.44 Special and Mag Load Recommendations ?

[hylander]

Well I have some Unique
My Lyman cast book shows 10.0 as Minimum for the .44 Mag
So I loaded some Mag cases with at 10.5 unique and a 240SWCBB .431
Hopefully I can shoot them tomorrow, range is closed today

I have desided not to load any ,44 Special cases.
I will trades those for some .44 Mag cases

[zxcvbob]

Red Dot and Promo work great in that range in .45 Colt. They should work even better in .44 because the case is a little smaller.

[hylander]

10 grains of Unique is not a minimum for the 44 magnum, do a search here or anywhere & it should show that.

Depending on boolit weight 44 magnum with Unique can easily & safely be loaded with 7 grains.

I was just going by what my Lyman book shows as minimum

[Rico1950]

What Lyman book is that?

[GabbyM]

At 10.0 grains of Unique it starts burning cleaner. I’ve shot a thousand or so 8.0 grain then reduced it to 7.5 gr. Unique under a 240gr SWC. 7.5 grain loads are plain old dirty from my 6” revolver. They shoot fine just lots of smoke and black goo all over the gun. At ten grains with 240 or 245 gr. Boolits you’re pressure is up over 20,000 CUP and it cleans up some. BTW 8.0 gr. Unique yields 940 fps from my 6” revolver with 240 grain Magma SWC-BB. Which is no pip squeak load.

Not used them yet but I bought some 44 Special cases to try in reduced loads.

[ScottJ]

Try a starting charge of Trail Boss. Pushed a Lee TL 240 sec out of my 6.5" 629 Classic around 800 fps with less recoil than my .380 Bersa

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

[hylander]

What Lyman book is that?

Lyman Cast Bulet Handbook #4
240gr. 10.0 - 11.7 of Unique

[9.3X62AL]

10.0 grains of Unique is a right healthy loading for the 44 Magnum with the usual run of 240-250 grain cast boolits. It does shoot cleaner than the lighter powder charges, but when you've dealt with Goex 3F in 1851 repros, Unique is comparatively user-friendly.

"Skeeter's Load" in 44 Special (#429421 atop 7.5 grains of Unique) is my "default setting" for the 44 Special. It can be fired all day in an N-frame S&W with comfort. In the 44 Magnum case, 8.2 grains of Unique duplicates the 44 Special's ballistics (~950 FPS).

Some other notable elements of such loads are their user-friendliness, and how closely they parallel revolver ballistics of the 1870-1890 period. The 32-20, 38-40, and 44-40 in blackpowder form all gave about 950 FPS from revolvers, as did the 45 Colt. Today we have the 9mm sub-sonic 147 grainer and the 40 S&W 180 grainer doing 950 FPS, and so the 40 S&W is a close copy of the 38-40's revolver ballistics from the 1880s. The more things change--the more they stay the same.

[429421Cowboy]

This thread is getting rather confusing with the mixture of Special-Mag data that is getting tossed out without alot of clarification...

[leadman]

I just checked the Lyman manual #4 and it does list 10gr as a starting load with 12.2grs max for the RCBS 225gr SWC. Max load is 39,700 CUP
For 429421 it lists 9.8gr starting with 13 grs max. Max pressure is 36,800 CUP
Then it lists 9.5 starting and 10.5 max with the Lyman 250gr 429640. Max pressure is 38,000 CUP
This is for the 44 mag.

These seem rather high to me.

[hylander]

It is high. In some respects the new manuals are not as complete or as good as OLD manuals. I would get online & buy me a Lyman 45th edition manual, no reloading bench is complete without one.

I have the 45th as well and it also states 10.0 to 11.7 for the 240 in the Mag.
I sticking with the Mag, have desided not to load any Special.

Today I shot 15 rounds of the 240swc sized .431, BHN16 on top of 10.5 Unique.
Felt fairly stout, Accuracy was very good, sorry no Chrony.
Leaded up pretty good, most of it came out without much difficulty.
All leading was where the barrel screws into the frame, no where else.