Wisconsin Rapids mid-range match with my .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

On Saturday the 22nd at Wisconsin Rapids Arnie Seitz held a one day BPCR mid range paper match consisting of 1 relay at 300 and 2 relays at 600 yards. Attendance was not large but that didn’t hinder the fun as old friends got together to do some good shooting.

First off congratulations are due to Mark Schuenke for winning the iron sight class with a second 600 yard score of 99-3X finishing with 272-5X for the day. That 99-3X gave Mark the tie breaker over Matt Steckel who also had a 272-5X for the day.

Arnie Seitz won the modern class (any sight and/or any powder) with 256-6X.

I shot my newly rebarreled .44-77 with iron sights and finished with a 270-6X behind Mark and Matt.

Overall my .44-77 did well and I learned a couple of things that I need to work on to step it up a notch.

1) I had some trouble with my bore critters not cleaning all the fouling out of the barrel. My .44 caliber bore critters are patterned after my .45 caliber critters. They have one .452 diameter felt in the front. That has always worked in my .45-90 and .45-70 with no problem. In my .44-77 this design would leave some heavy fouling in the 2 to 3” just ahead of the chamber. Last month for the gong match I used 2 wet and 1 dry patch just as I have through all of my load development and had no trouble at all.
2) I’ve had some trouble getting my new set triggers on this Shiloh adjusted to my satisfaction. I had it set to a minimum engagement and that hasn’t been too bad during development. I was able to get the rear trigger down to a less painful weight. As it came from Shiloh pulling the rear trigger would actually be painful after awhile. Now it is very easy to pull. The front trigger is still too heavy and at the match I was having trouble getting it to break when I wanted it to. It was just too heavy. I’ve worked with it since the match and it seems to be better now.

To improve the fouling control I’ve reworked my bore critters to have 2 felts on the front end. That will hold more of my wiping solution. At a match after each shot I pick up a critter which is in a plastic cartridge box with the felt down soaking in the solution and push into the chamber so that the wet felt is up in the throat area. That sits there while I grab a dry patch and my wiping stick which allows it to soften the fouling in this critical area for several seconds before being push slowly through the bore.

As I said this has always worked well in my straight cased .45s. I’m thinking that with the bottleneck .44 there is somewhat heavier fouling in this area and I need not so much more liquid but a longer wet felt section to soak and soften more of this fouling over a longer area. Does that make sense?

At the match on my 2nd 600 yard relay what I started doing was instead of pushing the critters through with a dry patch I used a damp patch and that seemed to not leave any fouling in the barrel ahead of the chamber. Whether the damp patch was best for accuracy or not I don’t know. I did not have any trouble chambering the rounds and the barrel was hot enough after a few shots that there could not have been much moisture left in the barrel to affect the paper patches. The rifle was shooting well until the last shot which was a low 7 and cost me the win.

Hopefully I’ll have a chance this week to shoot my .44-77 and test the reworked bore critters and the set trigger. Everything else worked pretty well.

I did test two different loads at 600. The first relay I used a load with 86 grains of 1 ½ Swiss and the second relay I used an 88 grain load with all else the same. Both relays had some wind to deal with but it was a little more switchy on the first relay I think. I would say that the 88 grain load shot better. I never hit the 10-ring with the 86 grain load and I was pretty well in the 10-ring with the 88 grain load with a few Xs to sweeten the deal.

I really like the 30 inch barrel and so far it has proven to be long enough. The end of next month I plan to shoot this .44-77 at Lodi for the Fall Classic. That match will be 6 relays over two days all at 1000 yards. I’m hoping the .44-77 will hold up at that distance but I’ll see. I plan to load all my rounds with 88 grains. I don’t see any reason to give up on the Federal 215 primers yet, but I do need to test more primers when they become available after the election year madness dies down.

Arnie’s 2-D EPP bullet is working very well in my standard grease groove chamber, no surprise there. The real test will come at Lodi and I’m looking forward to it.

This .44-77 easily claims the title of the easiest rifle I have ever worked with developing accurate paper patch bullet loads. I’ve only had the rifle two months and it is shooting very well after only 473 round through it, 250 of those were fireforming cases. There are a few things different about this bottleneck from the straight cases I’ve work with before, but this little .44-77 is a cartridge that deserves a better reputation than it gets from all the naysayers on the internet. I can see why it was so popular with the early Creedmoor shooters and I’m sure it would make an excellent hunting cartridge.

To date my best load is as foloows:

BACO 441505EPP at 508 grains (17-twist).
One .060” LDPE wad.
88.0 grains of 1 ½ Swiss (18/01/2016) slow poured thru my 14” drop tube (about 3-4 seconds).
BACO converted .50-110 brass with the neck O.D. turned.
Federal 215 LRM primers.
C.O.A.L. = 3.605”

The 86 grain load shot well enough to give me a 98-4X at 300 yards, but I think the 88 grain load looked a bit better at 600.