44 full wadcutter [Archive]

Willbird

06-11-2005, 12:53 AM

Pb head

06-11-2005, 01:17 AM

Had one too. Was glad to see it go. Most miserable mould to cast a fully filled out boolit I ever used. Even when I did get a few good ones I never found a load that would shoot worth a crap in a Smith 629 or a Contender. I gave it away and never looked back. Was given some 180 WC from National Bullet Co once, they shot just as bad. Loaded them up, loaded them down, every powder that I had that seemed applicable, all to no avail.

Pb head

buck1

06-11-2005, 02:00 AM

LBT makes one that I hear is pretty good> ...Buck

Bass Ackward

06-11-2005, 07:34 AM

Even when I did get a few good ones I never found a load that would shoot worth a crap in a Smith 629 or a Contender. I gave it away and never looked back. Was given some 180 WC from National Bullet Co once, they shot just as bad. Loaded them up, loaded them down, every powder that I had that seemed applicable, all to no avail.

Pb head

Many people look at a 38 and it's performance with wadcutters and wonder why they can't reproduce the success in a larger caliber. Well it is. But you must still maintain some measure of ballistic coefficient. The wider the nose, the longer the bullet must be to achieve it. Then if it stabilizes, the distance will be fairly limited.

This applies to both handguns and rifles. Although with rifles you have more flexibility because you are generally using heavier weights or longer bullets in rifles. People will take a load that is just eating a hole at 50 yards and can't find it on paper at 100. My advice is to work up your load to the range you want it. If this exceeds 100 yards, then it must be tested out to where ever before settling on that load. Many people are shocked at just how close in this range limit can be.

For a 44 caliber to handle a wadcutter well at even low velocities, the bullet has to be longer than a 38 caliber wadcutter in proportion to bore diameter. Or practical accuracy range is going to be less than for a 38. Which itself is limited to about 70 yards at best. The smaller the bore diameter from 38, and the range is extended. Or .... the bullet can be shortened or lightened.

For most, the required weight in larger bores would be prohibitive for use. This also plagues the wide flats (80% meppys) unless you get the weight up and drive them hard. And in the end, the transonic range is going to play havoc with you. Why I'll bet that those 180s were just cutting a hole at 10 or 12 feet.

That is why many handgunners are Keith design deciples. Longer bearing area per the same weight bullet. Less unsupported nose weight. Lower possible meplat diameter because of the nose design. Weight back on the back of the bullet. All of these factors conform to the laws for stabilization and BC. You have "easier success" out to what ever range is desired with the standard twist rates available for caliber and just adjusting velocity for stabilization.

Willbird

06-11-2005, 10:25 AM

Well I guess my Dad had it for 44 russian, which was often used with a cast hollow based wadcutter, mold for such is an extreme rarity.

Dad had one. lent it to a friend that had a Charter Bulldog to cast some to load backwards, it disappeared never to be seen again.

Bill

bobthenailer

06-11-2005, 11:03 AM

i also had the lee 44 wc i had trouble filling out the front driving band, sent it back & they sent me another mould and i had the same problem with that one so i gave it to someone ? then saeco offered a 44 wc of a GAR design with one big grease grove in the center i bought a 4 hole mould this one will shoot extremely well with several powders & charges & velocity up to 1400 fps but only at 25 yards a load that will put all shots in 5/16 of a inch center to center, groupes in 4 inches at 50 yards , i use this bullet for 25 yard bowling pins slow fire & speed bowling pins like 2 chance and at one time for bullesey in a 44 mag ive shot this bullet out of 3 smiths & a rpm-xl and is very accurate out of all but only at 25 yards! REMBER HAPPYNESS IS KNEE DEEP IN BRASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOB

arkypete

06-11-2005, 11:18 AM

I found a Lyman 4 cavity full wadcutter for 45 Colt at a gun show. According to Lyman's old manual this bullet was supposed to weight 230 grains, the bullets I cast come out near 250 grains. It's very accurate out to 50 yards, never tried beyond that point.
A number of years ago there was a mold company called P&C that stayed in business a year or so, that had a wonderful 200 grain full wadcutter for 44. This bullet was a copy of a wad cutter Lyman made back in the 30s. The one down side was, it had a gas check. It proved to be very accurate.
Jim

Leftoverdj

06-11-2005, 12:01 PM

A number of years ago there was a mold company called P&C that stayed in business a year or so, that had a wonderful 200 grain full wadcutter for 44. This bullet was a copy of a wad cutter Lyman made back in the 30s. The one down side was, it had a gas check. It proved to be very accurate.
Jim

P&C made good moulds. Pity the company did not last.

I have a Lyman .41 HBWC 220 grain mould that casts bullets that flat shoot. PITA to cast with it, though. I'd think that could be scaled up to .44.

arkypete

06-11-2005, 02:25 PM

Buckshot

06-13-2005, 02:37 AM

Leftoverdj
I've got the Corbin swaging outfit for .4525 wadcutter and SWC. Both of these are plain base.
What would be really interesting is to get Corbin to make a hollow base stem/plug and see how it works. Should not cost much to try.
Jim

...........It should be interesting to see how these shoot:

http://www.fototime.com/350C9999B0095F7/standard.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/DC4CBD73B8E232A/standard.jpg
I'd posted about this setup over on the 'Special Projects' forum. I made plugs to form SWC and full WC slugs from previously cast and lubed boolits. All these are of WW type alloy except the 2 on the extreme left. These were cylindrical soft lead cores I use to swage PP's slugs for the Whitworth from. One is full size and the other shorter one I cut off with a pair of sidecutters.

But next to the right are the parent and then swaged versions of the same. Lee 452-190SWC, Lee 452-230R, and the Lee 453-255RF. The SWC next to the 255gr Lee was swaged form an RCBS 45-250 and the Lee 255gr is the full WC at the very end. Didn't have an example of the RCBS out there.

The bottom photo is of the HB's swaged in. I cast up several pounds of the Lee 255gr in dead soft lead to try out. I figured those cast of WW might not be able to utilize the HB as well being harder. I might try some anyway just to see the difference.

.................Buckshot

arkypete

06-20-2005, 03:06 PM

Buckshot
I've swaged WWs plus tin in the Corbin set up. I was using the rejects rather then throwing the rejects back into the pot for recasting.
I've not tried to swage already sized and lubed bullets yet.
May give it a shot.
Jim

azrednek

06-22-2005, 12:27 PM

http://www.fmreloading.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=FMR&Product_Code=90334&Category_Code=44+spec+and+mag

I knew I used to have this mold, I knew it wasnt my imagination

Bill

Just in case you're interested in buying one, Lee has this mold in both dual and 6 cavity on their surplus list. My guess is it is being surplused because it is discontinued, it is no linger listed in their catalog. I've had good luck with this mold shooting mild plinking loads.

Willbird

06-22-2005, 12:42 PM

I see that now that you mention it, their price is higher than F&M's tho :-)

Bill

Buckshot

06-23-2005, 01:43 AM

...........Next Tuesday. For the Vaquero in 45 Colt, I have 150 rounds loaded up. Of these 100 rounds is 50 each of the WC and SWC swaged slugs. The other 50 is the un-mangleated Lee 452-255RF as a kind of control. All slugs were cast of pure lead and swaged to .4535". The revolter's chamber mouths are .451". These loaded rounds with that boolit diameter chamber just fine.

The loads are all with Bullseye and are: 4.5, 4.7, 5.0, 5.2, and 5.5grs. There are 10 rounds of each to shoot for group off the bags at 25 yards.

.............Buckshot

Willbird

06-23-2005, 09:17 AM

>That is why many handgunners are Keith design deciples. Longer bearing >area per the same weight bullet. Less unsupported nose weight. Lower >possible meplat diameter because of the nose design. Weight back on the >back of the bullet.

What I don't understand about this, and excuse me if I'm slow.......is that a 250 grain round flat of a typical design (not a long nose version) would generally be SHORTER than a typical keith design and possibly have more bearing area, and a 250 grain full wadcutter surely is shorter and has even more bearing area.

the rifling twist overcomes the fact that most bullets would rather fly backwards, and often do after thay enter a target (long full metal jacketed bullets in wood for example) the longer a bullet is for a given diameter the more rifling twist is required to make it stable.

Is it possible that shorter bullets with poor BC are OVER stabilised ?? and that when the velocity slows the gyroscopic precession (dog tracking of a bullet in flight) coupled with their natural wiggle and wobble in flight to turn the bullet beyond the overturning moment of their stability ?? (not sure on that terminology) The bullets with longer noses the forces on the nose would act like a lever, and the weight back that so many people talk about would be a sort of pendulum that would smooth out the wiggle and wobble.

All of this is just hard to grasp, objects that are not spin stabilised rely on the center of pressure being behind the center of gravity...which is contrary to most bullet designs EXCEPT hollow based wadcutters. so is aerodynamic instability an asset to stable spin based stability ?

Bill

felix

06-23-2005, 12:03 PM

Bill, it is always better to pull something rather than push something. This is why castor adjustments are set up on cars, to cause a return to center, which is the foward stability you are talking about. Anyway we can emulate that, that is the way to go. So, there has to be a fine balance between foward and rearward boolit weight, because of the reverse drive. Drag is pushing the boolit backwards, and this is why hollowbase wadcutters do work as good as they do. Visualize the hollowbase as the hollowpoint. ... felix

Willbird

06-23-2005, 12:34 PM

Hmmmmm......Ok lets try this on for size.....it is sounding like the CG needs to be somewhere other than the center of pressure, ahead of or behind is fine, but neutral aerodynamic stability is not good in regards to spin stabilised projectiles ??

Bill

felix

06-23-2005, 12:41 PM

Yes, you are correct when shooting in a medium that is thicker than that of "outer space" which offers zero friction. ... felix

9.3X62AL

06-23-2005, 03:03 PM

No wonder wadcutters shoot so well in California--the "outer space" factor kicks in.

One of our PPC shooters made up a revolver in 45 Colt to shoot wadcutters in his chosen sport--the idea being that a 45 caliber clean hole had better chances of cutting scoring lines than a 38 caliber one. His boolit was a hollow-based wadcutter from a custom single-holer, straight wheelweights was the metal, and weight was ~235 grains IIRC. These shot very well to 50 yards at ~775-800 FPS.

Alas--what boolit diameter gave, recoil impulse took away. Just a bit too bumpy to shoot all day, and his scores didn't improve over what he fired with the slab-barrelled 38 Special rebated-cylinder M-10 he also had. It has been a while since I have seen the wheeler, and IIRC there was enough throat depth in the cylinder to accomodate a traditional RFN seated fairly deeply--but not a Keith SWC. The guy tried the SWC's (one of the Lyman molds), and pretty much threw in the towel at that point. I saw the guy in court on Monday, and he said he still has the thing--won't sell it, either.

StarMetal

06-23-2005, 03:26 PM

Deputy Al

Correctly put Kalifornia is "inner outerspace"

Joe

David R

06-23-2005, 06:20 PM

Soo what do you guys think about loading boolits backwards?

I have a lyman 45 ACP mold 185 grain "wadcutter". It has a short odd shaped nost to assist in feeding. I was thinking about loading it backwards to get the "full wadcutter" hole in paper. I could also try it in my 45 colt. I think its a 452389. Its not much use frontwards, a 200 Swc shoots better. My 45 will feed empty cases, so that is not a problem.

Weight in front, BC close to zero. It would be a Boattail Wadcutter :)

David