.44-77 and paper patch?

[Distant Thunder]

Yes sir, that's a good looking bullet and looks very fine sticking a way out of that long case! You gotta love these rifles and the paper patch bullets they shoot so well.

[Don McDowell]

Yessir they just look so good, it doesn't really matter how they shoot. LOL
This one sure woke that 40-70 up, been wanting to stuff it in some 40-90 bn, and some 40-65's just to see how it works in them.

[Kurt]

Jim I think your 77 will like that bullet. My Farmer .44-77 shoots one just about like that one and so does my Shiloh Hartford .44-77
I guess I'm going to have to invest in a good diamond grinding wheel and some Arkansas and try to make a D cutter and play with some scrap iron and aluminum I have under the bench.

[J.B.]

Well I've placed and confirmed an order with Rick ( Kal Tools ) for yet another mould. This will be my first base pour pp mould for the .44 and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. I've gone with the Gibbs profile this time around as it looked closer to the Sharps bullets I've seen to date..and I know one or two that favour it in their 45's. With the 1/17" twist in mind..it will be around 1.4" long.. dual diameter with .433/.434 for the main bearing area and I've opted for .443 at the base. I considered dropping the base down a bit more but it brought me back to having to size case necks too dramatically..and half the aim is to negate that totally if possible. I do have a few thick necked brass courtesy of RMC at .014" necks.. and I can use straight sided pp in those but this exercise will hopefully allow me to play around with the JBA and BACo cases without too much drama. This flat base wrapping has me stumped though. Just got a handle on wrapping and twisting for a cup base...now another challenge. You guys make it look like origami the way it tucks neatly underneath . Will post a photo when it arrives and I've had a chance to cast a few.
J.B.

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.,

I hear ya on the "...yet another mould." thing.

I don't know exactly what you chamber looks like, but I will offer this on the 2-D PPB design especially with your concerns about sizing your brass. I would go with a base (groove) diameter that is as close to the case neck I.D. of your fired and unsized cases as you can go without going over the diameter that fits any freebore your chamber might have.

As an example, with my .40-65 with its .409" diameter x .400" long freebore and .400" bore (land) diameter I went with as cast diameters that after patching fit those two diameters as close as possible without having to size them. By design my chamber is cut so that R-P brass is .409" inside the mouth after firing forming. A .410" diameter bullet will not fit the freebore or the brass (slip fit), but a .409" fits perfectly. I use only R-P brass, Winchester brass is too thin, Starline is too thick and R-P is just right!

The other thing that I don't think anyone else has made a point of with the 2-D PPB design is that with the base section of the patched bullet being at or very near groove diameter you want to seat these so that closing your action cams against the last bit of the rim and pushes the bullet tight against the rifling. I think this is something that gives some initial resistance as the powder ignites and gives better SD and ES numbers. Just my thinking.

For any rifle with a chamber designed to shoot groove diameter bullets I believe that a 2-D PPB is the way to go. However, just like any other lead bullet, PP or GG, fit is very important. With the 2-D design there is just a bit more to think through and get right. The beauty of the paper patch bullet is that you can have a very long "bore ride" design, which has the potential for excellent accuracy, without any fear of leading. With a straight side bore diameter PP almost the entire bullet is bore ride! With PP target loads you also eliminate the problems associated with lube altogether. As long as you develop a wiping procedure between shots that is thorough there is no chance of fouling out regardless of the heat and humidity. Bore pigs are the way to go there.

The better your new KAL bullet fits your chamber the better your accuracy will be. Don't make any compromises in the fit. Know your chamber/brass and design the 2-D PPB bullet to fit and it should be as good as it gets.

I'm going to get a chance soon to work through all these calculations in 2-D PPB soon. I got a call from Kirk at Shiloh this morning, he said they were cutting the chamber of my .44-77 right then and wanted to verify the rim thickness I want! I'm going with Shiloh's .078" and all my brass is set for that thickness. Not sure how long from chambering to shipping, but it can't be too long. With the weather improving and shooting season just around the corner the timing is good. I plan to relate my efforts with the .44-77 on this forum as I work things out. One of those things will be at least one 2-D PPB and one straight sided PPB. It should get interesting. I am of course just like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning!

[J.B.]

There's a lot of calculated ... even guesstimated measurements put forward for my mould but they are based on practical experience ..if not chamber casts and gauge pins. My cases come out with an outside case measurement of around .467" . If flared too much...say .469"...they won't chamber and you can feel the case mouth grabbing the chamber. At .468..you can feel there is no play in the neck of the chamber when you try a case. Its not a pp chamber...but its certainly a snug chamber..which is great. Case neck thickness varies from .009 through to .011.. depending on lots and brands...or who it was purchased through. I've got some ultra fine cotton paper through Shiloh that I purchased over 30 yrs ago but there's precious little of that left. Even have some lube sheets from back then too. Wrapped in grease paper and away from the sun...they still haven't dried out. With Seth Cole yellow... I add about .004 to the diameter...with white...its more like .005+. The BACo paper is thicker still. I've worked on this mould using both S.C. paper options and hopefully this will play out. I've a feeling I may still need to size 'some cases'.. but only by 1-2 thou to maintain some kind of hold on the projectile. Bring it on.. Too much time waiting between shoots means I get itchy fingers and re-invent the wheel again... and again. Bit like having no rifle hey Jim ?

J.B.

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.,

Getting a call this morning that they were chambering my barrel has got me all fired up! There will be so much to do once my rifle is back in my hands that it will be a couple weeks before any thing like load development can start. Just having the rifle will be a relief. It's two months before my first matches of the year at Lodi and I have to do casting and loading for that too so there'll be plenty to do.

Ideally I would have some loads for the .44-77 made up and I might be able to shoot a few at long range if time allows, but that's only if I get things working and showing some promise. I can shoot to 200 meters in my backyard, but that ain't 1000 yards. Once the two Lodi matches are behind me I plan to use the .44-77 for any other matches I attend, but again it's got to be shooting 2 MOA groups at 200 meters before it would be worth shooting a match with it. Smaller is better but I can start with that and continue to fine tune as I go forward.

On the two diameter thing, I will say it is a bit more complicated with the .44-77 because of the variations in brass and availability issues. I'll be working with 3 different types of brass as I get started. I would hope to eventually standardize my brass over time, but the price and availability issues being what they are I want to see which brass I have is most workable before I invest too heavily in one kind. In the end I'll need at least 200 pieces of uniform brass for match shooting. That would be for those 3 and 4 day matches I go to couple times a year.

One thing you can do is have the base diameter made for the thinnest brass you're likely to be using and if you want to use it in some thicker brass you could just run the patched bullets through a push through type sizing to reduce the base diameter to a good fit in that brass. The base band and, depending on alloy, the bore diameter section will still bump up as needed as the bullet is pushed into the rifling. It is always best to have brass, chamber and bullet fitting properly, but lead bullets will adjust as needed when the real bright light comes on!

If the patched base band is only a few thousandths loose just a light taper crimp will hold the bullet enough and not work the brass any more than needed. That is all I do in my .45-90 with my straight sided bore diameter PPB and they shot very well and it never hurts the brass.

You'll get it worked out I'm sure.