Who uses devastator boolits in a ruger 77/44?

[Tripplebeards]

I have been loading them for my ruger 77/44 at 1.640", any longer and they won't feed. I have been trimming my cases to minimum. I know I could trim shorter so the case lines up with the crimp groove but haven't gone that route yet. I have been using a Lee collet die to crimp my rounds. The case lip extends a little over my boolits crimp groove as you can see. At this length and style crimp they function perfectly. Just courious who else loads the devastator in the 77/44 and how they are crimping and at what OAL that works and feeds in theirs that might be different than the way I'm doing it and how is their accuracy? I've only tested one load at a 100 yards using w296 with 23.8 grains. I shot a 2.3" group. My velocities are pretty consistent with this crimp.

[bluejay75]

That is an awesome looking boolit there. PM your solid work up.

[Thumbcocker]

there are a couple of threads in the hunting section from a cb shooter in Australia who uses a Ruger with that boolit.

[Tripplebeards]

there are a couple of threads in the hunting section from a cb shooter in Australia who uses a Ruger with that boolit.

He uses the 96/44 lever action. I would assume it's the same magazine.

[Tripplebeards]

I pm'd him. He said said he loads them short like I do.

[Tripplebeards]

Sounds like he's about the same length as my loads with a light roll crimp.

Here is a photo of one I roll crimped last year. You can see its uneven and looks like it either pushed down in part of the crimp groove or cut into the boolit. I ran these roll crimps across my chrony last summer using trail boss. I had a few that varied 300-400 fps. At the time I chalked it up to bad primers since I was was only loading 6 gr of trail boss so I wasn't crushing the powder. Im now leaning towards the uneven crimp was the cause of the velocity variance. After my velocity variances I posted on here and A few members here told me to use a Lee factory crimp collet style die along with a hand primer. I ordered and tried the collet style crimp and ran it across my chrony. I only had a few fps variance with the collet crimp. It gives it a nice and even crimp all the way around the boolit as you can see in the photo of my first post. It doesn't cut into the boolit or distort it like my roll crimp did. Instead it crimped it into the crimp groove. I would have thought the excess part of the case lip that flaired out over the collet crimp would cause feeding issues but it feeds and functions as smooth as silk.


Here is a pic of my roll crimp which made me change over to the collet. The casing looks bent on one side and cut into the boolit on the other side. It looks like part of the casing rolled under the crimp groove.




Since I started using these boolits last year I've been tring to gather info on how to load them short to use in my 77/44 above the crimp groove. There really isn't much info out there on them other than hearing they are too long for most applications other than wheel guns. IMO I think the collet crimp is the clear winner if you you don't plan on trimming your casings short to line up with the crimp groove on the devastator.