Heavy 44 cal pp bullets

[bearcove]

OKAY!

I thought I was doing OKAY but now I'm curious about something else. And I don't think it sounds cheap. I have this 20 inch 444 marlin barrel fer my contender, have 200-305 gr moulds. It seems that this would be a fantastic setup for a heavier long range paper patch bullet. IT has 6 groove barrel 1:18" twist, should stabilize a nice long bullet. Sort of a ultra-light long range plinker-moose gun.

TEACH A KID TO SHOOT SAFE, AND YOU'LL BE SAFE

[Buckshot]

..............Ya mean like these 395gr paper patched slugs? Your rifle really needs to be throated for them or they REALLY eat up the powder room.

...............Buckshot

[longbow]

Buckshot:

What twist has your gun got? I tried paper patched 300 gr. boolits in my .44 mag Marlin with 1:38 but they didn't stabilize - like any heavy weights I've tried in that twist. I found that if I dropped back to 265 to maybe 280 gr. they were okay.

Of course I can't push them as fast as you guys. 1:18 twist should do pretty well I would guess.

Longbow

[Buckshot]

..............It's a Douglas BBL with a (IIRC) 12" twist.

.............Buckshot

[longbow]

Thanks Buckshot.

Whilst others seem to be able to shoot heavy (300 gr. +/-) boolit from the slow twist in both .44 mag and 444 Marlin I have been unsuccessful with the .44 mag.

Paper patching had been another attempt to make sure I had good fit - worked well with lighter boolits but the big boys got unstable around 75 yards.

You guys both have faster twists so that explains that.

Bearcove:

What boolit diameters are you planning on using? I haven't done a lot of paper patch boolit shooting but so far have found that the guns I have paper patched for like the finished boolit about groove diameter. My .44 mag Marlin is happy with a 0.421" boolit so well under bore size but my .303 likes the boolit at bore diameter - under bore size didn't work well. This is with ACWW. Likely the difference between Marlin microgroove and deeper rifling in the .303.

Longbow

[bearcove]

Buckshot
Yep my barrel is throated. Not as long of a throat as would be ideal for those 395 gr bullets but, it'll help. What mould were those from? They are about what I was thinking about.

Longbow
As far as bullet size I figure I'll try .429-.430 finished size. Don't know for sure, I'm gathering materials,molds, brass etc for a few projects this spring. My reloading room is part of the garage on the north side of the house, in other words cold.

[bearcove]

I was looking on NEI's website and saw something that is interesting. The mould is .422-370 BT yep its boattail. Looks like it would go forever, sort of like a big bore 300 whisper. Do you guys think a bullet like that would PP well. I'm tempted to order the mould and wing it.

[longbow]

That seems to be in the right size range - maybe depending on rifling depth and groove diameter. You might want to check the paper patch threads on recommended boolit diameters before ordering a mould though - or ask NEI what they think.

The BP boys seem to like the finished patched boolit just over bore size (with soft lead boolits) but generally I see recommendations for groove size when loading for smokeless. Of course finished diameter can be adjusted by using different thickness of paper and or sizing to suit after patching (not sure how this would work with hard alloys).

One thing is that is you get a successful combination you shouldn't have to worry about leading at all.

Longbow

[Buckshot]

[QUOTE=bearcove;282839]Buckshot
Yep my barrel is throated. Not as long of a throat as would be ideal for those 395 gr bullets but, it'll help. What mould were those from? They are about what I was thinking about.[QUOTE]

.............Those are the RCBS slugs for the .43 Spanish. Ltman's version is the RN.

..............Buckshot