Just Received New Mould RCBS .44-200-CM

[Silver Jack Hammer]

Of all the 200 gr moulds for the .44-40, I chose the RCBS .44-200-CM. This mould has a nice crimping groove, a large flat mepat and looks authentic to the frontier for the .44-40. An old Lyman mould lacks the crimping groove which is the way the boolit was originally designed. With black powder the boolit was held in place by the compressed powder but with smokeless powder the boolit can be pushed into the cartridge in a tubular magazine. Lyman has a new .44-40 boolit with a crimping groove but I chose the RCBS. This is a flat base two cavity boolit that my son will use in the .44 Special as well. And yes, I forgot to order the top punch so had to place that order this AM. Won't get to cast until Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

[44man]

Looks like a good choice. No stinking GC too.
The 44-40 would be a fun gun but I ain't buying any more guns! :groner:
I can't wait to see what you do.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

The RCBS 44-200-CM drops the boolits at 210 gr with wheelweight alloy .432” in diameter. My first concern is not accuracy or velocity since the Keith boolit in the Special case has proven itself as the top performer in these categories, rather I am seeking a boolit that’s first priority is to chamber completely without having to be manually shoved into the gun to it’s proper headspace. This boolit will be used in a non-SASS sanctioned cowboy match where we load on the clock and I can’t have boolits hanging up during loading.

I dropped one of the un-sized boolits into the chambers and found that the nose of the boolit protruded out of the chamber without sticking along the way. The chamber throats mic at .428” so all I have to worry about is the thickness of the .44-40 brass which is annoyingly thin.
Since I’m not looking for or planning any great performance out of this boolit on paper or game, I sized the boolits to .427” and weighed out 5.5 gr of Alliant American Select and proceeded to set my dies for proper seating and crimping.

The .44-40 is a finicky pain in the rear so I decided to not use a progressive. I’ve crushed about 6% of cases using my progressive with this cartridge. Dave Scovill claims crushing .44-40 cases means you’re ham-handed, OK. I’m ham-handed. On the Rock Chucker with RCBS dies I discovered that seating and crimping really had to be done in two steps. Otherwise the build-up of shaved lead from the seating created an ugly gathering of lead debris at the crimp. And I found that I had to screw the RCBS crimping die down all the way until it lightly contacted the shell holder to get a proper crimp. The bottle neck .44-40 sizer die is obviously not carbide so I’m surprised, but OK here.

I loaded one cartridge and checked it using the cylinder as a go no-go gauge. I fit. So I’ve loaded 10 rounds and plan to hit the range today. No doubt this boolit will hit the paper high since my fixed sight Colt’s SAA is zeroed for 240 gr boolits at 800 fps. Assuming no surprised with the chronograph I’ll finish loading the 100 rounds.

I wouldn’t use the .44-40 on anything that needed shot bigger than a raccoon. I read a story where a guy was awakened in his tent by an angry bear chewing on his buddy and he grabbed the closest thing he had, it was a Ruger Vaquero in .44-40. He was lucky to kill that bear and survive.

Colt SAA barrels in the .44 Special are just .44-40 barrels stamped .44 Special with a larger front sight attached. The length of the .44-40 brass prohibits boolits of any weight or length bigger than 200 gr, hence to popularity of the .44 Special and the obsolescence of the .44-40. In cowboy shooting, .44-40 cartridges have a nasty habit of finding their way into .45 Colt chambers and vice versa. This happened even on the frontier. One of our American hero’s Jeff Milton reportedly used his knife to unscrew the side plate of his ’73 Winchester to clear a .45 Colt round out of his .44-40 rifle during a shootout with Indians.

I only shoot about 100 of these.44-40 rounds every couple of years. The .44-40 cylinder was fitted to my .44 Special Colt SAA by the Colt factory for free. I use the .44 Special exclusively over the .44-40 because the .44 Special pumps through my Dillon 550 with carbide dies without a hitch, and like I said, the .44-40 is a royal pain in the rear. But I am enjoying working with this finicky cartridge and making finished rounds just the way they were over 100 years ago.

I’m going to load the balance of these 210 gr. boolits in .44 Special cases for my son to use in the 1873 carbine.

[44man]

That was a great post. I understand the 44-40 problems but you have a good hand on it.
Yes, treat them very gently when loading but the darn things will shoot and are fun.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

I wanted to use American Select and started with the current Speer manual recommendation of 5.5 grains which gave me a 5 shot average of 745 fps. I wanted a low velocity load but a little more zooze than that. 6.0 grains of American Select gave me a five shot average of 788 fps. I finished 100 rounds and I’m done. Time to get on with loading up other cartridges.

The balance of the RCBS 44-200-CM will be sized to .429” instead of .427” and loaded into .44 Special cases for my son’s 1873 carbine with a 19” bbl. 5.3 grains of Trail Boss gave a 5 shot average of 1025 fps. 5.5 grains of American Select gave 1072 fps. 4.5 grains of Trail Boss gave 923 fps. Settled on 4.0 grains of Trail Boss for 801 fps.