Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Kurt]

It's my Farmer. 1/17 ROT.
I just finished making a template for the patches and cut a bunch of patches.
The patched bullet just fits in the fired case perfect that I can turn the case upside down and it holds the bullet. I made a dummy round with a couple bullets in the case and paper towel on top and seated the round till it pushed the bullet tight into the lead and the bullet is in the case less than 1/8". When I load some in the morning I will compress a round in small steps till the round makes contact with the lead and lock the compression die. If I have time tomorrow I will head back to the range where I have 200 yards. I don't have any Swiss left so it will be 2 or 1.5 OE maybe both. I think 82 grains will be a good start using that powder. 82 gr is about .230" compression in my cases using a double wad stack with plastic and cork under the bullet.
My next step will be mixing some of Arnies hard mix lino/ww. I shot some of his bullets into the snow bank and they just engraved the base band with no setback to speed of. Maybe one thousand.