44 mag 280gr h110 load help.

[gundownunder]

H110/296 does NOT like air space. Fill case with powder to the bottom of the boolit. A bit compressed is not a bad thing.

I recently emailed Winchester because I have a 357 Marlin and with a 180 grain cast bullet I hit their max load of 13.7 with heaps of space left over. Having heard the same thing as WACO about space I asked whether I should stick with published data or take the load up to about 15.5 - 16 grains to fill the space. Winchester tech department told me to stay within published limits.

[OFFSHORE]

H110/296 does NOT like air space. Fill case with powder to the bottom of the boolit. A bit compressed is not a bad thing.

This is very true of H110 as WACO stated. The increase you saw in ES/SD was due to not having a full case. You may also want to switch over to a magnum primer with H110, especially in the colder months with a lesser than max charge to prevent squibs. I shoot a lot of .44 Mag, 445 Super Mag and 45 LC with mostly heavy for caliber bullets - 270gr. to 335gr. and H110 is not your friend! It has some great velocity numbers, but acts like a cranky old woman! If you're wanting a more moderate load look at 2400 or IMR 4227 for your middle weight boolits and as of late I've been playing with Accurate No. 11FS and have really come to like it. No. 11FS has a burn rate comparable to 296, but it isn't snappy and produce very good numbers for me over the chronograph, ES/SD very low and clean burning too. IMR 4227 is a sweet powder, but tends to be a little dirty. I'll take the dirty though for the accuracy I get. Stepping up into the 300gr. plus boolits I have been getting great accuracy and single digit ES/SD number with superb velocity with VV N-120 and 315gr. boolits . . .1 1/2" 5-shot groups at 100 yds. with scoped T/C Encore. You can make H110 shoot, but there are far better powders out there. . .but, that is just my $.02. Good luck.

[Flailguy]

Winchester claims standard or magnum loads with their lpp's do you think I would be better off using a different brand primer?

[44Blam]

Thanks 44blam, recoil felt slightly less with the load I tried.

Ha! First time I shot W296 (similar to H110) I thought I got the load wrong. I fired one round at the indoor range and saw the fireball and was like, "Oh ****, I think I almost blew up my gun!" I stopped went home and looked. Nope - that was the load. I went back a couple days later and shot about 50 before it wore a hole in my hand...

Now I LOVE the full house rounds. It feels SOOOO good.