My continuing efforts with the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

Now that this forum is back and working I figured I would bring things up to date in my efforts to get my .44-77 up and shooting with match winning accuracy using paper patch bullets.

Back in November I played around trying to develop a hunting load that would allow some number of shots with good accuracy without wiping between shots. That hasn't gone real well and I put it on hold for now.

In December my new mold of the month arrived and I was like a kid at Christmas! This one was another BACO mold, they do make good molds. The number is 430520 though I requested it to cast at .431" diameter. While the sample that came with the mold is .431" all my bullets came out .4305". This bullet is close to the old Metford design of the 1870s that gave rise to the modern money bullet in use today. I very much like the old designs.

I started out seating it .330" in the case over 80.0 grains of Goex 2f. My thinking at this point was to reduce the powder charge to reduce the fouling that I was having trouble with in this rifle at Lodi back in September.

Using my Leatherwood 6X scope the above load produced 5 shot groups at 2 1/2" to just under 3" at 220 yards (my home range). Increasing to 82 and 84 grains did pretty much the same. After a number of groups with Goex I was noticing that 3 or 4 shot in 5 would be clustered pretty tight and 1 or 2 would be a inch to an inch and half away and not always in the same direction.

I figured it was time to give Swiss 1 1/2 a try. I started with the same .330 deep seating and loaded 77 to 83 grains and the groups were nothing special, mostly under 3 1/2" at 220 yards. Then I remembered the bullet that first peaked my interest in this kind of design.

I looked in my notes and found that I had loaded some bullets I got from Kurt to try, these were from a Sagebrush mold of similar design and they shot very well. I had loaded them over 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 and seated them .150" in the case. I shot these at Rapids back in July and they did very well at 600 yards.

It turned out that I had some of these loads with the Sage bullet left over and still in my ammo box. I setup and shot them at 220 yards and they produce a very tight 10 shot group. I saved one cartridge and used it as an example to load my new bullet the same way.

So I loaded some to a length of 3.555" so they were only in the case .150" over 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 with a Federal 210 primer. They shot pretty well. So I tried some 10 shot groups. I noticed I was getting 1 or 2 of the ten that were again 1 to 1 1/2" outside the core group! I was starting to think I must be pulling those shots. Nothing I tried in he way I hold the rifle would eliminate the flyers.

The more I thought about it the more I thought that it had to be that the bullets were a bit undersize and not at all snug when I pushed them into the bore of my rifle. I decided to fix the problem one way or another. I setup and machined the shank of the bullet bigger. I was hoping for something between .432 and .433 for my as cast diameter. When I cast another batch they came out right at .432". I patched some with my 9 lb. paper and they came out at .439" and were pretty tight in my bore. This is exactly what I wanted.

Then I took my push through sizing die and polished it out to size just a tick over .438". Now the bullet were uniform and smooth as silk with the fold over ironed out flat as could be. This is how I do my bullets for my .45-70 and they work!

I have shot a number of 10 shot groups since I opened up the mold and the flyers are gone! Groups settled in nicely at just under 3" to about 2 1/2" for 10 shots at 220 yards. This is good, but I'd like to be closer to 2" for 10 shot if possible.

So yesterday I decided I had gone as far as Federal 210 primers were going to take me. It was time to test some other primers. The problem with that is with the hording going on and primer being very hard to find anywhere near me I would have to work with whatever I have. The choices are limited. So I looked over my notes with this .44-77 and decided to try two types, Federal 215 LRM and and Remington 2 1/2 LP.

I use the Remington 2 1/2 LP primers with Swiss 1 1/2 in my .45-70 and .40-65 with very good results. I only shot 5 shots with each yesterday but attached is what I got. If the Remington primers hold up in the testing I hope to do tomorrow I may be on to something. I'll let you know.