28 grs Wano FFFg 44-40 Win.

[Klaus]

due to some Topics at Cascity and historical Load datas from Winchester
i load some Rounds with

28 grs Wano Sporting Powder FFFg
Cardwad on Top
200 grs RCBS Bullet
Emmertslube

15 Shots no wiping or blowtube between the shots
50 m Freehand

Hege Uberti Winchester `73 44-40 Win.



all holes in the White are depending on me ...
a little wiggle and I´m beside faster as i thought

Klaus

[Mike]

That's good shootin'. I'll be playing with a .44/40 fairly soon, lookin' to do the same thing.

[Nuclearcricket]

I have an old Marlin 94 in 44-40 and I was really surprised when I fed it some BP reloads. I had shot factory and factory equiv reloads in it and they seemed pretty mild but those BP loads really seemed to perk things up. Unfortunately I never did get around to putting those loads on paper but I do know that it shot a lot lower with BP than it did with the smokeless loads.
Sam

[Mike]

I did some shooting with a .44/40 using Starline brass and 35 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F in a rifle with an 18" barrel. That load averaged about 1150 fps. The bullets used were from Lyman's #427098 mould. Soon I should be doing more shooting with that cartridge and I might try some Olde Eynsford 3F just to see what it will do. The 35 grain load hit pretty well out of the short rifle, a copy of the Winchester '73. Much fun.

[Klaus]

if you are more interrested in this load pls have a look here
i got a reply from w44wcf at Cascity :

My apologies for not going into a bit more detail about the load that UMC made.
http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.p...963.0.html

I had casually mentioned that UMC would have used a wad..... based on my making and shooting some of these cartridges the wad thickness would likely have been at least 3/16" (5mm) thick. They likely would have compressed the powder charge a bit first or compressed it with the wad in place. Hard to say.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I used PSB (Poly Shot Buffer) to fill the space between the powder and the bullet since I do not have wads of the proper thickness. Cream of Wheat or Corn Meal would likely work as well.

I found that historic loading when assembled as above, would produce groups at 100 yards in the 2-3" range from the bench.

He post a lot of very good info

Klaus

[Mike]

I had not heard about the 28 grain loading from UMC before so you have given me a new wrinkle. Now I'll try some 28 grain loads to see how they perform. They should be very nice in a revolver. I already have the bullet moulds for both 200 grain solids and the hollow point. Oh no, more shooting to be done...!

[Nuclearcricket]

I think it would also be very interesting to find some of the 28 grain loads and break one down just to see what they put in there to take up the space for the reduced load.
It is interesting to see that they did make reduced loads. It does make sense to do that for younger shooters and maybe also they were used for target work. Its just a shame that there was so many things done a long time ago and no documentation left any more as to why they were done, how they were done and if and how well things worked when they made changes to things.
Sam

[Mike]

Sam, I agree that it would be very interesting to break down an original 28 grain loading in the .44/40. However, to do that you'd need to find a box of them that was labeled for the 28 grain load because I don't think the cartridges would not have a special headstamp. The old smokeless high velocity loadings did have special headstamps because they were dangerous to use in revolvers and the '73 Winchester, as well as the Colt Burgess and the Lightning rifles. I still have a couple of cases that are marked ".44 WHV-M'92" as well as some Remington or Peters marked, ".44-40 HV." I will also guess that we could search for years before ever finding a 28 grain factory load for the .44-40 because I don't think it was a very popular loading. It should have been favored by some folks but probably rather few. And the .44-40 was primarily a rifle cartridge and rifles chambered for that round outnumber the revolvers by a very wide margin.