Continuing development with the .44-77.

[Kurt]

Jim,

This will be the last post I will make with my bullet study.

Below is the Lee lead hardness test chart and 4 bullets that are 45 Prolate bullets like Brent Danielson uses. I have a mould like his.
The first on the left was cast using 1/16 lead/tin alloy. Two and Three is my 1/18 and the forth is 1/17 L/T/A alloy.
The Lee chart with the 1/18 L/T/A makes an impression of 0.08
This he smidge of antimony does not have much effect on the hardness between 1/16 T/L but it holds the setback.
What I look for when I search for the best obturation with the least nose setback for my use (and this is caliber specific, The .40 reacts different than the .44 or .45's) with the powder charges I use. The 1/17 on the far right I use for the .44-90 bn.
When the ogives hold their shape like those 4 in the photo they will fly as well as the loads you use.

End of Alloy testing......they cause too much disagreement......Those 11 3# coffee cans full of bullets filled several 6QT dutch ovens getting reclaimed

Kurt

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

Nobody ever wants to hear from other shooters how their bullet are performing. I have told people that I pulled target for that they bullets are tipping and most do want to hear that. They will either get mad at me or simply say it's not possible and that I'm wrong. So I know what you're saying about alloy tests and I'm not disagreeing with you. You know I always appreciate your testing results whether or not understand them and I think about the things you've said all the time when I trying to figure things out.

I am at a bit of loss to explain how my .44-77 is performing farther out, beyond 300 yards or so. I will test a shorter, lighter bullet which has a much shorter nose than my other two .44 caliber paper patch bullets. No harm in testing.

I will also test 16 to 1, lead to 95/5 solder, with my 430520 BACO bullet and likely with my 441505EPP BACO bullet just to see if there would be something to be gained from a harder alloy. The 16:1 might be too hard, I really don't know and I won't know for sure until I test it in my rifle with my bullets and loads.

If I have learned one in the 30 years I've been shooting BPCR it's there are too many variables in this sport to set very many hard fast rules. I take in information from any availbe source and compare it with what my experiences have been, if the info seems reasonable I'll test it in my rifle(s) and if it's not reasonable I toss in the sh!t can. The testing and proving or disproving never ends and this sport never get boring.

There are a lot of things that are different about this .44-77, probably all bottlenecks, from the .45-70 and this .44 is proving to be one of my favorite cartridge as I work through getting it to shoot like I know it can. Even then each step I take, each thing I test is my own unique experience and the next guy with a .44-77 will probably have a different story and result in some ways.

I post my efforts here because I hope it will help others who are working with a .44-77 or a similar cartridge and may in some way learn from my experience. I never expect everyone to agree with what I do or what I conclude from my efforts, that ain't going to happen. If some one disagrees with me and what I say that is fine, I don't argue with them or tell them they're full of it. Their experience and my are just different and there's nothing wrong with that.

There is a lot of valuable information that can be learned from your snowbank shooting and the bullets you recover and not everyone is going to see it the same way, but please don't stop posting your results, please. I find them interesting and vey useful and I know others do too. So just keep posting what you have done with your snowbanks and pay no attention to the critics, there are plenty that are learning from your efforts.

[Kurt]

Jim,

I have a friend that uses nothing but 1/20 L/T alloy and he ends up winning or very close to winning at these Gong shoots.
Nothing wrong using a softer alloy as long as it sets the nose straight back so the bullet flies straight and that has a lot to do with correctly loading that round.

For me looking at bullets, I have to see what a particular alloy or shape of the bullet ends up after it clears the barrel. It's fine to speculate but that does not show the actual results.
My Match winning days are ending. I can put tight groups shooting off sand bags but in actual matches I'm way down from my junger days. I just finished a room with a new loading bench can shelves, cabinets and all. Carol said I'm going to bring up all your trophies and wall hangers from the basement that have been in boxes for years and fill the glass cabinet and the top shelf. I said fine but you dust them off when they need be.

After a couple weeks ago at the Quigley pretty much shut me down with these heavy recoiling rifles. The Eye Doc said I will suggest not to shoot these rifles when it gets hot. This last episode with both eyes developing a problem he might be right.
I pulled the .22 out today took the tang sight off and mounted the scope on it and shot some off hand practice and I could barely see the target in full sun. The scope was so dim that I thought I had dust on the lenses.

Hell getting old........

I see the first two bullets look like the once I gave you out of that bunch. If you would like I can send you the moulds of the Sage and the altered DD if you want to cast a bunch for Lodi.
Your welcome to use them.

Kurt

[Distant Thunder]

I appreciate the off of the molds, but I'm busy all this week and won't have time to do any casting. I cast all the bullets I'll need for Lodi this past week and will be loading the week before Lodi.

Things all piled into August on me and I'm short on time with too much to do. I'll have to go with what I've got and lick my wounds and think about next year and what I will do different. Lodi will be my last match for this year and my fall will be very busy. Next year should be better for shooting for me.

If I can get my .44-77 shooting decent out to 600 and test the new .45 caliber bullet at 1000 yards it won't have been a bad year for me. I can build on that for next year.

Mid range matches are not the best for trying different things out. With only 4 sighters and not much time to screw with things it's basically pick a bullet, lay down and shoot. Then assess the results and try something else on the next relay and repeat.

[Semtav]

Jim
Maybe you already have, but sometime you are gonna have to break down and try some 12-1 alloy bullets.
Can't give you any "professional" reason. Other than when I switched to PP, I spent a lot of time with a lot of failures, but when I went to 12.5-1, most of those pesky problems went away.
Not saying Kurt's alloy is better or worse, but 16-1 just wasn't doing it for me.
When I get more time someday to shoot more, I'm gonna work with the antimonies, but for now I just have a hard time going away from whats working for me.

Course 12-1 might only work for DD, GG and Patched to Groove. Have no idea with patched to bore.

[Kurt]

50/50% WW/Lead works about as good as anything if you still have some of the old WW.

[Distant Thunder]

Brian,

I have tried as hard as 12-1 in my .45-70, but for me it offered nothing over my 11 BHN (16-1) in that rifle. My .40-65 would probably shoot with anything from 20-1 up through 12-1 and never blink.

With my .44-77 I still don't know what it likes and I won't until I try something and it tells me it likes it or it doesn't. I have not tried anything but Kurt's 18-1 in this rifle so far. I think I need to try something harder. In my .45-90 when I first started paper patching and I was just starting to have some success but was still having a few fliers I tried 16-1 and things improved immediately in a big way. I used 16-1 for all of my paper patching until Kurt told me about the 18-1 alloy he was using. I have to say it works great in my .45-70 and because my .40-65 doesn't really care about alloy I use it in that one two.

A year ago I had Shiloh put a 17-twist Krieger barrel on an old rifle and chamber it for the .44-77 and because 18-1 was what I used in my other rifles that is what I have been using in this rifle as well. It shoots very well out to 300 yards and seems to not do so well beyond that. I need to figure out what needs adjustment and alloy is a possibility. If 16-1 improves things I will probably try some harder stuff eventually. I do expect to see an improvement with the 16-1.

I will be trying a few different things at Rapids next weekend and I'm sure one or more of those will show improvement over what I had 2 weeks ago. I'll review the result and adjust as needed and move on to the next match which is Lodi. There I am likely to try a thing or two different and then settle back for a long, long winter and think about things some more. I took on the .44-77 because I enjoy and need a challenge and I'm working my way through that challenge and having fun doing it. I never stop learning and I never stop improving things. It's a great sport!

[Distant Thunder]

The Wisconsin Rapids mid range match is over and all participants survived despite the presents of many firearms including some high capacity ones! I'm still trying to figure out how that is possible because I know the guns out numbered the people!

As to my continuing development with my Shiloh .44-77 I think some progress was made, but I still do not have all the answers. I tested two bullets, one was my BACO 430520 (Metford) cast from 16 to 1 it weights 518 +/- grains and was wrapped with my 9# 100% cotton onionskin paper and then sized to .438". This mold was modified to cast at .432" diameter.

The other bullet was also from a BACO mold, number 431ADJ. This being an adjustable mold it was set to cast at 1.375" long which weighs 500 +/- cast from 18 to 1. This bullet was wrapped with SC 55W, the mold has been modified to cast at .434" diameter.

It was around 77 degrees with the humidity in the 70% +/- range and winds at 5 to 10 mph with some gust in the 15 to 20 range. Thunderstorms were in the forecast for the afternoon and they did not disappoint! The light winds were about as squirrely as I've ever seen, changing every 5 to 20 seconds and making it difficult to get a shot off in the condition you wanted.

This was scheduled as a practice match with one relay at 300 and 2 at 600, but with the T-storms coming we opted to start at 600 and decided to just stay there for 3 relays. I think most shooters kept score, but I know not every shooter finish all the relays. The last relay was cut short by rain as we pulled our equipment back under the covered line. That kept us somewhat dry until the wind hit. When that happened not everything stayed under the cover and anything that did was hit by the horizontal rain anyway. At a guess the wind gusted to 40 mph and several things went flying of the benches and into the rapidly growing puddles. My container of bore pigs was one of those and I ended up scooping them out off the mud and water. My shooting mat was submerged in a puddle of water even though it was under the cover. I had put my rifle in my car before the wind hit and a few other small thing but everything else was dripping wet when the rain and wind finally slacked off a bit. Not the way you want to end a match. Oh well!

The load for both bullets was exactly the same:

.060" LDPE wad
86.0 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 lot #040313
BACO converted .50-100 brass
Remington 2 1/2 primers.
Both bullets were seated .180" in the cases.

I started with my Metford bullet for 4 sighters and 5 record shots. Once centered the windage easily held 1 moa, but the elevation was from the 7 ring at 12 to the 7 ring at 6! I decided half through the string to try the 500 grain bullet from my adjustable mold and that did much better. I finished that relay with a 75-0.

For my second relay I just went with the 500 grain bullets. With things switching rapidly I just had my spotter tell me what the mirage was doing and I held 2 to 3 minutes left or right depending on what was needed. That worked at times and at other times I would have been better off to just hold center. We had avoided shooting in a boil, which of course was the predominate condition. At one point I decided to see what would happen if I did shoot in a boil. If I had held center it probably would have been a 10, but I held at the bottom edge of the black thinking it would go high because of the tailwind and where I held is pretty much where it
went, 6 ay 5! I finished with a 76-1X.

There were obviously other things in play and not just the mirage, but without wind flags it was hard to tell. We did have a couple of ribbons on a stake at 200 yards and I guess that worked for some, some of the time. I couldn't make it work when I was spotting, not any better than the mirage anyway.

My 3rd relay I used the 500 grain bullet again but I only shot 2 or 3 shots for record when the rain started. I didn't see any reason to get everything wet so I started pulling things off the line. Little did I know that getting wet wasn't going to be avoided!

At this point the 500 grain bullet seems to shoot pretty well compared to the other two bullets I have. I am now thinking through whether I want to shoot my .44-77 or just give it a rest and go to my .40-65 for the Lodi mid range match in two weeks.

[Kurt]

Sounds like the conditions weren't to good for testing loads, but those conditions could develop at a match also.
There is nothing wrong with using a .40-65 for midrange. I have had a chance to use mine at Rapids and Cadillac for midrange and I shot a 94 and I think a 96 cant remember for sure but on the last shot the front scope mount fell off with the scope dangling off the side LOL. That was on the 300 yard line.
The last Rapids you and I was at was the other time I shot the CPA .40-65 with the tight 4º lead and it held the 600 with 10 shots that Carol kept telling me to drop down 3 and I said I want to shoot a group to see how this rifle will shoot so I shot 10 rounds and I said after the ten rounds I will drop it 3 for you and shot 3 more shots for a small group and they went into a clover leaf.
So don't cut a .40-65 short if you don't have the confidence yet in the 77.

Here is the load I shot in that .40-65. It shot well here at home at 200 and held well at 600.

[beltfed]

YUP, It was "ugly" switching conditions at Rapids yesterday for most of the day
. Then, Got soaked for shooting only 5 rounds out of my 38-50 at 600 with a change in a scope base height of 0.025".
First and second shot in top of front berm. third in between front berm and bottom of target frame, fourth a 6 at 4:30, Fifth a 9 at 4:30. THEN GOT SOAKED as Jim has described.
So, I hope I got a close enough 600yds zero for Lodi Midrange. I am still cleaning up my stuff- muddy shooting matt, cleaning spotting scope lenses, scope lenses,etc.
Maybe I can get back to Rapids and get a 300yds zero too before Lodi...???

I was happy that we, the Wood Cty R&P Club, Wi Rapids, could provide this opportunity for a Midrange squaded practice prior to the Lodi Midrange this month. Would have been good if more than 7 people had showed up. Perhaps , if we would set up a two day match , more people would have showed up....
beltfed/arnie