Continuing development with the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

I had started a thread under Reloading/ Black Powder Cartridge in which I was hoping to start a discussion about the evils of the transonic zone (1350 to 900 fps), but nobody seemed to want to pick up on that conversation. It turned more to my continuing load development for my .44-77 and being I shoot only paper patch bullets in my BP rifles I thought I'd move it here.

My .44 shoots pretty well out to 400 yards using a BACO 431520 bullet, but I have had some troubles at 500 and 600 yards. As suggested it could just be me and poor shooting. I really don't know but I was thinking of trying a bullet a bit shorter and lighter just to change something and see if the results changed.

The 431520 is 1.460" long, well within the range a 17-twist can stabilize. With 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 it leaving the muzzle at just over 1300 fps. I was thinking that with a shorter, lighter bullet and the same load it would gain some fps and be a bit more stable because it was shorter and faster. More stable should be good.

Over the past couple of months I have testing loads to find the compression and seating depth this rifle likes. That has proven to be. 100" compression and seared .180" in the case. 86 grains has been a consistent sweet spot and with my current lot of Swiss it all lines up good. I also retested primers and Remington 2 1/2 large pistol remains the best of what I have on hand. Federal 210 large rifle are a close second.

I picked 1.375 as a good shorter length to start and I figured it would give me about 480 to 490 grains. Setting the mold to 1.375 and casting with my 18:1 alloy, 18 pounds of lead to 1 pound of 95/5 lead free solder they turned out right at 500 grains.

I then loaded 8 as noted on the target and set up at my bench and shot a group. It actually looks pretty good at 2 3/8" ctc which at 220 yards is very close to 1 moa.

Now the plan is to load some more and bring them to the mid range match Wisconsin Rapids in a week and a half and see how they shoot at 300 and 600 yards.

I really can't see any reason that they shouldn't do well.

[beltfed]

Looks like a Good direction to go with the shorter bullet.
Your total group at about 1moa is good.
Noted that you would seem to have a "double group" there
two knots at two elevations 2347 and 1568.
I, too, see this often in shooting groups.
"Who knows why?"
Arnie

[Don McDowell]

That looks pretty sweet Jim.

[Distant Thunder]

One of the ways I look at my groups lately is by breaking them down into 3-shot groups. This is an out growth of the way I view my target when shooting long range or when I'm spotting for someone.

What I do is look at shots 1, 2 & 3 as a group. Then I look at shots 2, 3 & 4, then 3, 4 & 5 and so on. When I look at it this way and I see that each 3-shot group is near 1 moa I figure the load is actually shooting pretty well, not throwing shots all over. The center of the group moves around some as the conditions change, but each 3-shot group is small and triangular.

When shooting long and doing this I am making my correction based on the 3 previous shots and not correcting off one shot. If one shot is suddenly out the group I have to look for a reason and I may or may not correct on just that one shot. If something has changed in the conditions that I missed and I can identify that is what happened I will correct accordingly.

With BPTR a group or a string at a match is shot over a period of 15 to 20 minutes or more and the conditions are changing in small ways during that time that can be hard to see and tracking the 3 pervious shots can show that change better than you can see it. The idea is then to correct the center of the group to the center of the target and not just one shot.

If you look at the sequence of the shots number one was low and right. May not have been the best break on that first shot! The at the end of the group 6, 7 & 8 began to fill in the center of the group some. No way to know where 9 & 10 would have gone.

I'm also thinking that some of that could be my heartbeat, I can see it in the scope as I'm sighting. I've really seen it when shooting a longer ranges from the bench with my .270 and a higher power scope. At 300 yards on 12X it's 1 1/2 inches and very easy to see. Frustrating really. At 220 yards through the 6X scope it appears to be about 1 inch. I can not hold a 1/4 minute like a really good shooters can, on a GOOD it's a 1/2 moa hold for me!

I was impressed that the thin paper shot so well. I don't use it much because it's slippery and I find it harder to wrap with than my 9#. I had to go to the thin stuff with this mold because the 9# is just too tight to chamber easy. These slip in the bore nice with the thinner paper and they shot well.

Now I just have to get over to Rapids to shoot in Arnie's match so I can see if these shoot better at 600.

Another thing about these 8 bullets, these were the first ones cast yesterday and after about the 10th bullet they settled in at 509.8 to 500.6 grains for the balance of 50 bullets. The other 42 will be saved for the match at Rapids. I have no more time for any casting or anymore load development between now and the 31st. I'll just go ahead and load for the match and see what happens.

That's one reason there were only 8 shots, if they shot well I wanted enough to shot at 600 yards at Rapids. I only cut 9 of these thin patches and I patched 9 bullets, but I dropped one and had to toss that one out. I have no doubt that 2 more shots would have gone into the group. The real test is at 600 yards.

[Don McDowell]

If the conditions treat you well, and that load continues to show as well as it did in this test, my money says it'll work just fine at 1000.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

We always have bunny conditions at Lodi! Well, at least until the man says, "Your time starts now!", and the the doors blow off!

IF my .44 holds up at Rapids out to 600 yards I will shoot it at the mid range championship at Lodi in August. I had thought I would shoot my .45-70 for the long range match that follows the mid range match, but now I have to decide if I want to try my .44-77 for that match IF it shoots well at 600. If it doesn't shoot well at Rapids I'll have a little time before the Lodi matches to ponder what to do next, but not much time.

I have a new bullet that I'm itching to try in my .45-70! I'll probably wait until after Rapids to make that decision. A lot depends on what happens at Rapids on the 31st.

The long range match is a 15-shot match so it's a good amount of shooting, 90 shots for record plus unlimited sighters. I think we settled on 35 minute relays so there is enough time maybe to start with one rifle/load/bullet and switch if it isn't going well.

There's a lot to think about!

[Don McDowell]

I was going to do something similar for the Dean match in Alliance. I am taking my Shiloh 77 with known loads, and with loads that I think may be just as good. Plus I was going to take my 44-77 and get some practice in today, and make the decision which rifle to shoot. I also thought about taking my 44-90 st that I got first place with last year.... But then I got to thinking, that might be to much confusion on my part, so the 77 with it's proven load, and enough of the maybe proven load got the final call. Will be heading out in a short bit and will know how the story goes by Sunday.
I think sometimes the urge to do well over powers the need to wring a rifle and load out, and the little birds in the back of your mind may keep you from shooting an unknown rifle as well as you might, when it knows something proven is sitting in the pickup.
It's just a shooting match, they won't drag you out in the street and shoot you dead if you don't win, but they will stand in the back and growl if you do win..
This is supposed to be fun.

[Kurt]

The heartbeat does have an effect on group sizes, this is why the HP shooters use that heavy shooting jacket.
A shoulder recoil pad will also reduce the heartbeat jump.
There is a silhouette shooter that I paid some attention to to get some points to improve my scores and one thing that I noticed is he wears a suede jacket even in the heat of the day and looking close I can see a outline of padding on the shoulder.
Now shooting coats are legal in this game but his coat does not have the buckled straps.
But what is the difference between his coat and a strap on recoil pat a lot of shooters strap on.

[Distant Thunder]

These are the 3 bullets I have been working with in my .44-77. All are from BACO and all have been modified at least some. BACO makes excellent molds by the way!

Left to right the first is #441505EPP which is a 2-Diameter bullet that I modified the base diameter on to be to .300" long to reduce the powder charge from 90+ grains to 86 grains.

The second one is #430520 which I modified to .433" diameter because it was just too small for my bore. I often refer to this as my Metford bullet because it closely resembles Metford's design from the 1870s.

The third one is #431ADJ which actually cast at about .4305" and was too small in diameter so I modified it to cast at .4345" so I could use 55W paper.

The 441505EPP shot really well with a 2016 lot of Swiss 1 1/2, but I only had 4 lbs. of that lot. When I switched to my 2013 lot last year it didn't like that lot at all. I modified the base diameter length to match the seating depth, .180", that works so well with my Metford bullet. It shot better at 220 yards but showed a lot of vertical at 600 yards, about 3 moa.

The 431520 loaded over 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 and a .060" LDPE wad seated .180" deep with .100" compression in BACO brass and using Remington 2 1/2 large pistol primers shoots very well at 200 and 300 yards. It shot well at 400 yards too, but I have struggled to get hits on all the gongs at local matches at 500 and 600 yards. I have not shot it on paper yet at 500 and 600, but I have shot it at 800 and it seemed to do well in some pretty tricky conditions back in May at Lodi.

I have been using the exact same load for all three of these bullets. This was the result of a fair amount of testing to find the powder charge that worked best, the compression that worked best and the primer that worked best. All of this testing was based on the Metford bullet but has transferred over to the other two bullets well. Some tweaking may be necessary for each bullet, but they all shot well at 220 yards on my home range. I do not have access to a longer range near me so all longer range testing is done at matches.

The 430ADJ bullet (.4345" dia.) is the bullet I shot the group with in my opening post here. With the mold set at 1.375" long it weighs 500 grains +/-. My thinking on going to this bullet was 1) to try the thinner paper and 2) to try a shorter bullet that would be spun fast for it's length in hopes of being more stable. I really don't know where I got the idea but that was my thinking.

I believe somewhere in this thread or back in the one under Reloading/Black Powder Cartridge Don mentioned something about a 1.3 something bullet shooting really well in his 17-twist .44-77 and that probably planted the seed for trying a shorter bullet. Don has also mentioned more than once that 55W and 55Y work very well for him in his .44s. I have resisted the thinner paper until now.

After patching about 50 bullets I think I've got it wrapping pretty well and I am almost starting to like it. If this 500 grain bullet shoots well at Rapids on the 31st I may have to continue the thin paper experiment on to another bullet, my Metford bullet would be the logical choice.

The ammo is all loaded and I have a really busy week coming up, I will get home Thursday just in time to throw everything in the car and head to Rapids on Friday. It's a one day match on Saturday and the weather at this point looks dry and hot so with luck I'll have a better idea if this 430ADJ bullet will hold center at 600 yards by the end of the day on the 31st. I do have enough of the Metford bullets loaded to shoot the match if the ADJ can't find paper.

My results will get posted here one way or the other. Stay tuned!

[Distant Thunder]

I'm still working in my head on this accuracy problem with my .44-77 beyond 300 yards and the thought of bullet alloy has come up.

I have for the past several years been using Kurt's 18:1 lead:95/5 solder mix in my .45-70 and m7 .40-65 with excellent results. So working with this .44-77 I have just stayed with that alloy and not questioned it until this past week. In the past I had always used 16:1, or an equivalent hardness, since I first found that it just shoots better than the 20:1 I had used in my grease groove days for my paper patch bullets.

This morning I cast a couple samples with the 18:1 and check the hardness at 8 BHN. That is what it checked in the past too. Then I figured out how much solder I would have to add to the pot to bring it up to 16:1 and I added that amount. I cast a couple samples to test and they were 10 BHN or just a bit more.

The plan now is to cast some of the Metford bullets from 16:1 and load those to shoot at Rapids on the 31st. If there is an improvement I'll make the switch for Lodi next month. That involves a lot of bullets that would need to be recast! If it does shoot better it will be worth the trouble.

16:1 is never a bad choice for paper patch bullets!