More Reliable Lever Gun Ammunition
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 10 months ago
Federal’s Hammer Down line is targeted directly to lever-gun hunters. Federal worked directly with Henry Repeating Arms on this project to solve common loading, feeding, and cycling issues with standard ammunition by deburring and adding slight chambering (sic) at key spots on the cases. They also added a higher quality bullet, a controlled-expansion bonded bullet that will perform better than typical lever-gun offerings. You’ll get reliable cycling, as well as expansion without sacrificing penetration. If you’re a lever-gun hunter, especially in straight-wall states, you’ll want to check this out. It’s going to be hitting the shelves in standard lever-gun cartridges from .327 Federal magnum up to .45-70..
The author at Outdoor Life didn’t mean “chambering.” He meant chamfering.
From Guns.com.
“We needed to develop a complete line of optimized ammunition for use in lever-action rifles while still functioning in handguns. During development, we looked most specifically at terminal performance across all cartridges when shot in a lever-action firearm,” Federal Ammunition Centerfire Rifle Product Line Manager Eric Miller said in a statement. “With HammerDown, we believe we have accomplished that goal.”
It’s fairly pricey.
- .357 Magnum 170-grain, $19.99
- .327 Federal 127-grain — $19.99
- .44 Rem Mag 270-grain — $19.99
- .45 Colt 250-grain — $19.99
- .30-30 Win 150-grain — $19.99
- .45-70 Govt 300-grain — $38.99
Here is a video from SHOT Show.
On January 30, 2020 at 7:21 am, 41mag said:
But….come on! No 41 magnum love?
On January 30, 2020 at 12:32 pm, Pat Hines said:
This is good news, I have a Model 94 in 45 Colt caliber, I’ll see about obtaining a case or two.
On January 30, 2020 at 12:34 pm, Pat Hines said:
Sorry, 41Mag, your caliber is much like a 16 gauge shotgun, works fine, not much available for it.
On January 30, 2020 at 1:20 pm, George said:
there was a reason that the cartridges for the lever guns were bottle necked.
just saying…..
On January 30, 2020 at 1:32 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@George,
For something like 30-30, yea. But wouldn’t it be correct to say that the original use of the lever gun was Colt 45, which isn’t? I’m not enough of an aficionado to know the early history of the design.
On January 30, 2020 at 2:45 pm, JoeFour said:
“… wouldn’t it be correct to say that the original use of the lever gun was Colt 45…”
Well, I’m testing failing memory banks here, but I believe the 45 Colt didn’t make it into lever guns until the Uberti and similar reproductions started up sometime post WW II. Original chambering was 44 Henry (a rim fire?) and then 44-40 (most famously in the Winchester Model 1973). Time for GeorgiaBoy61 to check in!
On January 30, 2020 at 3:52 pm, 41mag said:
Well, FortuneCookie45LC has plenty of reloading data, bet he can match the performance of theirs
On January 30, 2020 at 8:26 pm, George said:
no, the lever guns were not in .45 Colt. 44WCF (44-40) 38 WCF (38-40)
32-20 and 25-20.
The 1876 had bottle neck cartridges. the 1886 which featured a Browning design action did feed the slightly tapered cases of 40-65, 45-60, 45-70 and a few others.
On January 30, 2020 at 11:29 pm, BRVTVS said:
45 Colt originally had a small, weak rim that would fail during extraction. It was also a proprietary cartridge. The 44-40 (aka 44WCF) was the round of choice for the 1873 Winchester, with a slight bottleneck. It’s a fine round for blackpowder because the 44-40 brass makes a good seal, keeping fouling out of the receiver.