Rescued a Remington #1 wall hanger from a garage sale....before he died, Dave Higgenbotham cleaned the action and had the original .22 WCF barrel bored and tubed to 25-20. Then Curt Hardcastle put a small firing pin in it and fine tuned the action.
Shoots ok as 25-20 but would like to go to another low pressure round that the action can handle and I don't have to get a bank loan to purchase off the shelf... Willing to re- barrel
Referrals, history lessons? Any metallurgy experts
How about a 30-30 and run black powder with lead slugs.
Not an expert, but the .32, .38, and .44WCFs were all originally BP rounds and can use Trail Boss loads. Another easy one would be .38 Special, with cheap brass that you can size without lube in a carbide die. The .38 would be my choice for ease of use alone.
A re-bore would be fairly cheap.
No expert here either but I would look at the 38/55 with lead bullets and light charges of Unique or real black powder.
All those suggestions would work, but whatever cartridge is decided, I would shy away from those that are offered as +P loads from the factory (such as .38 Spl.) or any other cartridge that is susceptible to being loaded hot for fear of some wise guy getting his hands on it sometime and wailing away with it and then go wailing to the hospital.
Personally I like the idea of making it a .32-40.
I have an antique 22 rem rolling block, I don't know what it can take.
But my No 5 model 1905 or 1910 type rebarreled in 38 special, I have fired 357 mag double charges of bullseye and 158 gr until the CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers pierced. That is a strong action.
32-20 could be an option or a 327 federal, which would allow shooting just about any straight wall .32 call out there.
Just rechamber it to 25-35. Shouldn't overload it. All I have played with were the smokeless frames however.
There are several types and sizes of Rolling Blocks. My #5 is a 45-70. My #4 is a 22RF. My BIL's is a #2 and it is a 32-20. A Rolling Block could be many different things.
The 32-20 is not a straight wall cartridge, it is a bottleneck.
Sorry, didn't see the #1 in the OP heading.
I have an 1885 Low wall that has been bored and a .25-20 liner installed. Rifle wasn't finished after that. I converted firing pin to center fire and hunted up brass. I used a 75 gr hornady plastic tip bullet with 10.8 gr. of Lil Gun to take a nice buck last year. You have to really pick your shots, kind of like bow hunting. I wouldn't want to use it all the time, but enjoyed the challenge of getting the ole boy back together and hunting again. Very fun to shoot and accurate as well. Starline makes .32-20 brass cheap that can be reformed pretty easy. Really good brass.
I like have a stock No4 antique and a modified non antique, that I will probably convert to 357 max before I convert to bottle necked 257 Roberts rimmed or something.
BAD idea.
Both of the choices above are WAY out of this small, and somewhat WEAK action's capacity.
GTC