Time to continue load development with my .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

I hadn't given up on this rifle/cartridge yet, I just didn't see boring anyone with all the things I tried that didn't work.

I have tried a lot of different things, wads, compression, primers, bullets and patching paper over the past 3 weeks shooting over 100 rounds and many targets. Some didn't look good enough after just a couple of shots, but usually 5 shots, to retry and see if they would repeat. I learned many years ago that one good group does not equal a good load/bullet.

A few efforts looked promising after one group and were repeated, with all of those the repeat didn't show good results, not good enough. All of those until today that is. Not only did one of the loads I tried yesterday repeat, but it rerepeated today. It's still only 15 shots on 3 different targets over two days, but it does meet my definition of a load I can build on. That being a load/bullet combo that will put 10 shots minimum into under 3" at 200 meters, 220 yards.

This is going to be a bit of a long way around the barn, but I think it's interesting. Feel free to skip whatever part bores you.

I have never had much luck with wad stacks, loading 2 or more wads on top of the powder. Then last fall I started with a new Steve Brooks mold, a nose pour adjustable mold. I order the mold with a flat base and Steve sihpped with a cupped base. When I asked him about it he said he would make a new flat base screw and ship it to me. He did that rather quickly too. Steve is an excellent mold maker and stands behind his molds.

The unfortunate part of the new base was that it was for a .45 caliber mold and mine was a .44 caliber. So, I thought what the heck I'll give the cupped base a go and see. The other molds I've had with some sort of a base plug were difficult to cast good bullets with. They didn't seem to want to fill out around the base evenly. From the get-go Steve's mold cast like a dream. As I started loading and shooting it there was concern expressed about the .060" LDPE wad I was using forming into the cup under pressure. It seemed to be shooting well with just the one wad, but I could see how it could be a problem.

Thinking the idea of the rather soft LDPE wad through I came up with the idea of a HDPE wad which is harder and less likely to push into the cupped base. Thinking a little more I was concerned about the HDPE wad sealing well as my bore diameter PPB starts to move down the bore. I figured I would put a .060 LDPE wad on top of the powder and then on top of that the .060 HDPE wad under the bullet. Thinking that the hard HDPE wad would act as a bridge across the cupped base and the soft LDPE would do the sealing behind it. This would in effect make the HDPE wad a "false" base to my bullet and not dampen any upsetting force from the powder, while allowing the LDPE wad to get squeezed against the hard wad and seal the bullet from gas cutting. That worked even better than just the LDPE wad by itself. This apparently wasn't a new concept as I later learned.

Eventually I got the flat base screw to fit my mold and I started working with that version. Then plan being to come up with a load to start some serious development at matches this year. After the past 2 years were rather disappointing and both shortened for me, first by Covid in 2020 and then by personal business in 2021.

I thought I would just pick up where I left off with the cupped base bullet since I was using an identical bullet but with a flat base. NO GO! Try as I did the two wad stack wasn't working with the flat base!

In fact I was having trouble getting repeatable accuracy with the flat base version. What the heck? It's the same bullet for crying out loud!

I didn't know what else to do, what to try. I went back to my notes, I make a lot of notes, some of them are useful. I started to take note of what had work with other bullets and what bullets I have molds for worked best. I had a lot of bullets given to me when I first started working with my .44-77, mostly by two guys who have been very helpful with this effort, Kurt Altenburg and Don McDowell. My thanks to both of them. I just didn't see any reason to work up a match load for a bullet I didn't have the mold for. That would mean another mold! Nothing wrong with that but it's getting close to matches starting up and getting a new mold and starting at square one looking for a load would take too long!

Paging through my notes and all the targets showed that my BACO JIM430520 bullet was accurate right from the beginning. It showed that my rifle really likes about 86 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss and that a .060" LDPE wad was best, as were the Remington 2 1/2 large pistol primers.

I went back and started with that combination. The consistency wasn't there, some good groups, but always some groups with one or two shots outside the group. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with my rifle! I pulled the scope. I tightened the bases. They were tight. I put the scope back on and retightened it. Everything was good, but now I knew it was all good. It had to be something in my loads.

I remembered that Semtav had suggested I try a two-wad stack with a .030 vegie wad and a .030 LDPE wad on top of that. That didn't work for me, but it got me thinking. I had already tried the .060 LDPE wad with the .060 HDPE wad on top and that didn't work for the flat base BACO either. Thinking of other wad combinations I could try and that seemed to make sense I thought of trying the .060 HDPE wad under the bullet but with a .030 LDPE wad under that.

That with the 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 and the Remington 2 1/2 LP primers and the powder compressed only .050" produced a 5-shot group right at 1 3/4". A good group and a very well shaped triangular group. That was the 2nd to the last group I shot at the end of the day yesterday. That left me plenty of time to wonder if it would repeat again this morning and why did it work?

I have no idea why some stuff works and other stuff doesn't. It makes perfect sense that it varies from rifle to rifle, but how much difference can the wad(s) make beyond a certain point? Why would a .060 LDPE + a .060 HDPE not work but a .030 LDPE + a .060HDPE work? I'm lost! No clue!

This morning early, I set up some targets and I shot 5 more loaded just like yesterday's load. I was surprised at how low the first shot went on paper. After shooting the next 4 shots I realized that first shot was through a clean, oiled barrel and that was probably why it went low even though I wiped the barrel before that first shot. Even with the low shot the group was only 2 7/16", well under my 3" maximum for a load with potential. Forgiving the one low shot I loaded 5 more the same and shot another target. I got another 1 3/4" group! That last group is almost scary in that 3 shots are touching and the other 2 shot are also touching just below the 3. I mean if I could shoot half way decent...., well it's scary to think.

When I add in the wind as it was both days I can accept the results very easily. I was just trying to break my shots when the wind was at a low point and not totally reversed. It was rather gusty and twitchy. In the end I think this is a load I can work with and in fact I am excited to work with it.