WC 844 vs. WC 846

[Marlin Junky]

In terms of cast boolit performance, what is the difference between 844 and 846? Does one burn cleaner than the other? I'm mostly interested in feeding a 444 Marlin and perhaps a couple 45-70 Marlins (an 1895 Cowboy and an XLR) all with shallow grooves and barrel lengths ranging from 18.5" to 26".

MJ

[wiljen]

In my experience with the 45-70, wcc 844 is a tad faster than H335 and good for full snort (Levergun/Ruger) loads. I suspect the same could be said in the 444 but have no direct experience. It does not reduce worth a flip and recoil is quite pronounced at top end loads. I think it would be pretty worthless for 28,000 PSI loads but at 40,000 PSI it does good work.

846 is slightly slower and fairly near Win748 in my tinkerings. It should work for 28,000 PSI loads as you cant get enough in a case to generate a lot more than that in the 45-70 without compressing charges. It has not been as accurate in my experience in the 45-70 so I have used more of it in 308 sized cases where it does very well.

Hope that helps.

[Marlin Junky]

In my experience with the 45-70, wcc 844 is a tad faster than H335 and good for full snort (Levergun/Ruger) loads.

Sounds like a reasonable facsimile of AA-2200


It has not been as accurate in my experience in the 45-70 so I have used more of it in 308 sized cases where it does very well.

Do you attribute the lack of accuracy to powder fouling? I know if I don't get a good clean burn with my modern Marlins, accuracy suffers. The old deep groove 336's don't seem to care what I feed them as long as the load is reasonable.


Hope that helps.

Yes, thank you. What 45-70 boolit weights have you tried with WC-844?

MJ

[wiljen]

Do you attribute the lack of accuracy to powder fouling?


No, it burned cleanly, just never got the kind of accuracy out of it I got with 3031 and some others.




What 45-70 boolit weights have you tried with WC-844?
MJ

Mostly 325 and 340 but I have used some 385 to good effect as well.