.44-77 and paper patch?

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.,

Getting a call this morning that they were chambering my barrel has got me all fired up! There will be so much to do once my rifle is back in my hands that it will be a couple weeks before any thing like load development can start. Just having the rifle will be a relief. It's two months before my first matches of the year at Lodi and I have to do casting and loading for that too so there'll be plenty to do.

Ideally I would have some loads for the .44-77 made up and I might be able to shoot a few at long range if time allows, but that's only if I get things working and showing some promise. I can shoot to 200 meters in my backyard, but that ain't 1000 yards. Once the two Lodi matches are behind me I plan to use the .44-77 for any other matches I attend, but again it's got to be shooting 2 MOA groups at 200 meters before it would be worth shooting a match with it. Smaller is better but I can start with that and continue to fine tune as I go forward.

On the two diameter thing, I will say it is a bit more complicated with the .44-77 because of the variations in brass and availability issues. I'll be working with 3 different types of brass as I get started. I would hope to eventually standardize my brass over time, but the price and availability issues being what they are I want to see which brass I have is most workable before I invest too heavily in one kind. In the end I'll need at least 200 pieces of uniform brass for match shooting. That would be for those 3 and 4 day matches I go to couple times a year.

One thing you can do is have the base diameter made for the thinnest brass you're likely to be using and if you want to use it in some thicker brass you could just run the patched bullets through a push through type sizing to reduce the base diameter to a good fit in that brass. The base band and, depending on alloy, the bore diameter section will still bump up as needed as the bullet is pushed into the rifling. It is always best to have brass, chamber and bullet fitting properly, but lead bullets will adjust as needed when the real bright light comes on!

If the patched base band is only a few thousandths loose just a light taper crimp will hold the bullet enough and not work the brass any more than needed. That is all I do in my .45-90 with my straight sided bore diameter PPB and they shot very well and it never hurts the brass.

You'll get it worked out I'm sure.