Making Cases for the .50-95 Winchester

I have a Uberti made reproduction Winchester 1876 in .50-95 caliber. A while back I bought some cases from Jamison to load ammunition for this gun. Unfortunately the company is now defunct, and finding cases to load for this rifle is like finding teeth in a chicken. So today I decided to make a few to reload.

32 Gauge shotshells

Unfortunately the company is now defunct, and finding cases to load for this rifle is like finding teeth in a chicken. So today I decided to make a few to reload.

I started off with a box of MagTech 32 gauge brass shotshells. With a bit of work, they will fit just fine. When you have a firearm that’s basically a paperweight until you make ammo, you do what you have to.

Turning the cases

I begin by inserting a metal rod that just slips into the case and I chuck it in my lathe. I remove ten thousandths off the outside of the case so it can fit in the chamber of the rifle. You will want to do this step first, in the event that your lathe jaws dent the edge of the case mouth when you tighten them against the rod and brass case to hold it in place.

Case trimmed for width

After polishing out the machine marks on my buffer wheel and smoothing the case, I use Dykem blue to set the case length for trimming.

Marking the case to trim length

After trimming the case to 1.89” and washing the Dykem off with acetone, I run the case through the full length sizing die. Usually I need to anneal the cases first, but the .50-95 doesn’t have much of a shoulder. There’s not a lot of metal displacement. If you do use case lube, I recommend a spray on like Hornady One Shot. These cases are very thin, and a roll on wax lube from a pad will cause hydraulic crushing of the case walls.

Lathe marks polished out

Fortunately for my particular rifle, no modifications needed to be done for the rim thickness or rim diameter. Your mileage may vary depending on your particular rifle. The Jamison brass has a rim thickness of .052” and a diameter of .622”. The Magtech has a rim thickness of .047” and a rim diameter of .625”. Keep in mind that a lever action cartridge such as this headspace’s off the rim thickness. The Magtech brass uses a large pistol primer instead of a rifle primer. There’s enough firing pin protrusion to reliably ignite the pistol primers, as they are a bit more sensitive than rifle primers can sometimes be.

I don’t know how well these would work in an original 1876, but they’re fine in my reproduction model.

32 gauge on left, 50-95 on right

The unmodified Magtech brass hull next to a modified .50-95 case.

Head stamps on both cases

Keep in mind that the 32 gauge MagTech brass does use a large pistol primer. The rifle primer will not seat deep enough to be safe in a magazine tube.