Just another mould..or two.

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.

It sounds like you guys had a match of sorts in spite of the heavy rain. I’m not sure about others but I would like to see some details of your matches down under. Scores and equipment list would of particular interest. If you have time that is.

As to your 1.330” bullet at .434” diameter, I believe you are shooting that in your 19-twist .44-77? The posts go back a bit farther than my memory so correct me if I’m in error. If true I believe you have a good combination in that rifle, bullet and paper.

Also you are tending to go with shorter ogives than some of the more popular choices out there, which I also believe is a good choice.

You are paralleling my efforts with my 17-twist .44-77 and I am finding a 1.350” long .434-.435” diameter bullet wrapped thin paper, Staedtler 8# tracing paper (.0015”), to be shooting very well in my early load development with this new bullet. I am curious as to why the 1.330-1.350” or so long bullets are such a sweet spot in .44 caliber no matter the twist, but it seems to be.

I did some shooting yesterday for the first time with the 1.350” bullet from my new Brooks adjustable PP mold mostly trying different wads. That length from my mold, which also has an original Sharps profile, weighs 475 grains with the cupped base.

The wads that did best were when I combined two, a .060 LDPE and a .060 HDPE. I put the LDPE in the case first and then the HDPE and then compressed the powder to my depth which left the bullet in the cases .190”.

Being this was load development I was just shooting 3 shot groups at 200 yards. I have never had any luck when using more that 1 wad in any of my BP loads no matter the cartridge. Then I got to thinking about the soft LDPE wad against the cupped base of the bullet and what happens when the powder ignites. I wondered what would happen with a much harder HDPE wad, but knowing those wads would not offer a good seal for my bore diameter bullets I put a LDPE wad under it. This combination I thought would bridge the cup with the hard wad and still compress the soft wad under it for a good seal.

The first 3 shots went into less than 1 ½”! I tested my other loads and then went back to the house and loaded 3 more with the hard and soft wads. Because I was just twisting on the scope knobs to more each group around on the target rather than posting a new target for each load I had to return to the sight setting I had on those first 3 shots, but my scope repeats so well I wasn’t worried about it at all.

The next 3 shots combined with the first 3 to give me a 6 shot group that was only 1 7/8” extreme spread! These last 3 shot were fired about an hour after the first 3. This wad combo now had my attention!

Back to the house and I loaded 4 more in hopes of makingg it a 10 shot group. By the time I shot these last 4 shot nearly 4 hour had past since the first 3 shot! I had to once again return to the sight setting of the first 3, which I had fortunately written down. Conditions were different and I was beginning to lose daylight at 3:00 in the late afternoon and this is where things fell apart a bit.

With the wind up some, shots 7 & 8 were to the right and just a little and low in the group. Then shot 9 dropped almost 4” low! And the last shot, #10, went low and left. Not counting shot 9, the other 9 shots formed a group that is only 2 5/8” at it’s widest. I have no idea what I did on #9, but I think I may have skipped the dry patch and shot that one through a wet barrel. That’s just a guess.

The other thing that gives me hope is that all my shooting yesterday was with a new lot of Swiss 1 ½ that I just bought this summer. The shooting yesterday was all done with this new powder and only about .060” compression. All of the groups shot were under 3” and most were near 1 ½”. This was the first time I’ve loaded this powder and I figured I would start with just a little compression and work up.

The other thing I found interesting was my first ever attempt with under powder wads. There is a thread on Shiloh about these and I wanted to try them in my .44-77. I’ve never used them before, but I tried a few loads with them yesterday. One such load was the load with the hard and soft poly wads and while it was only 3 shots they were spread only 1 5/16” and had much less vertical spread than the same load without the under powder wads. I used .002” coffee filters for these wads.

I am secretly hoping there is nothing to these U.P. wads because they are a PITA to cut and more so to put in the cases. I’ve always been a fan of the K.I.S.S. method, “keep it simple, stupid. Now I would be looking at 3 different wads piled into each case! What could possibly go wrong?!

Keep working with that 1.330" long bullet, I believe good things will come.