About those light .44 boolits ...

[PPpastordon]

About those boolits;
I loaned a Lyman 4 cavity 429215 (214 grain) boolit mould to a friend who wanted to make a lighter boolit for some old .44 he had. What I didn't understand, or he did not say, is that he wanted to make my mould cast a lighter boolit. My mould that once cast great 214 grain GC boolits no longer does. It casts flat base boolits that, according to him, weigh about 200 grains. He says they shoot great - but he didn't even give me any. He just returned my altered mould.
That has been several years ago and I have not cast a single 200 grain .44 with my "new old mould." Old because I've had it since in the late 1960's. But I hope to soon be able to cast some because my wife has decided to start using the .44 and I want to start her out on some relatively low recoil loads. However, I just do not have a place to cast right now.
I have never shot light boolits, even the 214's, at low velocity in a .44. I usually pushed them to around 1400 fps, according to a reloading manual. However, I would think recoil would be quite mild for what I will be looking for. I want around 850 to 900 fps; which should (I hope) be low recoil, but enough oomph-whacka for self defense if need be - even though it is just a starting load for her. I would let hetr work up to at least the .429360 at 230 grains (a boolit I was disappointed in originally because of its requirement for low velocity to hit a #2 washtub beyond 10 paces), and then to finally move on up to an RCBS 250-K.
BTW; she can shoot a .38 now, but hasn't for some time. Now that the desire is here I don't want to let it pass.

Helpful suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

[Ricochet]

Well, that's exactly what I give my wife to use for self defense purposes in her .44 Bulldog. Currently she's got Lee 215 grain round noses over 4.5 grains of Nitro 100, which is probably somewhere in the 800 FPS range. When that 200 grain wadcutter group buy mould comes in, that boolit will replace the round nose. She long used the Speer 240 grain swaged SWC over 6.3 grains Unique, but it was a little stiff on the recoil for her. I think most anything with the .429" bore will work, anyway.

[Lloyd Smale]

freind or not he would have bought me a new mold!

[cbrick]

With friend's like that who needs enemies?

[targetshootr]

With friend's like that who needs enemies?

Yup. Maybe there's another side to the story but it'd be hard to justify something like that.

[Bass Ackward]

I have never shot light boolits, even the 214's, at low velocity in a .44. I usually pushed them to around 1400 fps, according to a reloading manual. However, I would think recoil would be quite mild for what I will be looking for. Helpful suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.


You don't mention caliber or your mix. I assume it is a 44 Mag from your velocity quotations.

The big secret, if there is one, to shooting light bullets in light loads for me seems to be having the brass annealed so it will expand along with the base to seal at the low pressures these loads generate before the bullet starts forward. And you may benifit from a slightly larger diameter than you would normally use too.

Be careful with your belling operation as you can remove all case neck tension or create large bullet run out. Again, the softer anneal helps here.

[Shuz]

PPpastordon--Try 7 to 8g of Green Dot with your modified 429215's. In that range, I'm sure you'll find something that will shoot well and have little recoil.