44-77 sharps?

[Hiwall55]

Ive got a Green mountain barrel on my Shiloh, 430/441 wrapped to .4365 /4465 works very well with 78 grains of 1f OE.

[ndnchf]

What mold?

[Hiwall55]

I had Tom at Accurate molds make one to try.

[R-71]

I don’t have a PP bullet group to post but here’s a recent GG group I shot with a new RCBS 44-370 mold that I picked up. It’s a good bullet but the nose is to fat and I have to seat it pretty deep to get it chamber. I shot this at 100 yards.

I need to drift my front sight slightly since the tang sight is not windage adjustable.

[Don McDowell]

I can't get that bullet to chamber in my 44-77/s, but I think it would make a grand hunting bullet for a greaser.

[ndnchf]

My original #1 Sporting rifle just came back from C. Sharps with a new 32" #4 profile .44-77 GM barrel. If I can get out of work early today, I'll stop by the range for an initial test firing. I bought 80 rounds of PCI loaded .44-77, mostly to get the Jamison brass. They are loaded with RCBS 44-370 bullets. I have no idea what powder they are loaded with, but I pulled apart 20 of them and dumped the powder. Then reloaded them with 75.5gr of Swiss 1.5F, a .030" card wad, compressed .185". Relubed the RCBS bullets and seated to the crimp groove where they will chamber. I'm more interested in PP than greasers, but this will be a start. I've got some PP bullets from BACO to try after these. I'm not a competition shooter, I just shoot for fun out to 200 yards.

[Distant Thunder]

Nice looking rifle and great cartridge choice! I can guarantee the .44-77 is a lot of fun to shoot and especially so with paper patch bullets! Very COOL rifle and cartridge. ENJOY!

It will be interesting to see how the Green Mountain barrel works out. I went with a Krieger which has is 17-twist also. Have you checked the bore and groove diameters on your barrel yet?

Range reports to follow?

Nice rifle!

[ndnchf]

I stopped at the range on the way home from work to try it out. I shot 10 rounds at 50 yards to get the sights on target, then moved to 100. It was 34 degrees and breezy - my fingers felt like ice. While nothing to rave about, I'm pleased with it for a first outing. Besides one shot I pulled right, it did very well. This was with the RCBS 44-370 bullets. Since this is PP thread, I won't dwell on this bullet. Now I have some brass for the PP bullets.

[Lead pot]

That is a good start with a great cartridge. Now just keep up the range time and you will cut that X out with those 5 holes. The .44-77 will do that.

[Don McDowell]

I would of liked to have shot that bullet in my 44-77's, but the mould I have and use in the 43 egyptian, the nose is to big and won't fit in the bore of the Shiloh's.

[ndnchf]

I'm really looking forward to getting back to the range with it. This bullet needs to be fully seated up to the crimp groove to chamber. That is about. 440" inside the case.

The PP bullets I have from BACO are 380gr, but a bit larger than I want at .441". I bought these for the old barrel. I'll have to check my paper supply to see if I have any thin enough to use. I'll probably order some .432", 370gr to try. Ive had good success with bullets patched to bore diameter in my .40-70bn.

[Distant Thunder]

I've been having very good results in my .44-77 when I patch my bullet so they are just a touch snug in the bore of my rifle and the seat them .100" to .150" in the case over very lightly compressed Swiss 1 1/2. I have found that the .44-77 is not real fussy about the seating depth, not like my straight cased .45s, and I have even had good results with bore diameter pp bullets seated up to .330" deep.

The nice thing about this is that it gives a lot of flexibility in powder charge without having some sort of wad stack or filler, neither of which have I ever had any luck with.

With the .44-77 I have loaded from 75 to 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 and had good to excellent accuracy as long as the compression is kept light to almost none. My current load is with 86 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 under a .060" LDPE wad lightly compressed and the bullet seated .150" deep and is approaching a 1 MOA 10-shot group at 220 yards. I am looking forward to testing in at greater distances once the warm weather gets, probably another 4 to 5 months.

[ndnchf]

DT - when you say "a touch snug in the bore", do you mean just a tad over bore diameter?

[Lead pot]

Don I used one for my Dutch Beaumont rifle if I still have that mould I will cast a few and send you some. I will look through my fishing tackle boxes I keep my moulds in. It shot well in that rifle.
But I don't know if I sold it with the rifle or not.

[Don McDowell]

Thanks for the offer Kurt, but I don't really want nor need those bullets.

[Don McDowell]

My original #1 Sporting rifle just came back from C. Sharps with a new 32" #4 profile .44-77 GM barrel. If I can get out of work early today, I'll stop by the range for an initial test firing. I bought 80 rounds of PCI loaded .44-77, mostly to get the Jamison brass. They are loaded with RCBS 44-370 bullets. I have no idea what powder they are loaded with, but I pulled apart 20 of them and dumped the powder. Then reloaded them with 75.5gr of Swiss 1.5F, a .030" card wad, compressed .185". Relubed the RCBS bullets and seated to the crimp groove where they will chamber. I'm more interested in PP than greasers, but this will be a start. I've got some PP bullets from BACO to try after these. I'm not a competition shooter, I just shoot for fun out to 200 yards.

I would suggest for your stated purpose with that rifle, a mould 434 diameter, 1.1 inch long bullet, wrap it in 8 lb paper cut the patch width at 3/4 in wide. look at powder charges around 75 grs. to start with and let the target tell you what to do next.

[ndnchf]

Thanks Don. BACO only has .432" and .438" size. Before ordering a mold. I'd like to try some. Do you know of a source for .434" size bullets of that length? Thanks Steve

[Distant Thunder]

DT - when you say "a touch snug in the bore", do you mean just a tad over bore diameter?

It's a fine line between too tight and just snug to feel some resistance when you chamber each round. Paper can vary a little even with each sheet. The method used to wrap your bullets can vary some too so the wrapped bullet can vary when your done. With a bullet that was right on the edge of being too big I've had trouble chambering some. To get around that I push my patched bullets through a sizing die (Lee type) and then they are all uniform.

The bore of my Krieger barrel is just a shade over .438", probably only a couple 10 thousandths of an inch. and my size die makes the bullets .438" and they will push thru the bore with a little pressure, but won't slide thru on their own. When I chamber a round I can feel the bullet as it enters the bore and it is an easy push with my thumb.

So It's best not to get them too tight, but just at or half a thousandth under bore should be pretty good. You might be able to chamber them at 1/2 thousandth over bore, maybe, but you'll eventually have some that won't chamber completely or are a hard push. If you have to push too hard you can actually push the bullet deeper in the case and compress the powder more and changing compression can effect accuracy. I learned that from Kurt after spending a year struggling to get things to shoot with any consistency.

You need to know your bore (land) diameter and get a mold or use paper that will fit your bore with some resistance. I found that by sizing a bullet that patches to just over my bore diameter gave me a much more consistent fit and better accuracy.

With my .44-77 I started with a mold that cast at .4305" and patching with my 9 lb. paper was close but not snug at about .4375". It shot pretty well but I was getting an outlier or two in all my groups, 1 in a 5 shot groups and 1 or 2 in 10 shot groups. At first I figured I was pulling my shots off just a bit. They were only an inch or slightly more out of the group. No matter what I did or how hard I tried I could seem to eliminate those outliers.

I finally decided the bullet was a bit to small as cast so I opened it up to cast at .432" and patch to .439". Then I polished my sizing die out to size the patched bullets to .438 and since then I have not had an outlier at all in several 10 shot groups at 220 yards. I have believed for a long time that fit is very important to accuracy in pp target loads and this rifle has set that in stone for me.

For hunting loads with hunting accuracy you need a looser fit to overcome the fouling problems for follow up shots, but for targets when you have time to wipe the bore clean between shots a snug fit has given the best accuracy no question and that's in 4 different rifles. The following targets are where I'm at with this .44-77 now. It's shooting pretty well!





Find out what your bore diameter is as close as you can and get a mold and/or paper that will fit YOUR bore and give that a try.

[Don McDowell]

Thanks Don. BACO only has .432" and .438" size. Before ordering a mold. I'd like to try some. Do you know of a source for .434" size bullets of that length? Thanks Steve

No I really don't. Those .432's probably work ok if you patch them in 9lb.

[ndnchf]

DT - thanks for the detailed description. I see BACO has the .432" 400gr in stock, so I'll order a couple boxes to try out. I have several types of paper to try. GM says their barrel is .438"/.446", but I'll slug it to know for sure. I've had good luck with my Shiloh #3 in .40-70bn, so I'm hoping that in time, this can give me similar results. I've got cataracts in my shooting eye that's making it difficult. But I may get that fixed this summer. Here is my best .40-70 target.

Don - I saw your reply on CASCITY too, thanks for the details.