I finally received my 2 cavity mold from Mountain Molds and by coincidence I also received the 434-207GC bullet from GLL. These bullets just plain work in the .444 Marlin. So I had a little fun the last couple of days loading them with 5 different powders and in .444 Marlin they were singing a happy tune. I tried some in my 629 that wears a scope and with Unique powder it was just fine, about 2.0" at 25 yards. Tried some with 2400 powder and minute of paper was all I could get from them, both bullets did not respond very well with 2400, I will need to do some more experimenting with them but I am sure it is because I had hard bullets sized to .431 which my 629 usually loves.
I melted some hard shot and added a little bit of tin for cast-ability and they cast just beautifully, almost jumping out of the 6 cavity mold and with my Mountain Mold I had to persuade them a bit until the metal mold was up to temperature. All were water dropped right from the mold. I sized all the .444 Marlin bullets to .432 and lubed them with LAR's Red which has always worked great in my rifle bullets. All the same Remington Brass and were all sparked with Winchester Large Rifle primers.
Bob's 434-207GC group buy bullets weighed in at 211 grn lubed/sized/checked and the Mountain Molds bullets were slightly less at 205 lubed/sized/checked.
Here we see the best group for the 434-207GC bullet with H322 powder, didn't like IMR3031 or H4198, H335, Benchmark.
Mountain Mold 433-200GC bullet loves IMR3031 but none of the other 4.
Here with a little more IMR3031, notice the point of impact change.
With all the groups I fired, and there were 7 different weights of each of the 5 powders with 5 shots fired at each target, none were any worse than factory 240 GN .444 Marlin Ammo. Worst one was on the order of 3.5" which is what my rifle will do with Remington factory 240gn ammo.
Point of impact was moving all over the place depending on the powder and load, as much as 4 inches difference .
As you can see Pandora was with me for the customary flier from no where. I shot one 5 shot string at the target, then wait 10 minutes for the rifle to cool down after which I ran a bore snake down the barrel in between each firing to clean out any residual powder. Never found any signs of leading and no pressure signs on the brass at all. Very pleasant to shoot considering I shot 350 rounds.
Santa was supposed to bring me a Chronograph last Christmas but some how he missed the house, not sure how fast they were traveling but I would imagine about 1900-2100fps somewhere in there.