Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

I had read that you could use .45-90 brass and that you couldn't use it so I thought I'd see for myself. You can certainly use it, but it's far from the best choice. It's best if you take care to get the case head centered up good because the head size is about .017" undersize on .45 brass and it will upset off center if not held center with tape or something. I had the old .45-90 from .45 basic and decided to try some.

The .300 Mag brass is a lot of work and I would not go that way again unless I had to, but if I did have to at least I could.

The BACO reformed .50-110 brass looks to be the best affordable option available today. I have 100 of those and I will be working with them soon as well as the Jamison.

I started with .45 brass and pulled Goex Express because I was just planning on getting the scope pointed toward center. That went much quicker than usual for me, luck I guess. The pistol primers were used because in both my .45-70 and my .40-65 I use Remington 2 1/2 primers and it works best in those two rifles with PPB.

I tried match primers of various types from time to time and just never saw anything that made me want to use them. Many people do so it will be on my list of things to pick up and try.

In the past, before my .45-70 Hepburn and my .40-65 and the use of pistol primer in them, I usually found Federal 215 worked well with Goex and Federal 210 worked well with Swiss. So that was my next move here.

Again remember, I'm breaking in a new barrel and fireforming a lot of brass. I am averse to using my best components for those two things, so I am in effect saving the best for last. Once all my brass has been fireformed once the barrel will be broke in and I'll have some good ideas of what this rifle likes and doesn't like.

I think tomorrow one of the loads between 76 grains and 82 grains of Goex 2f will look pretty good at 200m. Once I've found the best load I can with Goex 2f I'll likely move to Swiss 1 1/2 and basically repeat the process. I'll start with a "light" load find the primer that works good with that and then test loads moving up in two grain increments. Find what looks good there and try a grain each way from that.

Next would be retesting with different primers and the best powder charge. Then play with different wads or not. I almost always end up with .060" LDPE wads as giving the best results anyway so I may just stay there. Though in my .45-90 HDPE wads made a big difference.

When I have taken it as far as I can with the BACO 431ADJ I'll switch to the Sharps design mold I have. I do expect that to be a more accurate bullet, but we'll see. The whole process will begin again, changing one thing at a time finding what works best and retesting to be sure I have the right combination.

Then there is the whole question of seating depth, especially in this bottleneck case. I've started at .200" depth, much deeper than I usually go in most of my straight cases for target loads. That is the result of conversations with Kurt and Don and what I've seen in original cartridges.

The whole adjustable mold thing adds more variables to test. I won't take that too far. For now a 450 grain bullet has less lead in it than a 530 grain bullet, so that's why I started there. With my 17-twist I can go longer and heavier than I care too, 520 to 540 will be heavy enough!

I expect it to take a shooting season or two to fine tune the best load/bullet I can for this rifle. The final goal once I know what the rifle likes bullet wise and how deep to seat it will be to use a 2-diameter PPB (maybe more than one nose design) and that should be as good as it gets in this grease groove chamber.

As long as there are a few people interested I will post my efforts so they can see how I work to develop accurate paper patch load for my rifles. The process has changed as I've learned, I'm probably a little more organized in my approach now and I hope to keep good records.

The hard part will be to decide when to quit tweaking things and just settle on one bullet/load and go and shoot. Of course that's when the fun ends too so......