.44-77 PP bullets.

[Kurt]

Those short .50 bullets work very well in the .50-70. I had several rollers but only one in the .50. I could never warm up to the rollers but I sure liked the little .50.
Back when I shot them they cost $14 to $20. out of the back pages of the NRA magazine. But they were mostly 11mm and the Spanish.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

I dug up my .50-70 book and nowhere in it can I find where I ever wrote down the bore diameter. The rifle is just a little to far back in the safe to pull it out to just check the bore diameter and I don't have a good way to do that here at home.

It is a Badger barrel at 1 in 26 ROT. Most of my loads have been right around 80 grains and it shoots well with about any powder and wad I've ever used. And bullets from 450 grains up to 600 grains. It really like the Lyman 515141, but I have to seat it out a good bit.

The freebore is .5105" diameter and is .350" long. The groove diameter is .5103". I have actually been sizing my bullets to .509". At .510 they can give me trouble when chambering if there is any fouling left in the freebore, which seems to happen enough to be a problem. At .509 they chamber without any problem and accuracy remains good.

That rifle has always shot very well with both grease groove and now with paper patch, but it has always been primarily a hunting rifle.

[J.B.]

Another big fan of the 'little 50' ...if there is such a thing. Quite happily add one to my collection again if I get the chance. My Shiloh ran the 1/36" twist and was a dream to shoot. I did do some pp but mostly used a bullet I had Tom @ Accurate make up. It was similar to the Lyman 141 but ran a little longer and the option to load out with an exposed lube groove. Shot to 800 splendidly... although a little slower than some others . Often thought a Business rifle in that calibre would be a great field gun and hold its own with a few others at gong and paper.
J.B.

[Distant Thunder]

A .50-70 business rifle would be sweet indeed!

I've never had really good results past 500 yards with mine, not sure why. Twist?

It is an excellent hunting cartridge tha is for sure.

[Kurt]

Jim it's not important.
I have barrels that have shallow grooves, .003" and a couple .0064". The shallow grooved out shoot the deep grooves with a PP.

The little .50 is not a long range round when using the short light bullets that are almost a round ball but they sure smile out to 300.
I pulled my big .50 out of the safe last night and I see the sun shining this morning so it's smoke time today time to get the 2009 cases shot empty.

Kurt,

I dug up my .50-70 book and nowhere in it can I find where I ever wrote down the bore diameter. The rifle is just a little to far back in the safe to pull it out to just check the bore diameter and I don't have a good way to do that here at home.

It is a Badger barrel at 1 in 26 ROT. Most of my loads have been right around 80 grains and it shoots well with about any powder and wad I've ever used. And bullets from 450 grains up to 600 grains. It really like the Lyman 515141, but I have to seat it out a good bit.

The freebore is .5105" diameter and is .350" long. The groove diameter is .5103". I have actually been sizing my bullets to .509". At .510 they can give me trouble when chambering if there is any fouling left in the freebore, which seems to happen enough to be a problem. At .509 they chamber without any problem and accuracy remains good.

That rifle has always shot very well with both grease groove and now with paper patch, but it has always been primarily a hunting rifle.

[Distant Thunder]

What are you .44-77 shooters using for ammo boxes? The rims on most of my brass is just a bit too big in diameter to fit any of the readily available boxes I've found.

The BACO converted .50-110 brass I have has a .610" - .615" rim diameter instead of the .625" rim that the Jamison brass has. Is the smaller rim diameter a problem for extraction? Or anything else?

[Kurt]

Jim I made some wood boxes but I'm working on a wood block that fits a old lunch bucket just for the heck of it


   

[Don McDowell]

The WSM sized plastic boxes hold 44 77 rounds pretty well.

[beltfed]

I checked my MTM R-50 Magnum boxes. Square holes
are Tight on a .625 so the Jamison rims would kind of Stick.
Also ditto, the MTM H-50 Magnum.
Should be OK on the 0.615" rims
beltfed/arnie

[Distant Thunder]

Arnie,
That's what I found here with the MTM boxes I use for my .45-70 levergun loads. I did order some MTM RLLD-50-16T boxes and I'm thinking they will be the same but are 4" tall so at least they'll fit. As near as I can figure the squares are like .620" at the bottom, just tight enough to be a PITA.
There'll be a way to make these work.

Kurt,
I gave some thought to making a wood block to fit in some kind of ammo box and I may do that yet.

Don,
I didn't think about the WSM. I don't know anything about those new fangled cartridges!

It's interesting how many cartridges are up around .580 to .605" diameter and not many, except the .44-77 & .44-90 BN are .625"+. Of course the .50s are .660" on the rim but the boxes I use for my .50-70 are not tall enough for the .44-77. The one box I have for my .50 that holds 50 rounds accepts the .625" rim but I would like to have more than 3" for a cartridge length.

So the smaller rims, .615", are not any problem for the function of the cartridges?