Winchester 73

[Don McDowell]

The Lyman 205 gr .430 diameter bullet works well in my 44-40's

[Nuclearcricket]

This may seem like a bit of a stupid/silly question, but its bothering me so I thought I would toss it out and see what you all think.
Since it seems that Lyman molds (and Ideal for what its worth) seems to have been introduced to the world by dirt, they would know what was good bullet for the older calibers like the 44-40 and such. If they made molds that were correct for those calibers back in the day when they were the calibers in use why did they change things over the years and people had to do deep dives and do redesign to make bullets now that work well and make guns shoot today as they should have shot back in the day?
The John Kurt mold seems to be the bullet of choice any more for the 44-40 and its on my wish list of molds to try. Kind of seems to me that if that mold works well in the 44-40 I would think it would shoot well in any of the modern 44's from the Russian up to the Mag. Has anyone dipped their toes into those little ponds of water?
Sam

[Don McDowell]

Dick Savage and John Kort worked together to come up with that accurate mould. Dick still shoots that bullet in his Henry and is a very tough competitor.

[Nuclearcricket]

I don't know Dick Savage but I think I know who you are talking about and if my memory is right about what he has done, then yes he is a Very Hard competitor for sure.
Sam

[Kurt]

Sam,
I would like to put a little input in this.
For some reason mow days shooters using black powder seem to feel that they need deep grooves to hold a lot of lube. Well all those deep grooves just blow lube away unused.
If you look at the old original grooved bullets they had a lot of grooves and and the bands were narrow and pay particular attention to the ogives that end at the front crimp groove or first driving band. Those ogives were designed to minimize dry lead to come into contact with the bore that the hot friction would contaminate the bore especially if there is a lot of tin in the alloy mix. Lead and tin makes it a solder and solder will stick to metal when heat is applied. Soft bullets mostly lead you will not get the lead smears in the bore. If you ever have shot the smoothy rifles where you push a mini ball or even shot guns the lead smears are just not a problem. Try soldering with just pure lead.
Bullets like the 121 in the center and the .44 Maynard round on the right is an example of what I mean about the ogives used back then.
The knurled bullets I use if I want to let people use when I let them shoot my rifles at the range need no fouling control. Those diamonds are shallow just below the depth of the rifling and that is enough to keep the fouling under control for many shots.
John's wide groove bullet is a good bullet for the lever rifles but in reality it does not be that deep.

[JKR]

The Lyman 205 gr .430 diameter bullet works well in my 44-40's

Don,
Is that the 427666 mold? I believe they call it their cowboy model.
Jim

[Don McDowell]

Jim can't remember the mould number off the top of my head, but on Midway's site the dropdown box did allow for different diameters.

[Nuclearcricket]

The Lyman mold for the 44-40 is the 42798 or at least it was, they may have changed numbers but hard to say.
Kurt those are interesting bullets and yes I do understand keeping the nose off of things to prevent leading.
the knurled bullets are interesting for sure.
I just looked up the John Kort bullet, very popular for sure. Its surprising how much difference .040" and 15gr can make. But hey if that bullet works then it works. Hard to argue wit success. So far the guns I shoot black in seems to like what I have fed them. Can't say I have the perfect diet for them but so for what I feed them doesn't seem to give them heartburn and I guess thats a good thing.
Sam

[JKR]

I’m a big fan of Accurate molds and have several. I like that you can specify sizes in order custom fit to your bore. Of course you can do this with any custom mold maker.

I have Accurate molds for my fun guns and Brooks molds for my serious long range rifles.

JKR