Continuing development with the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

I'm still working in my head on this accuracy problem with my .44-77 beyond 300 yards and the thought of bullet alloy has come up.

I have for the past several years been using Kurt's 18:1 lead:95/5 solder mix in my .45-70 and m7 .40-65 with excellent results. So working with this .44-77 I have just stayed with that alloy and not questioned it until this past week. In the past I had always used 16:1, or an equivalent hardness, since I first found that it just shoots better than the 20:1 I had used in my grease groove days for my paper patch bullets.

This morning I cast a couple samples with the 18:1 and check the hardness at 8 BHN. That is what it checked in the past too. Then I figured out how much solder I would have to add to the pot to bring it up to 16:1 and I added that amount. I cast a couple samples to test and they were 10 BHN or just a bit more.

The plan now is to cast some of the Metford bullets from 16:1 and load those to shoot at Rapids on the 31st. If there is an improvement I'll make the switch for Lodi next month. That involves a lot of bullets that would need to be recast! If it does shoot better it will be worth the trouble.

16:1 is never a bad choice for paper patch bullets!