nitros, 500 Nitros and several other calibers. If memory serves me he only charged about $2500 on the customers base gun. He liked using the Browning BSS in 12 gauge as the base gun. The old fellow passed on around '94 about the time we moved out here.

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around for quite some time, would be hard to believe that it hasn't been attempted at some point in time. Seems like with restricted case capacity, would have to use a light for caliber bullet to obtain speed? If you cut case for heavier projectile, you lose capacity and essentially power?

Special bullets. Say 900-950 fps with a 200-240 gr. That's plenty and should not tax the platform at all. A semi-auto warm loaded .44 Special.

Maybe that's the ticket, cut down a .44 Special and turn a semi-auto rimless head on it. It's just for a display exercise anyway.

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