Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

A very interesting day at the range with the .44-77. First thing this morning I tried a wad stack that I thought might work and allow for compressing the 86 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss a little more. That didn't work out at all the way I hoped. I need to study this wad stack thing more I guess.

Then I turned to testing primers and since those things are scarce as hens teeth around here now with everyone worried about the future I just tested what I had lying around.

Five different primers were tested and the targets have all the info written on them. None shot horrible but there were a couple of gems found, most surprisingly the Federal 215s.
These are only 3-shot groups but the consistency is very promising. Along with the other groups this bullet has turned in it gives me hope and the rifle is working very well.

So here are the targets from today.

           

I'm at the point where I start doing little adjustments in my loading setup and procedure. They aren't any that one would think would make a different but the target says otherwise. I adjusted my seating depth for this bullet to .095" in the case and that gives me a COAL of 3.600". That is just about all I can "cam" in with the Sharps breech block. The cartridges slide in with some resistance until about .015-.020" from all the way. The block easily pushes them in the rest of the way. That way I know that the step between bore diameter and groove diameter is tight against the rifling leade. This has worked well for me in the past with 2-D PPB.

I refined my drop tubing to be more consistent and uniform. This was a result of watching what work best as I've been going through this development.

Because the powder fills the case to within .060" of the top and I can just thumb push the wads in level with the case mouth I decided to use a bushing as a guide for my compression plug. I damaged one case the other day and I paid way too much for those JBA cases to do that again! Guiding the plug straight into the case seemed to help true everything up very nice. My compression was more uniform than what I had before.

I also believe that turning the necks on the BACO cases, which would have been unusable with this bullet otherwise, improved the accuracy. The bullet bases are a nice snug fit in the case mouth and the case just fit the chamber. The alignment could not be better. The bullet is well centered and supported over a maximum of it's length. This rifle may prove to be even more accurate than I had hoped, it's getting very close to that.

I also did some minor tuning to my rifle which may or may not help with accuracy it's just something I've been doing.

I tried the orange sticker this morning with the wad stack load but I just can't use that for an aiming point so I just aimed at the center of each sheet of paper. That works pretty well for me. The little 3/4" black paster in the middle is just a reference for the center so I can move the groups around on each target. I can see it through the scope until it's behind a crosshair.

I think I'm closing in on some fine accuracy with this .44-77 and something I can use at a match. I'm going to set this project aside for now and get to some other things that I am behind on around the house. At least the weather is supposed to cool down some. I plan to write up a summary of how I'm loading these 2-DEPP bullets but I'll start a new threat for that and I'll also review how I came up with my dimension for the 2-D bullet incase someone is interested and isn't shooting with Shiloh's standard chamber. A review of that might be helpful.