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

[Don McDowell]

I certainly don't plan to loose any sleep over who they may or may not give credit too. It's another choice 44 shooters have, and another item BACO has available, it's all good, and besides we all know Jim Brennan is the guy responsible for building those fine moulds.

[Distant Thunder]

It looked to me like it was a poor cut and paste/edit job. Says something about it weighing 540 grains and has wording similar to other "Arnie Seitz" designs. It does say it's an Arnie Seitz TYPE design.

At 1.320" it is at the upper end of the length for at 19-twist. The faster you can push it the better it would be for beyond 800 yards.. The design you came up with is a very good one for the length and that should help you for reaching 1000 yards.

I found that for my 17-twist barrel bullets that are 1.460" are a bit long for beyond 600 when pushed at 1300 fps. That's why I had Brooks cut my new one at 1.400". I might have been fine at 1.420" but I wanted to be sure it was spinning fast enough.

I know there is the whole stability factor thing and over a certain number is considered "over spun", but the number does not take into account the bullet design nor the conditions you're shooting in. I'm thinking a LITTLE over spun is a good idea when your bullet is getting slapped on the nose by those nasty, gusty head winds.

[Don McDowell]

Yes I believe it's going to have to run pretty close to 1300 to do it's best work in the 19 twist. Given how well 1.35 works in my 17 twist guns I have no doubt it will work well in those as well. That Metford nose always seems to work well and isn't all that far off from the start of the "money" nose, and very similar to the original Postel bullet. I have a Brooks straight sided bullet with what he calls the new postel mould, I had asked to be 1.3 but in actually 1.32 as it drops from the mould. So that's what I based the inquiry about this new bullet on.
When I told them to go ahead and make the mould based on the drawing they sent, they said they'll make it , cast with it and when they knew the weight they'll put it in the catalog. I suggested maybe don't put it in the catalog until we actually got to shoot the thing see if it would work or not. Sometimes bright ideas about a bullet don't always pan out. LOL
You can get away with a lot more variance in bullet length v twist when the longest distance you shoot is maybe 600 yards than when you start shooting at things beyond the ram line.
That's one of the great things about nose pour adjustable moulds, you can spend time and tink around with adjusting lengths and shooting them to see where things work well.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

Your thinking and mine are along the same lines for sure.

When you patch that bullet with SC 55Y the base comes up to .442"-.443"? What are your thoughts on that? I'm just trying to learn why you chose that diameter.

Do you seat that bullet out so that the base diameter is against the rifling?

Yes, the Money started out very close to Metford's design. I have that same nose on one of my BACO bullets, 520 grains, and it is the best shooting I've found for my rifle. The problem seems to be the 1.460" length is a little too much. When I get my Lathe wired up I'm going to shorten it to 1.420" and work with it some more.

I started out with my 18-twist .40-65 shooting a 420-grain bullet for silhouette. Sometimes it shot really well and other days it didn't do so well. It was just too long for that slow twist and in certain conditions it wouldn't hold up out to the rams. When I figured out that the RCBS 350 bullet actually shot better at 600 yards and more consistently the light began to flicker a little as to how important bullet length vs. twist was. I'm still in the learning process but the light gets a little brighter every year. There will always be just one more mold!

[Don McDowell]

Jim my thoughts on dual diameter bullets, run based on trials and tribulations using adjustable's. What I've came up with in my mind, is the base diameter prior to patching needs to be bore diameter, and the base length seems to be best when the base length is just short of caliber, IE 44/45 base length should be .4 and 40 cal works well at .375. And yes a person ends up sizing cases to keep the bullet from falling out. We've seen the difference quite often when testing here at the house, a bullet that falls out of the case before you can get it in the gun will almost always go out of the group. Neck tension is just as important with patched as it is with greasers.
Base diameter at bore diameter before patching should in theory help keep finning of the base and nose set back to a minimum, provided the paper doesn't get to thick. Altho there is a fly in the ointment with paper, as sometimes the same bullet in the same rifle will shoot better with the 55w than the 55Y, and sometimes you see absolutely no difference in accuracy so then it's up to you to decide which you feel like wrapping on any given day.
I also learned from close examination of that pull down bullet that it was seated way deeper in the case than we are often lead to believe a patched bullet should be seated. So what I do when seating bullets I mess around with a dummy round until I get the seating depth to where it will just chamber with minimal thumb pressure. Most times that gives an OAL that when you eject the loaded round you'll need a rod to push the bullet out of the bore.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

Very interesting! What you're saying makes sense and some of it I have also experienced with my .44-77.

With my straight wall cases I found that very shallow seating was best, usually .090" or less. With this .44-77 that was not true, and seating deeper has worked out better. In my shooting that's been .150" to .300".

I even recently tried it with the bullet seated so the wad was just a little up in the neck. It was only 3 shots but it didn't look bad and only used 77 grains of powder with a fair amount of compression. It looks like I could get down to 72 grains or so and have a good, accurate load. I am thinking that for silhouette that might be a mild load with a 500+ grain bullet that would work very well on rams.

Early on in my paper patching journey I found that sizing the case mouth so it was just snug on the bullet improved accuracy.

I usually find that one of the 4 papers I have will be better than the other 3 and it's not always the same paper from one bullet to the next.

[Distant Thunder]

Yesyterday and today I tested this new Brooks mold some more.

Yesterday it was a bit breezy but I don't think it was enough to affect the groups too much. I shot 5 groups starting with 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 and increasing 1 grain at a time up to 90 grains. The first group with 86 grains is just a retest of the first group I shot earlier with this bullet. That 86 grain charge has been the sweet spot with every bullet I've tried and with this new bullet it has kept 3 to 5 shots in 2 5/8" or less. The other targets with 87, 88, 89 and 90 make me think that 86 grains is where I need to be and I will continue to work with that.

The group with 89 grains has to be a fluke and I don't plan to retest.

Today I decided to test 86 grains with more compression which results in a shorter COAL. With 86 grains there is .050" compression. I also tried .075" compression and .100" compression. I threw in a HDPE wad test too just to see and that was with .050" compression and is target no. 1.

The wind today was very light and my smoke just slowly drifted away.

So that the first shot in the first group isn't waisted I have been loading a fouling shot with 86 grains of powder and a bullet cast from an adjustable Brooks mold set to 1.400" length.

I then shoot that fouling shot at the first target as a sighter and even though it is a heavier bullet that has a totally different nose profile it tends to go into the group. On the #1 target today it happened to be clustered closely with 2 of the other shots making a tight little clover leaf.

I don't think I'm getting a good idea of what shoots well with only 3 shots. Target #4 is another one that is highly unlikely to repeat. I believe that if I shot 5 instead of 3 the groups would all look pretty much the same and be in the 2 1/2 CTC range. I also believe if I shot 10-shot groups they wouldn't be much if any bigger and would just fill in more in the middle.

I'm thinking I'll just work with the 86 grain load at 3.500" COAL and the .060" LDPE wad and see how it shoots at a few matches. It could be that this rifle is just going to be a 1 to 1.5 MOA rifle and not any better. I will just have to make the best of it.

[Don McDowell]

I like that #4 target with 89 grs
Looks like run a 10 shot with that and see what it looks like?

[Kurt]

Jim,

I think what I see on your targets is that your rifle is capable of some fine accuracy.
I also seat my bullets deep but I have never used the loads to seat the bullet past .200". The swiss 1.5 in my 17 twist shot best with the Sage bullet with 84 gr of 1.5 Swiss and 82-83 gr of 2F OE and a .06" gasket wad or two milk carton.

I'm going to pull the .44-77 back out of the safe now that I had a chance to see what the .38-50 can do.
I'm out of swiss 1.5 and 2F so I will spend more time with the 2F and 3F OE again that has really showed better accuracy in my 17 twist Farmer and the 19 twist Shiloh.
I have a feeling most of my shooting will be at a one day match this year because the gas prices are $5.10 to $5.45 around this place, so the 9 to 10 mpg gypsy wagon will get a rest for a spell.

I hope to make Merrill again July 2nd for their gong shoot and I will take the .38 Hep and the .44-77 Farmer and decide which one to use when I get there. Also Harris is in my schedule depending on how the Mayo Clinic results will be shortly before Harris.
I hope that you can make one of the shoots with me besides Lodi. I want to spend time talking about the 77 developments with you.
I wanted to make the range today but broke a front tooth off biting into a rubber tire bagel of all things LOL. What else can happen LOL, been a tough spring for me.........

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

I could do that easy enough. It could be that there is something there that would worth exploring. Even if the group doubled in size it would only be 1 1/2 inches.

The other thing that I noticed is that the 4th target I shot today with 86 grains has .100" compression and that is the same amount of compression the 89 grain load had! That's interesting. Could it be that .100" compression is what makes the difference?

I think I'll load 5 with 89 grains and .100" compression and 5 with 86 grains and .100" compression. If one or both of those repeat I'll have to load 10 shots each and go again.