44-77 continuing development

[Distant Thunder]

As I continue the load development with my Shiloh .44-77 17-twsit it is quite apparent that the rifle prefers the BACO JIM430520 bullet if I'm going to seat my bullets a bit deeper in an attempt to use less powder.

The .44-77 case will easily hold 90+ grains of my Swiss 1 1/2 with a shallowly seated paper patch bullet. I just don't see the need for much over 85 grains for any of my shooting. I have progressively seated my paper patch bullets shallower and shallower in my .45-70 and .40-65 and with very shallow seating in those two cartridges I have found an improvement in accuracy.

Doing the same in the .44-77 SBN also give very good accuracy, but requires more powder or some sort of a wad stack. Since I have never personally had any luck with multiple wads in and BP cartridge and noting that others have had success with the .44-77 with their bullets seated deeper as well a deeper seating being used in original .44-77s and .44-90s cartridges I decided to give that a try.

The deeper seating, around .300" in the case, has shot better than I would have thought, but I noticed that my .44-77 shoots even better with a bit more compression than I was using with 86 grains of my Swiss 1 1/2.

At a recent gong match I tried a few different loadings, two with the 430520 BACO bullet. I should note that I opened up this mold to cast at .432" because it seemed to be a bit looser in the bore than I would like and that is when it started to shoot even better for me.

The only difference between the two loads using this bullet was the seating depth. I seat some of them with .030" more compression and that was the load I shot at 400 yards at the match last weekend. Just shooting at gongs it seem to shoot as well as the same load with .030" less compression.

The third load I tried use a BACO 441505EPP bullet and 85 grains of Swiss 1 1/2. That is a 2-diameter designed to seat pretty shallow for Shiloh's standard chamber. I thought I would seat it deeper and see how that did, which didn't prove to be very well at the match at 500 yards.

So this week I decided to shoot both of these loads here at home at 220 yards from the prone off sticks so I would get a good picture of what each is doing shooting under match conditions.

It quickly became obvious why I had trouble at 500 with my 2-D EPP bullet seated deep. The core group was around 4" but the was one way high and one way low! and that is exactly what I saw at 500, a perfect pin wheel followed by a miss low and then a miss high.

The 430520 (432") shot very well with two shots that were just out of the group and totally on call and a third one that was a lot more right that I thought it broke. Some of that right may have been the gusts that were starting come as a front moved in. By the time I was done shooting this last group the gusts were rolling in from the left pretty noticeably as I walked down to retrieve the target. The rain followed behind the wind. I had finished my shooting just in time. The target in the picture is the 430520. The core group of 7 shots are pretty impressive as are the two sights at 6 o'clock before I raised the scope setting 1.5 moa.



I clearly need to work on my hold so I can break more of my shots in the center. That's one thing I don't like about a scope it's that you see every little movement as the crosshairs dance around in the middle of the target.

[Don McDowell]

Fun ol cartridge..
I like 434 or 435 diameter bullets in my Shiloh barrels. Seems anything over or under that will throw the occasional flier.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

I enjoy shooting this rifle/cartridge a bunch and it has been very easy to work with and get good accuracy with. I use a bit heavier papaer than you do so a .432 to .433 bullet fit my rifle very well.

I still haven't tested other powder charges, I just keep loading the 86 grains that has work well from the start with this "Metford" style bullet.

I'm at a loss as to why the EPP won't shoot with this lot of Swiss. It did really well with a newer lot I had but I only had 3 pounds of that and it gone now.

I need to get some OE for this cartridge but the money keeps going else where and it's still on the list. At least I have one bullet that shoots well with this 2013 lot of Swiss. I've got a bunch of that powder still.

[Don McDowell]

I shot mostly 9 lb paper, until I tried 8 lb, never looked back

[Distant Thunder]

If I were just starting out with paper patching today I would be using 8# no doubt, but I have all this really good 9# so I'm hoping to use it up.
Any new molds will be cut to use 8#. I think it really is the best choice.

[Don McDowell]

I think the larger the bullet diameter, the thinner the paper is the answer.
Just for kicks you may want to think about trying some 7 lb with those dual diameter bullets that the base measures over bore diameter.

[Kurt]

I don't know guys about the thin paper. I have several rolls of yellow when Staples closed their doors and the price was 3.95 a roll I got 6 yellow and white. That paper runs .0013 to .0016 depending where you put the mic checking it. I have some bullets that are a little large like .436 for the .44 and .335" for the .40 and I normally use paper that is .0018" to .002" thick and I have to run them through the sizing die so they chamber and the results are good doing this, but if I use the yellow paper I get very fine lead slivers when cleaning and pushing a clean dry patch through it is covered with fine gray streaks telling me that there is still some lead smears in the bore.
Granted, I seldom shoot less than 30 rounds when I head to the range, usually I shoot more than 50-60 rounds but I wipe between shots. I know Don that you have said that you don't get lead using the 7# but I sure do and I know that my patches are ahead of the land cuts on the fired bullets but I still get lead in the bore and at the end of the range session and I see the shots spreading out farther on the target.

I use paper that wrapped is thicker than the groove is deep and there are no lead smears on the final cleaning patch.

[Kurt]

Just for the heck of it, today I replaced my patches on 30 rounds with the yellow paper that runs .0015 or less and I shot 35 rounds. Cleaned the rifle and you can see the final patches after running the wet patches and every one of those patches have lead flakes and even the final patch I ran through tight has gray streaks with very fine lead particles. They don't show up in the photo's but when the light hits them right they shine.
I have them soaking with Kroil and later I will run a brush through to get the rest out. I hate doing the brush work in my barrels. I shot the .45-2.6 Axtel rifle today.it has a Badger barrel.
This is why I don't patch with paper that is less than groove depth.

[Don McDowell]

Either your alloy is to soft or the bullet diameter is to small , or possibly the patch needs to run further up the nose

[Don McDowell]

Kurt, I just got the gun cleaned up from Worland, 84 rounds most of them in temps at or about 100. Not a sliver of lead out of the barrel.