Are the .44-77 BN and the .44-90 BN viable contenders in modern Creedmoor

[Don McDowell]

I have and it saved my bacon in the middle of a string while trying to keep beating my head against the wall with the 1.35 in. long bullet and was coming up with what was headed towards a big fat goose egg or maybe a 6. Last 4 shots were 9's and 10's. That was in one of Raton's famous notorious wind fits.
Also saw Chip Mate shoot a very good score at one of the 1000 yard matches in Phoenix with a bullet he had shortened on his head grinder.

I had planned to campaign my new 44-77 at Phoenix this year, but due to a handful of different reasons did not get a load worked up, one of the reasons is this 77 in 45-90 seemed to really turn on when I had a 1.45 bullet brought down to 1.42. Maybe when I get back from the Desert International things will come together enough that I can get some serious load testing and sight settings in that 44-77 enough to run it in a few matches this season albeit they will be mostly going matches.
The 1.35 bullet I originally tried to run in the 44-77 shoots extremely well in the Shiloh I had rebarreled with a 17 twist,and chambered to 44-90 st.I would think that in your 44-77 with the 17 twist barrel that length of bullet should run very well, a lot of my reasoning is in the 90 st. I only run 84 grs. of 1 1/2, patched and 82 grooved, which isn't that much different than what I think I saw you say you were running in the bottleneck.