Learning to feed 480 Ruger

[IndianBob]

Indian Bob's 480 Ruger Super Red Hawk make biggum kaBoom, shoot big boolit, break big rock. Make Indian Bob giggle, make squaw wonder what so funny. Indian Bob not break wrist; no brown bear nearby, just damned deer eating apples from Indian Bob's tree. Indian Bob maybe ring deer's bell in November. Anyway...

I'm new to casting boolits, but I've been reloading for years. I bought the Lee 400 grain .476 round flat nose mold. I wanted a real easy, low recoil load for fun. Based on Lee's reloading book and QuickLOAD, I started off with Titegroup, loaded sets from 7.5 to 8.8 grains, and went to the range today. In summary:

-Lee 476-400RF mold
-roughly 50/50 mix of lino and pure Pb. BHN ranged from 12-15. I wasn't being particularly precise. I DID NOT use GC's, didn't think they were called for.
-Titegroup, sets of five from 7.5 to 8.8, to see what I liked. I wanted roughly 950 fps, but not real particular.

All loads leaded badly. Lead sprayed out the cylinder gap in all directions, even made a metal safety sign on the firing line ring. The 7.5 grain made nice round holes in the target anyway, but at 8.8 grains, I was getting a spray of lead bits on paper, a nice shotgun pattern. Somehow I was even getting lead between the brass case and the chambers (the lead came out with the brass). My first go at cast boolits was for my Glocks in .45 ACP, also with Titegroup, and although I had other problems/lessons, I didn't have this leading.

Having gone over everything, I think the issue is that although it burns very fast, Titegroup was producing high (> 30,000 psi) pressures, enough to overcome the boolits' hardness. Both the book and QuickLOAD indicated high peak pressures, and I didn't pay attention to that. Gas checks may have helped, but the point was to produce a slow load that didn't need them.

After going through the forum and QuickLOAD, I think Unique is a better option. Pressures are much, much lower, about a third less. I'll try to get some tomorrow, and load more for the range.

If you think something else might be the problem, please let me know.

How!

[DougGuy]

Unique burns WAY too fast to use under such a heavy boolit. You run out of headroom real quick. Think slower burning powder like 2400, AA#9, LilGun if you don't want to go max velocity. H110 ONLY for max loads.

*OR* lighter boolit if you want to use unique.

The titegroup loads are probably the least recoil of any 480 loads, as they get the 400gr boolit slightly under 1,000fps. This is simple physics that says for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and the bottom line is that there is no way to shove a 400gr boolit out of the muzzle of the RH without creating significant recoil. By the time you push the 400gr RF boolit hard enough to be accurate, recoil will be very noticeable.

I wanted a real easy, low recoil load for fun.

^^^^ This is probably a mistaken approach to the 480 and likely you will have nothing but problems trying to coax the 480 into becoming a 38 Spl.

The 480 is a huge magnum case. It was made for magnum loads, with heavy boolits. These boolits need to be pushed fairly hard to even stabilize in flight, DO use the gas checks with them.

Leading is usually a fitment problem. Are you sizing these boolits? Do they fit through the cylinder throats from the front? What lube are you using?

[Loudenboomer]

Bob I've been shooting that bullet in the .480. Straight water dropped wheel weights. I did work up a reduced speed load with HS6 but that bullet should be at 1000 fps or more to work best. 20 gr of AA#9-s works well in my gun. Leading has not been a problem.

[pmer]

I was getting a weird shaving of lead I on the case mouth using Tight Group and that 48-380 V boolit that I've been playing with. My boolits were checked and coated though. After emailing the mold manufacture the solution was to bell the case out more and then seat / crimp separately. I have tried other powders with no issues like this but TG makes for a hard fast hit on the boolit with bigger charges. It should work for you if everything else is right. My sizer was too small for my throats and I had to work with that as well.

[IndianBob]

Additional details:

- I should have clarified what I meant by "low recoil". I meant that relative to a max 400 grain load, relative for what the revolver is. Even the reduced loads of yesterday made big geysers of dirt in the berm behind the targets; I want to enjoy those terminal effects without quietly hating the recoil after, say, a box of 50. I was fine yesterday, and can go up in recoil still further.
- As cast, they come out from .476 to .478 or so. I use LLA, tumble, Lee sizing die to .476, then tumble again. I can feel the majority being sized, maybe every 15 or so I feel one go through easy.
- The cylinder throats on my SRH measure about .480 My sized bullets fit through the cylinder throats with a very gentle push, maybe a few ounces.
- Lower cost, lower powder grains, is a goal.

Here is some QuickLOAD data for nominal 1000 fps. It's a predictive tool, not gospel truth, but I've come to like it:

Cartridge : .480 Ruger
Bullet : .476, 400, LEE 476-400-RF
Useable Case Capaci: 20.057 grain H2O = 1.302 cm³
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 1.650 inch = 41.91 mm
Barrel Length : 8.7 inch = 219.7 mm

Predicted Data for Indicated Charges of the Following Powders.
Matching Muzzle Velocity: 1000 fps or 304 m/s
These calculations refer to your specified settings in QuickLOAD 'Cartridge Dimensions' window.
C A U T I O N : any load listed can result in a powder charge that falls below minimum suggested
loads or exceeds maximum suggested loads as presented in current handloading manuals. Understand
that all of the listed powders can be unsuitable for the given combination of cartridge, bullet
and gun. Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder and component variations.
USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON !

Powder.type..........Filling.Ratio.....Charge....C harge...Vel....(z).....Pmax.......Pmuzz..B_Time
.........................................%.....Gra ins....Gramm...fps.....%.......psi..........psi... ...ms
---------------------------------..-----------------------------------------------------------------
Alliant.2400........................81.6.....14.3. ....0.93....1000....83.6....22070....2928...1.077
Alliant.UNIQUE....................77.1......9.2... ..0.60....1000...100.0....31926....1993...0.973
Hodgdon.TiteGroup..............62.7......9.5.....0 .61....1000...100.0....48938....1701...0.888..!DAN GEROUS.LOAD-DO.NOT.USE!
Ramshot.Silhouette..............63.3.....10.2..... 0.66....1000...100.0....31962....1992...0.966
Accurate.No.9......................73.0.....14.3.. ...0.93....1000....87.4....23175....2820...1.057
Hodgdon.Lil'Gun...................91.5.....17.6... ..1.14....1000....80.1....19001....3354...1.112

Thoughts from the data:
- The data doesn't account for venting through the cylinder gap, so what I thought was 950 yesterday was maybe 875-900 fps. Really slow. I should have used my chrono, but didn't.
- There is a roughly inverse relationship between peak pressure and powder grains. I don't want to paste all the pressure and velocity plots, but the ones that acheive 1000 fps with lower pressures are the slower burning ones. Those plots draw pressure off to the right, in time and distance down the barrel.
- TiteGroup was a bad idea in this case.

This is a fun gun to load for, and I have some time, so I'll do a big study of several powders (UNIQUE, 2400, Accurate No 7 & 9, Lil Gun), at various speeds, gc'd vs no gc. I have tons of lino, so I may try a harder alloy.

I will wait on feedback about leading based on additional details provided before I go buy powder, but that's the notional plan.

[IndianBob]

Another issue: My Lee 480 Ruger full length sizer and deprimer really works my brass down to a much smaller diameter.

SAAMI Spec case diameter: .504, tol +0/-.006
New Starline Brass: .502, consistent.
Once fired brass: .506, consistent
Full length sized diameter: .494

The sizing die stops just short of the case head. It looks funny, especially when a loaded bullet stretches the case diameter back to something around .502, so the loaded cartridge has a wasp waist look to it. I mostly reload for rifles, and usually just neck size, but for all the times I have full length sized something, I've never seen it do this, pistol or rifle.

Thoughts? Is this normal/ok, or is the die particularly undersize, and I'm working the brass needlessly?

Thanks.

[Tom W.]

I used the Hornady dies and an RCBS mold. Didn't need a gas check, but used heavy loads. Don't remember if they were H110 or 2400. They were very accurate at 100 yards. I also had a 2x Leupold on it.

[reed1911]

- The cylinder throats on my SRH measure about .480 My sized bullets fit through the cylinder throats with a very gentle push, maybe a few ounces.

If that statement is accurate, then there is part of your issue for the leading. If your throats are running 0.4800" then a 0.4760" sized bullet is way too small. I'd recommend opening up the mold to 0.4805"-0.4810" and sizing the same.

I'd agree you are working the brass too much for your chamber and would recommend getting an "M" die or NOE powder funnel that will expand the brass back out where it needs to be before seating the bullet. The size will be dependent on the bullet size (see above) and should be just large enough to hold the bullet securely without sizing it down.

[Tracy]

Unique burns WAY too fast to use under such a heavy boolit. You run out of headroom real quick. Think slower burning powder like 2400, AA#9, LilGun if you don't want to go max velocity. H110 ONLY for max loads.

*OR* lighter boolit if you want to use unique.

The titegroup loads are probably the least recoil of any 480 loads, as they get the 400gr boolit slightly under 1,000fps. This is simple physics that says for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and the bottom line is that there is no way to shove a 400gr boolit out of the muzzle of the RH without creating significant recoil. By the time you push the 400gr RF boolit hard enough to be accurate, recoil will be very noticeable.



^^^^ This is probably a mistaken approach to the 480 and likely you will have nothing but problems trying to coax the 480 into becoming a 38 Spl.

The 480 is a huge magnum case. It was made for magnum loads, with heavy boolits. These boolits need to be pushed fairly hard to even stabilize in flight, DO use the gas checks with them.

Leading is usually a fitment problem. Are you sizing these boolits? Do they fit through the cylinder throats from the front? What lube are you using?

The .480 is not all that huge. All it is, is a shortened .45/70 case blown out to .475. In fact with a 400 grain plainbase Lee boolit (which is what I use) it has less case volume than .45 Colt with a Keith boolit. That makes it frugal as to powder usage; I've found it to use similar or slightly lower charges of the same powders as .44 Mag with a Keith boolit.
If I were gonna use Titegroup, I would probably start somewhere south of 7.5 grains and of course, make sure the boolit is at least as large as the chamber throats.
Btw, with my boolit 35 grains is the absolute maximum charge of black powder I can cram in there and still seat to the crimp groove.

[clintsfolly]

I shot a 475L. Just a 1/10" longer and like HS6 with NOE 478-385. I understand the grin factor! The fun comes fast and can be coming so fast it almost hurts!