Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

On another note, I finished fireforming my BACO cases today and they are drying now.

I will begin actual load development later this week using the only pp mold I have, the BACO adjustable mold. The lead pot is heating up now and I'll cast some at 1.425" long and 520 grains.

I already have a bunch cast and patched at 1.260" long and 450 grains. I'm thinking these would make a good silhouette bullet if it shoots. I may start with these.

Most likely I'll start with Swiss 1 1/2 and Federal 210 primers. I don't see spending much time on anything other than .060" LDPE wads, although I do have several other materials I may try. I just always seem to end up with the .060" LDPE wads being the best over time.

From my notes on powder compacity of BACO cases I'll probably start around 82 grains of 1 1/2. That should be minimal compression with the bullet seated to a maximum depth.

This whole idea of seating depth is going to be interesting with this bottleneck case. I've never seated my paper patch bullets deeper than .150" and for the most part best accuracy was found at much less than that. We'll see how it all plays out here.

Another thing is the compression. I read that if you compress these bottlenecks it doesn't really compress in the body of the cases anymore than the neck diameter all the way to the primer.

I pulled the bullets from 15 cases today and dumped the powder out so I could remove the Remington primer that did not work. These had only about .060" compression and they were very evenly compressed throughout the entire powder column and it was not hard to get out.

Just more to learn with this very interesting cartridge. I like it!