Powder for 44-77

[Nuclearcricket]

Gentlemen, I took my roller and barrel to the smith today to get chambered up in 44-77. and now I need just a touch of advice. I am looking for suggestions on what powder I should use to fire form my cases. As it stands right now I have about a half a case of '98 vintage Goes CTG, 2 cans of 2F Swiss, and 2 cans of 1.5 Swiss. I did load up 10 rounds for the smith to have to do the test fire. For that I used 74 gr of CTG compressed about .130 or so, a card wad and a coffee filter primer wad. I do admit I was in a bit of a hurry and forgot to put wax paper under the bullet but for those 10 rounds I don't think it will make any difference. Its just important that it goes bang and that big lead slug goes down range.
ITA
Sam

[Kurt]

Sam.

When I form my cases, blowing the shoulders out on bottle neck cases, I use the powder I don't like also the primers. I don't weigh the loads just drop the powder in the case and use mostly WW for the bullets and shoot rocks and bowling pins and kick up bust
Straight wall brass you are really not forming anything, just filling the chamber like you would a full length sized case so I load them like I would a match load and most generally they will hit what I aim at.
Whose barrel and reamer are you using?
Kurt

[Nuclearcricket]

Thanks, it will be a Pacific Tool and Gage reamer from Reamer Rentals. It doesn't have the 7deg lead but for now I feel I can live without that. If at some point I want the throat changed I will make the effort to get a reamer or have one made. After studying the chamber reamer print it should do everything I need for the time being.
First step, get my cases fire formed and make sure what I have to load with will work. If not then its time to raid the piggy bank and spring for a set of CH dies and do things right.
Next will be to consider playing around with PP bullets. But that will not be until sometime next year or so.
You said to use powder you don't like, well I forgot I have a few cans of Elephant I guess that junk would work for fire forming cases.
Since my smith is heading out west on a hunting trip in the early part of October, he feels he will have my barrel finished but not blued before he goes. It might make an interesting contrast a nice bright white barrel on a CCH action. And if it should happen to develop a little brown on the outside, a little sand paper will make it disapear and not hurt the finish, and others may just think its a SS barrel.
OHHH so many projects and plans and so little money to play with.
Ain't life grand.
Sam

[Kurt]

Sam.

Yup Elephant powder is good enough for blowing the shoulders out good for the .44-77

The PT&G .44-77 reamer has .080 freebore at .446" diameter. This should give you a lot of leeway how deep or far out you seat a GG bullet or over bore diameter PP bullet. This will help with the keeping the bullets ahead of the case shoulder.

[Nuclearcricket]

Yes thats true. The loads I put together for the smith have the first band and grease grove exposed. I think this set up should chamber without any problems and I may be able to set it out a little more but only time will tell. I think that this is probably about the max as far as gg bullets go. However If I do end up needing to set them out a little farther, I do have a sizing die that I can easily size the first band down just under bore size and that will let me set things out to where I have 2 bands exposed and maybe all of the second grease grove. I should know in a few weeks.
One thing that I hadn't really given much thought to was loading blocks. I have 2 nice wooden ones and if the humidity changes a little, my brass will not fit. So its time to make some new blocks. I did find a source for a 11/16 Forstner bit, I would have prefered 21/32 but that rascal just is not to be found. So sometime next week my somewhat cluttered shop gets turned into a a real mess with drilling all those holes. However making this discovery now is kind of a blessing in disguise. I was going to have a guy make me an 80 or 100 rnd wooden cartridge box and if he had used a 5/8 bit I would have been screwed. So I guess it is all good.
Since I have about 4 cans of FF Elephant this will be a good opprotunity to burn some of that up. And it should shoot ok, its just a little on the slow side and dirty. But I think I will order a bag of Arsenal patches and wipe between shots and see how that works out. Sure can't hurt anything and maybe it will help.
Sam

[Kurt]

Sam.

I don't think anyone drills a hole 9/16th anymore I looked all over for one when I made my .44 BN blocks and for the .50. I did find what I needed at http://www.mscdirect.com/browse/?navid=1...drsrh=true
I also went to the local saw mill and found a 3x12 chunk of oak and it holds 130 cases that don't tip over. A drill press with a depth stop works great for this project.

[Nuclearcricket]

MSC is a great place to get stuff. I have contributed many $$ to their coffers. What I did was to google search the size bit I wanted and then picked the closest place to me that had one. In this case it was http://www.woodcraft.com/. When I looked up their contact info they were in WV so I figured it wouldn't take too long to get here. And they do have stores all over the country as I just found out.
Yep my drill press will get some exercise when the bit gets here. I have the block made up, its 2 layers of maple glued together maybe 1 1/4 or so thick, that should do just fine for a 50 round block.
Sam

[Don McDowell]

Sam 75 grs of Cartridge with a large pistol primer not only fire forms cases really well, but it'll shoot tight little groups doing it.

[Nuclearcricket]

Thanks Don, I don't know and will not know till I get the rifle back if I can get that much powder under that 480gr bullet or not. I will have to see if that extra grain will fit in the case, I think it should, it will just get crunched a little more is all. Once I know what OAL I have to work with it will not take too long to fill up a bunch of cases and be ready to to. I will probably set down this weekend and put primers in the cases, then it will just be wads, powder, wads and bullet.
Am kind of hoping that I can do a deal with my smith and swap him a rifle for his work. He seemed to have a little interest in a Siamese Mauser, I just don't know yet weather he wants one to play with or if he wants one to shoot. Either way I can accommodate him. After spending a week and a half scrubbing bores, it turns out that I have one with an ok bore, one with a pretty good bore and one that damn near looks new. Hell of a lot of work getting gunk out of something that old. OH well I guess time will tell.
Sam