Development of PP loads for the .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

Well you have answered a question that just came up this afternoon. How many patches per hour is a good number to cut? You've got me beat all to heck! I'm not at all surprised, I know I'm slow and that's why I was wondering.

I was running short on patches for the same bullet and though I use .002" thick paper it's a good comparison of pph (patches per hour). I figured I needed 250 more patches for the 333 bullets I cast this week. I get 27 patches for this bullet from a sheet of paper so I took 10 sheets and set out to cut patches. I finished the 270 patches in one hour exactly. You far exceeded me and I applaud your effort!

I did get my no wind zero set on the my rifle this morning and got a 220 yard sight setting with the irons. I was chasing a 1/2 minute back and forth on drifting the front sight and finally just said close enough. The wind was blowing pretty good right after the rain stopped but died down enough for me to get a good no wind. Then it kicked back up! I went ahead anyway and shot a 5-shot group at 220 yards with your Sagebrush bullet because I was using those for my no wind. Somehow I dropped one shot a minute low but the other 4 were in 2" with 3 all touching.

I ran the numbers using my sight settings from my Hepburn because the two rifles are both shooting an elliptical paper patch bullet and the same velocity. I have no idea how close they will be but I figured all the way out 1000 yards. After the Rapids match I'll run the numbers again using my actual 300 and 600 yards settings from the match. The Fall Classic will be all 1000 yard shooting again this year but I can adjust 800 and 900 off my actual 1000 yard setting after Lodi and I should be good from then on.

My .44-77 is running pretty good and I was happy to see I was able to shoot a decent group at 220 with the iron sights. It was pretty grey and dark down range with all the rain this morning so my eyes are still working good enough. The group was 2 1/2 inches high and 2 inches wide with the one low shot figured in.

I've probably got enough loaded up now for Rapids but I don't want to be like Jeff and run out of bullets and not have enough to finish at 600 yards so I'll load a few more this evening. This coming weekend and the early part of next week are going to be busy for me so I need to get all that stuff done ahead. I should be ready by the end of the day tomorrow.

I am enjoying the heck out of shooting this rifle! I'm looking forward to Arnie's match.