Hi all, I'm still working on my 16 bore pinfire Howdah project. I picked up a couple of box's of CBC 16 ga brass shells. I've turned the rims down on the lathe, then cut a little long with a tubine cutter, then put back in the lathe to trim to length. It's giveing really consistent lengths. within .001".
Now I need to plug the primer pockets with something. On my 50 BMG cases, I left the old primer in on one, and on the other soldered a steel plug in place. Both seemed to work fine when fired. I'm wondering if I could just fill the primer pocket up with some silver solder and let it go at that. It would be alot easier. The loading should be way low pressure if it would matter. I tried soldering a plug in one tonight and the CBC brass didn't cooperate well. It's soldered, but not pretty. I guess I could just shoot some of each and see if it makes a difference. any thoughts?
pics of gun at:
http://members.fortunecity.com/howda/howda.html

Filling the primer pockets with solder or brazing rod might unduly soften the base and head area from the heat. Why not plug the hole with a fired primer? After all, primers are designed to hold the pressure in on conventional ammo.

I would turn a brass plug in the lathe, cut so it projects into the shell about 1/8", and fill the primer hole with that. Tap into the primer hole, then put it over a cylindrical mandrel and tap again to upset it on the inside, then file or face off the outside.

Alternatively you could tap the primer hole for some threaded brass rod and loctite it in, then file smooth.

The CBC cases are made for a funny berdan primer that I can't get locally. I may go with the rivited in brass plug, then try to solder on the inside. I was reading in a cartrige conversion book about oversizeing a case, then soldering brass tubeing on to lengthen it. Their process was to put the case head on a hot plate and solder when hot enough, then air cool. They said the air cool would optimize the hardness of brass.
This will be a way low pressure round anyway. The CBC brass is so thin that I think I may have to neck down the mouth to hold a bullet of the right size. I made a sizeing die last night and it seemed to work pretty good on a few cases.