Time to continue load development with my .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

Very interesting! What you're saying makes sense and some of it I have also experienced with my .44-77.

With my straight wall cases I found that very shallow seating was best, usually .090" or less. With this .44-77 that was not true, and seating deeper has worked out better. In my shooting that's been .150" to .300".

I even recently tried it with the bullet seated so the wad was just a little up in the neck. It was only 3 shots but it didn't look bad and only used 77 grains of powder with a fair amount of compression. It looks like I could get down to 72 grains or so and have a good, accurate load. I am thinking that for silhouette that might be a mild load with a 500+ grain bullet that would work very well on rams.

Early on in my paper patching journey I found that sizing the case mouth so it was just snug on the bullet improved accuracy.

I usually find that one of the 4 papers I have will be better than the other 3 and it's not always the same paper from one bullet to the next.