Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

Gavin,

I went with Arnie's dimensions and he goes a little more pointed than I do on these ellipticals, but his bullets do shoot well. It's kind of funny but when I look at the mold cavity it looks like something I would design, but when the bullets drop out of the mold it looks more like what Arnie designs! Must be some sort of gremlins at work in there when the mold is closed up.

Arnie drew up the design almost immediately after he heard I was working on a .44-77, but I had to wait until I had the rifle in hand before I could adjust diameters to fit my barrel. Fit is very important.

Arnie goes with about 25% of caliber for the nose radius and I like the 33% that Dr. Gunn used so effectively in his designs. That said I'm not entirely sure if there is much difference. I always feel that the more pointed and therefore longer the nose is the more leverage there is for the wind demons to pry the bullet off it's intended course. Especially those quartering headwinds.

And yes ladies and gentlemen there are demons out there that work very hard to keep our bullets out of the center. I have actually seen a bullet completely disappear on the way to the target from 800 yards. Well, at least it never hit where anyone could see it and the guy I was spotting for was pounding the 10-ring pretty hard at the time. When the target came up a miss we were sure that something was amiss! We never did figure out where that bullet went. DEMONS!

I had a shot from 600 yards once that looked perfect, the target went down, stayed down and eventually came up a miss. I had been shooting pretty well and my shots were near center so after the match I asked the guy pulling for me what happened on that miss, he said he had no idea. The shot came in and hit in the group on the berm but he and two other guys could not find a hole in the paper! If you have a better explanation I like to hear it. Oh yea, they're out there alright! That's one of the reasons I shoot paper patch, the smooth sided bullets are much harder for demons to get ahold of! With grease groove they can so easily get ahold of the bullets and they can almost turn a bullet around and make it go back where it came from. You grease groove shooter best keep your heads down!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it! There is a difference between facts and story telling, I trust that most of the readers can tell the difference! I hope so anyway or I may find myself being fitted for a straight jacket!

I'll patch up some of these new 505s and load them over 86 grains of my newest lot of Swiss and shoot them at 220 yards along with some of Matt's 2-D bullets and both the loads I used at Rapids. Then I'll know what I'm working with and if things are shooting as well as they appear to be.

I'm hoping the 450 grain bullet seated deep shows as well on paper as it did on the gongs. If so it could make for a pretty good silhouette load while not using too much powder and lead.

I've got so much experimenting to do with this .44-77 that it is going to take me quite a lot of shooting and time. So stay tuned and I'll be back with more.