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

[Distant Thunder]

My new Brooks mold showed up Friday the 27th and Steve did an excellent job following the drawing and samples I set him and delivery was right on the 3 weeks promised.

Steve emailed me after he cut the mold and expressed concern that the bullet only weighed 490 grains. I told him I wasn't concerned at all about the weight as long as the nose profile and OAL were to my drawing. Do I wish it weighed 500 grains? Yea, but how much can 10 grains matter. I will be finding out just how little that 10 grains matters later this summer.

I cast the first 50 bullets with this new mold yesterday morning. Typical of Steve's molds the bullets just about fly out of the mold when it's opened. Unlike my other Brooks molds this one I had to run hotter than any of the others. The mold just wouldn't heat up and cast wrinkle free bullets until I kicked the heat up a bit from what I would call "normal". Once I did that it started dropping good looking bullets by the 4th or 5th one.

I cast 50 and then weighed them. The first one I kept was 489.9 grains, 39 were 490.3 to 490.9 with the last 10 in the low 491 grain range. The diameter is .434". I had told Steve .433 -.434". The length is 1.396", pretty close to 1.400" I asked for. The nose profile very closely follows the elliptical form of my .45 caliber bullet that I use for Creedmoor match in my .45-70. I had sent Steve 2 of my .45 caliber bullets for reference.

I patched 6 of the 50 with my 9# 100% cotton onionskin paper from THE PAPPER MILL (sadly no long made) and ran them through my .4375" sizing die. That made them a nice, consistent push fit into the bore of my 17-twist Krieger barrel.

For a starting load I always like to go back to what has worked well in whatever rifle I'm working with now. This .44-77 likes 86 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss. Because I had only 0ne pound of the 2016 lot that was hooting pretty well I had to shift over the 2013 lot I have now. That lot has given other shooters horrible accuracy problems. Two years ago I bought a pound of this 2013 lot from a very good shooter who could not make it work in any of his rifles. I loaded some in my .40-65 using 3/16 compression that was recommended by someone else and it shot extremely well in that rifle.

I was a little concerned how this powder was going to do in the .44 bottleneck. With the 2016 lot I was using very little compression, .050-.060" and that was working well with 2 other bullets. The 2013 lot is a little fluffier than the 2016, I had to increase the volume 1 grain over the 2016 lot to get a weighed 86 grains of the 2013. I don't think that is much difference and it didn't add much to the compression since I left my compression die set the same. No where near the recommended 3/16" that worked in my .40-65.

This is the load I put together yesterday and shot today.

Shiloh .44-77 (standard GG chamber) with a 17-twist 30" Krieger barrel.
Brooks custom 490 grain elliptical.
(1) .060" LDPE wad.
86.0 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 lot number 210.113, .060-.070" compression.
BACO converted .50-110 Starline brass.
Remington 2 1/2 large pistol primers.
C.O.A.L. 3.500".

I shot from my bench using a Leatherwood 6X scope in DZ mounts resting the barrel on a forward rest and with a shooting bag at the rear and my left resting on it while holding the toe of the buttstock. I do this bench resting for load development to try and remove as much shooter error as possible. Even then my breaks are only so good, +/- 1/4 to 1/2 MOA. At least that's the way it looks to me through the scope.

The attached target was the result. There are 2 holes in the target from another load that I used to get on paper and then 6 from this new 490 grain bullet. The 6 shot group is 2 5/8" ctc with 5 of the 6 in a nice tight 1 3/4". Now I'll have to put some thought into what to do next in an effort to improve the accuracy some, but this is not bad first the first group with a new bullet.

This bullet design has been the best I have used in .45 caliber for BPTR and holds up very well to 1000 yards. My hope is that it proves to be as good in .44 caliber. It looks like the accuracy is going to be there.