Just another mould..or two.

[J.B.]

A couple of photos of the two moulds. Given the paper thickness I generally settle on I'm beginning to feel..for target work at least, that .434 is probably a better shank diameter than .433 but dont believe there
is much in it. The BACo mould photo is a little out of focus but should give you the idea. Fixed plug on the base. I've a Tom Ballard 45 nose pour mould that actually just had the base screwed into the blocks on one side. Less complicated...but again, not adjustable. This was a great mould ..but was for my 45/110. Dont think I'll ever part with that mould.

[J.B.]

I got ahead of myself wishing to travel.. I meant next year..ie. '22. I expect to see you there if I can make it Kurt. Dont retire from shooting out west... just keep moving. ;-). and keep a supply of ammo for yourself...dont want you going home early again .
..rgds.. Gavin.

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.,

Is there a number for that BACO mold? I have one of their nose pour adjustable molds in .44 caliber and I like the mold but the nose shape is a bit different from your picture and not shaped like the original Sharps as my Brooks mold is. Your BACO bullet is a good looking one IMHO.

I was kind of against adjustable molds because with other ones I've had I never seem to stop fiddling with the length. With my .44-77 I found the BACO adjustable to really give me some added versatility that goes well with that cartridge. It's been a good mold.

The Brooks adjustable gives me the original look that I wanted and in very early shooting is going to shoot well. It does not appear that the cupped base is going to be any kind of a problem, it cast and filled out easily and didn't cause any problems with the LDPE wad. I have a long way to go in testing yet.

[J.B.]

I was pretty close to getting Steve Brooks do me a d/d pp mould with the Postell nose which I imagine would have come close to what you've got now...but when I decided to experiment with the 40... I decided to go with the Accurate option as it was a less expensive way of getting two to try. I figured I'd end up going with Steve in the end anyway and mine will be a base pour d/d when I do. The BACo mould number is JIM433500HB and is throwing a bullet 1.398" long and .4335' in the shank in 16/1. I had BACo do me a gg bullet about two years back and while its called a Postell the nose isnt quite how I'd hoped. I've not really had a chance to use it yet ..as once again, I'd designed it around a 1/17" twist rifle. A bit like yourself... I feel I've been robbed of two shooting seasons.
JB.

[Distant Thunder]

Well this year ending short was my own doing. I took on one last big project and I'm paying for it the last 1/4 of this year. Last year was a debacle that din't have to be near as bad as it was. Just my opinion.

I feel bad for you shooters down under and hope things will improve for you soon.

[J.B.]

So miracles do happen ! ...They just take longer to get here than I would wish for. Finally managed a shoot in what could only be called near record rainfall for New South Wales this time of year. Splashing through puddles we put some plates up ( sorry no 'no excuses' paper targets this time around ) at 200 and 600 yds. Winds were present but minimal and we were curious if and what effect the rain and heavy humidity in the air would have. Having finished fifty rounds of a Brooks elliptical gg bullet , I turned to the paper patched Acc. mould bullet from the twin cavity mould shown previously. Both Seth Cole yellow and white were used . One shot went low but after a minor 'confidence' adjustment , the next 4 sighters and 10 scorers went home. Load was 84 grns x Swiss 1.5. I'll have to wait until next year and hopefully some drier conditions before I find out how it goes beyond 600 and on paper as well. At 1.33" long it seems to be performing well. The BACo bullet was loaded and ready but time was disappearing as fast as the access roads were closing with flood waters so we had to get out 'right quick' and they didnt get tested ! As I alluded to in an earlier post ...the dd Brooks pp mould is ordered and I'm hoping it makes it here by Christmas. Targets were a 15" disc at 200, a buffalo around 4' high and 5' wide at 600 along with a 2' diamond target at the same distance. A real pleasure to see was one of our newer members , having joined about two years ago, shoot his best score ever . Dropped only five shots in the match and only a few sighters. Think he may have sound his mojo ! Should I forget later... I hope all have a happy, merry, safe and holy Christmas and manage to catch up with family and friends. Take care and fingers crossed they'll let me back in there in June '22.

best regards... Gavin.

[Distant Thunder]

J.B.

It sounds like you guys had a match of sorts in spite of the heavy rain. I’m not sure about others but I would like to see some details of your matches down under. Scores and equipment list would of particular interest. If you have time that is.

As to your 1.330” bullet at .434” diameter, I believe you are shooting that in your 19-twist .44-77? The posts go back a bit farther than my memory so correct me if I’m in error. If true I believe you have a good combination in that rifle, bullet and paper.

Also you are tending to go with shorter ogives than some of the more popular choices out there, which I also believe is a good choice.

You are paralleling my efforts with my 17-twist .44-77 and I am finding a 1.350” long .434-.435” diameter bullet wrapped thin paper, Staedtler 8# tracing paper (.0015”), to be shooting very well in my early load development with this new bullet. I am curious as to why the 1.330-1.350” or so long bullets are such a sweet spot in .44 caliber no matter the twist, but it seems to be.

I did some shooting yesterday for the first time with the 1.350” bullet from my new Brooks adjustable PP mold mostly trying different wads. That length from my mold, which also has an original Sharps profile, weighs 475 grains with the cupped base.

The wads that did best were when I combined two, a .060 LDPE and a .060 HDPE. I put the LDPE in the case first and then the HDPE and then compressed the powder to my depth which left the bullet in the cases .190”.

Being this was load development I was just shooting 3 shot groups at 200 yards. I have never had any luck when using more that 1 wad in any of my BP loads no matter the cartridge. Then I got to thinking about the soft LDPE wad against the cupped base of the bullet and what happens when the powder ignites. I wondered what would happen with a much harder HDPE wad, but knowing those wads would not offer a good seal for my bore diameter bullets I put a LDPE wad under it. This combination I thought would bridge the cup with the hard wad and still compress the soft wad under it for a good seal.

The first 3 shots went into less than 1 ½”! I tested my other loads and then went back to the house and loaded 3 more with the hard and soft wads. Because I was just twisting on the scope knobs to more each group around on the target rather than posting a new target for each load I had to return to the sight setting I had on those first 3 shots, but my scope repeats so well I wasn’t worried about it at all.

The next 3 shots combined with the first 3 to give me a 6 shot group that was only 1 7/8” extreme spread! These last 3 shot were fired about an hour after the first 3. This wad combo now had my attention!

Back to the house and I loaded 4 more in hopes of makingg it a 10 shot group. By the time I shot these last 4 shot nearly 4 hour had past since the first 3 shot! I had to once again return to the sight setting of the first 3, which I had fortunately written down. Conditions were different and I was beginning to lose daylight at 3:00 in the late afternoon and this is where things fell apart a bit.

With the wind up some, shots 7 & 8 were to the right and just a little and low in the group. Then shot 9 dropped almost 4” low! And the last shot, #10, went low and left. Not counting shot 9, the other 9 shots formed a group that is only 2 5/8” at it’s widest. I have no idea what I did on #9, but I think I may have skipped the dry patch and shot that one through a wet barrel. That’s just a guess.

The other thing that gives me hope is that all my shooting yesterday was with a new lot of Swiss 1 ½ that I just bought this summer. The shooting yesterday was all done with this new powder and only about .060” compression. All of the groups shot were under 3” and most were near 1 ½”. This was the first time I’ve loaded this powder and I figured I would start with just a little compression and work up.

The other thing I found interesting was my first ever attempt with under powder wads. There is a thread on Shiloh about these and I wanted to try them in my .44-77. I’ve never used them before, but I tried a few loads with them yesterday. One such load was the load with the hard and soft poly wads and while it was only 3 shots they were spread only 1 5/16” and had much less vertical spread than the same load without the under powder wads. I used .002” coffee filters for these wads.

I am secretly hoping there is nothing to these U.P. wads because they are a PITA to cut and more so to put in the cases. I’ve always been a fan of the K.I.S.S. method, “keep it simple, stupid. Now I would be looking at 3 different wads piled into each case! What could possibly go wrong?!

Keep working with that 1.330" long bullet, I believe good things will come.

[Kurt]

Jim,

Man I haven't pulled the trigger since September my self.
That is a very good start for sure and your right about the .1.350" long bullets in the .44's do well. I use it for the 1/19 to 1/16 twist as well as the 1.4" with the shorter ogives you can stretch it even longer in length.
I use that two wad stack with my Brooks mould like yours, but I use a wad cut from a gallon ice cream bucket over the powder and a .06" hdpe under the coped base or a very hard 1/16" wad cut from a NAPA gasket material that I like even better than the plastic.
The ice cream wads are very soft, good resin, and they run .035-.040" thick depending who's bucket it is.
The softer resin does a fine job sealing the gas.

Gavin,
Good to hear that your finally getting wet down there.

Kurt

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

Back when I was first using poly wads I cut mine from various jugs and bucket too and they were the same thickness as your's. In all my testing in the past 20 years the .060" LDPE wads have always given me the best accuracy even if only by a little. So I don't tend to stray too far with my wads, pretty much sticking to just the .060" LDPE.

I have never had an improvement with any wads stack I've tried, not until yesterday! The improvement over just the single LDPE wad was significant. I need to do a lot more testing of the under powder wads before I can say if it is worth it, but the 1 group yesterday sure had less vertical.

Seating two wads over the powder isn't a big deal, but get that coffee filter wads into the case and laying flat and centered is a pain in the butt. It would have to be a pretty good improvement before I would want to start doing for match shooting.

I was shooting over fresh white snow and I had snow coming down while shooting yesterday so recovering any patches or wads was impossible!

More testing, more shooting!

[Kurt]

Jim,

Wads have a lot to do with holding the group together holding the vertical to a flat line. Holding that flat line then the oblique or horizontal is a problem the person behind the butplate has to correct with controlling the rifle.
As far as the wad in the primer pocket or over the flashole under the powder, I have had no results showing that it makes a difference.
It they work for other shooters fine business let them go for it. I won't argue the point with them.

The wad stack I have seen a large improvement holding the vertical down was with adding a 1/16" high density cork wad. This material is hard to find but it's a very fine ground cork that is a lot smaller than the pegboard stuff that you find a lot of the cork gasket is made of but you have to adjust the alloy temper using it because the bullet get a lot of protection from getting bumped up so it fills the grooves fully and fast. But this high density cork will expand fast sealing the gas from passing past it but it also needs a proper wad over the powder so it don't flex.
Those groups are some of the best I ever shot using my cork wad stacks developing a .44-100 load I was going to use at Raton one year I decided not to attend at the last minute. it started at home on my range at 135 yards and I finished at 200 yards at the range for the last test and it held together just fine, but I never took it to the gong matches to finish the longer range testing.

The thing shooting fine 5 shot groups like this is, it's tough to do this on call when ever you shoot or even do it again in the future.
It's one of the good day things. When ever you have a sub MOA at any distance your having a good day.

Kurt