RELOADING
.40-65 Winchester
This old thumper is equally at home in lever-actions and single-shots.
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Here we will deal only with the challenge of getting ammunition that shoots in an 1886. First, what are the problems?
The major one is the requirements of lever-åactions with tubular magazines. Cartridges must be a certain length, and no longer or shorter, in order to feed and eject properly. The bullets must have flat or round noses to ensure they do not ignite the primer in front under recoil. And bullets must be firmly crimped, which means the length requirement makes cannelure location critical.
The factory load for the .40-65 Winchester (also known as the .40-60 Marlin but not to be confused with the .40-60 Winchester, which is a distinctly different cartridge) used a 260-grain bullet, and reloaders for 1886s should stick with that weight, at least to begin with.
The first problem you are likely to encounter is a difference between bore diameter and chamber dimensions.
Because the .40-65 began life as a black powder cartridge firing soft lead bullets, the rifle depended on the “bumping” action of black-powder ignition to expand the diameter of the bullet before it entered the bore, to engage the rifling. So a smaller-diameter bullet was loaded and the chamber so fitted.
If the bullet does not engage the rifling, you will get poor accuracy at best, keyholing at worst.
Smokeless powder does not bump a bullet, lead or otherwise. The obvious answer would be to use a larger-diameter bullet, but this is not always possible because the chamber may not accept it.
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