Author Topic: 44 mag loads?? (Read 1978 times)

Sixgun · « **on:** January 02, 2003, 05:12:16 AM »

Since I shoot both rifle and pistol silhouette I thought I would take the chance to help this ball get rolling.

My Rifle shooting is the NRA Cowboy Silhouette. My club started this new sport for the 2002 season. I shoot a Marlin 39 for the small bore and a 44mag in a Rossi 92 for the big bore.

I haven't had any trouble with the small bore. My high score is a 39/40 and I usually don't have any trouble breaking a 35. I only have chickens to go to get a grand slam.

My problem is with the 44 mag. I have trouble getting that thing to shoot slow enough to not damage targets and still be accurate. Does anyone out there have some good, accurate, low volicity loads for the 44 mag? Last year I shot a Lee cast 240gr/with GC over 8gr of Unique. It worked good til I shot up all of my old Unique and had to buy some of the new, improved formula Unique. I went from 3" groups at 100yd to about 25"groups.

The load development that I went through last winter to get that load was long and drawn out. I used 231, titegroup, blue dot, red dot, and 2400. Nothing worked good til I started with the Unique. Well, I guess it is back to the reloading room and the cold blowing snow at the range again this winter.

JimInNJ · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2003, 01:00:16 PM »

Sixgun,

That is a significant increase in group size. Have you been able to completely rule out the possibility that something beside the powder was to blame?

I dont have much experience in this area, but if you are looking for powders that are similar to Unique, Hodgdon Universal and Acurate #5 (a ball powder) are two that come to my mind

- Jim

Sixgun · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2003, 04:53:08 AM »

I made it out to the range last Saturday and tried several types of powder useing the same Lee 240gr gc bullet. I shot all of the groups at pig distance, 50 meters, and used a rest and shot over a chrony.

Since I am not able to put a scope on my Rossi, I used my Redfield Receiver sight with a very small appature. The front sight completly covered up the 4" bull so I used a 6 o'clock hold at the bottom of the bull.

I used all of the faster pistol type powders that I had on hand. They were tightgroup 6gr, blue dot 8 gr, bullseye 5.5gr, red dot 6.5gr, 231, 7gr, and the new formula unique with 8gr.

At that distance, the Red dot got the best group at about 2.75 inches but the volicity was only about 850fps. That would work good for the chickens and pigs but I'm not sure that the bullet would remain stabalized by the time it gets to the turkeys and rams.

All of the groups were within 4" at that distance, with the exception of the Blue dot, which was 4.75 inches. It left lots of powder in the bore with that load and it had the highest extreme spread and standard divation also.

I was thinking that maybe I would use the red dot for the chickens and pigs and then develop something else, a little more volicity, for the turkeys and rams. Maybe I could even use the same sight settings.

If anyone has any good ideas on this, please share them. Most of those loads are below published minimums in any of my load manuals and I don't like to get too far from what is in the manuals, even on the low side.

Sixgun

Mikey · « **Reply #3 on:** January 09, 2003, 08:59:41 AM »

Sixgun: I believe it is the Hornaday manual that lists a low end 44 mag load of 7 grains of SR 4756 under a 240 grain cast bullet for about 800'/sec. I was looking for a low end 44 mag load myself and one of the other posters directed me to this. Hope it helps. Mikey.