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Denver
07-10-2005, 08:05 PM
Anyone have one that shoots cast bullets with good accuracy? Mine shoots about as well as my Marlin micro groove which isn't great. It appears to have it's own version of micro rifling, but possibly a faster twist. I haven't slugged the barrel, but have shot bullets from .429 to .432 and 200 to 250 gr, with no noticible difference. Just wondering what loads others have had success with.

Ron

Bass Ackward
07-13-2005, 07:30 AM
Anyone have one that shoots cast bullets with good accuracy? Mine shoots about as well as my Marlin micro groove which isn't great. It appears to have it's own version of micro rifling, but possibly a faster twist. I haven't slugged the barrel, but have shot bullets from .429 to .432 and 200 to 250 gr, with no noticible difference. Just wondering what loads others have had success with.

Ron

Ron,

Yea. I have one. It does pretty well after I changed sights. I had trouble shooting the semi-buckhorn sights at first. I put a notched, ladder sight on it like the origional 92s had and now it does well.

Plus it will swallow a .434 with no problem, so that is what she get's. I designed a 225 grain bullet for it that is about max for the twist rate if you want to shoot low velocity.

My guess is that your problem lies between one of those factors. If you are confortable with the sights, then go big young man, go big.

Buckshot
07-14-2005, 03:49 AM
.............Don't forget the ever possible case of "Levergun-itis". Regardless what you load and how well you shoot, you will NOT win :-) unless rectified. I'm not the one to ask about it, but there is info around.

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

Denver
07-14-2005, 10:47 AM
Bass: I know what you mean about the sights, but dont think that's my problem. I Beagled the molds I have to get up to a .432 boolit, but that didn't help much. Don't know if I can get them any fatter.

Buckshot: I thought "Levergunitis" was owning too many and wanting more.

Bass Ackward
07-14-2005, 03:52 PM
Bass: I know what you mean about the sights, but dont think that's my problem. I Beagled the molds I have to get up to a .432 boolit, but that didn't help much. Don't know if I can get them any fatter.

Buckshot: I thought "Levergunitis" was owning too many and wanting more.


Denny,

I understand. I can send you a few to try if you want to see what difference it makes. This is why I got in on the .434 / 250 PB buy. I think Bill bought a few extras. You might send Willbird a PM and find out.

Logan
07-18-2005, 05:29 AM
Question,
are your B92s "microgrooved" ?

Denver
07-18-2005, 10:53 AM
Question,
are your B92s "microgrooved" ?
My rifle has 12 lands and grooves same as my Marlin 94 44Mag.

Denver
07-18-2005, 11:27 AM
Denny,

I understand. I can send you a few to try if you want to see what difference it makes. This is why I got in on the .434 / 250 PB buy. I think Bill bought a few extras. You might send Willbird a PM and find out.

Bass; Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it later. I had a few unsized boolits that were left from the batch I cast from the Beagled mold earlier that measure right at .434. I just goobered some lube in the grooves and loaded them over 9 grs Unique. No help. Still getting outrageous "groups". at 50 yds.

Ron

Bass Ackward
07-18-2005, 12:21 PM
Bass; Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it later. I had a few unsized boolits that were left from the batch I cast from the Beagled mold earlier that measure right at .434. I just goobered some lube in the grooves and loaded them over 9 grs Unique. No help. Still getting outrageous "groups". at 50 yds.

Ron

Ron,

You need to remember that you have a 1 in 38 twist. I have to run 250 grain bullets full power to get stabilization and fair accuracy. Trying to stabilize a 280 grainer at 100 yards was futile. That is why I designed the 225 grain. That is the longest bullet that I can load down to target velocity levels and still stabilize fine.

Some guns that have the same twist rate do not have this problem and some guys can use the 7 grains of Green Dot type loads with 250s all day long. Not with my luck.

Richard mentioned leveritis too. Sometimes that front screw on the magazine tube can cause you problems if it is too long or the barrel band at that point might be too tight. Don't forget to check these. I used the correct size wooden dowl and some emery and cleaned the inside of the band up. I also purchased a small washer and placed it through the screw, inbetween the barrel and the magazine tube. Come to think of it, mine shot everything like crap until I did that. Check these things and see. I'll bet that is the problem.

Sorry. Senior moment.

BlueMoon
07-18-2005, 03:40 PM
I have a '94 Marlin in 44 with the ballard rifling but 38" twist. The only sizer I have for my Lyman is .430". I have never slugged the barrel but cast the #429421 Keith pb bullet and lube it with the .430 sizer. I use alloy melt between 17 1/2 and 20 BHN on my tester. I've always shot this bullet with close to or at max loads with LilGun, H110, AA4100, and most of the rest of the like powders. I always figured if my bullet was a little too small that the load I use would bump it up to the bore size. Something must work because I get the best 100yd accuracy and highest velocity with this bullet. Mine are right at 245grns with the lube.

Seems whatever your bore is, that you could shoot your bullets fast enough to fill the bore of your rifle as long as they are not too long for the 38" twist, if that's what you have. I would have thought Browning would have used a faster twist than that.

Bill

edit: My older bullets weighed about 247grns and after I started adding a little lino to the melt, some will now weigh 240grns. Also, it took my rifle a year or two, of shooting, to smooth out the barrel and quit leading with cast bullets. Now cast bullets do better than the jkt.

Denver
07-18-2005, 05:05 PM
I have a '94 Marlin in 44 with the ballard rifling but 38" twist. The only sizer I have for my Lyman is .430". I have never slugged the barrel but cast the #429421 Keith pb bullet and lube it with the .430 sizer. I use alloy melt between 17 1/2 and 20 BHN on my tester. I've always shot this bullet with close to or at max loads with LilGun, H110, AA4100, and most of the rest of the like powders. I always figured if my bullet was a little too small that the load I use would bump it up to the bore size. Something must work because I get the best 100yd accuracy and highest velocity with this bullet. Mine are right at 245grns with the lube.

Seems whatever your bore is, that you could shoot your bullets fast enough to fill the bore of your rifle as long as they are not too long for the 38" twist, if that's what you have. I would have thought Browning would have used a faster twist than that.

Bill

edit: My older bullets weighed about 247grns and after I started adding a little lino to the melt, some will now weigh 240grns. Also, it took my rifle a year or two, of shooting, to smooth out the barrel and quit leading with cast bullets. Now cast bullets do better than the jkt.


I really don't know what the twist rate is on the Browning. I too thought it would be faster than the 1:38 used on the Marlin. One thing I just found that may shed some light on this is that the throat is verrry long, I seated a jacketed bullet backwards in a case that measured 1.285 and chambered it. I measured the overall length to be 1.483 after extracting it. That gives a throat length of .198. That's a long jump before engaging the rifling and just may be a big part of the problem.

I use wheel weight metal with a small amount of lino added to give it a little tin for good mold fillout. The bullets I'm using are the Lee 429-214 SWC and the Lee 429-200 RNFP.

Ron

Bass Ackward
07-19-2005, 07:02 AM
I really don't know what the twist rate is on the Browning. I too thought it would be faster than the 1:38 used on the Marlin.

One thing I just found that may shed some light on this is that the throat is verrry long, I seated a jacketed bullet backwards in a case that measured 1.285 and chambered it. I measured the overall length to be 1.483 after extracting it. That gives a throat length of .198. That's a long jump before engaging the rifling and just may be a big part of the problem.

Ron

Ron,

Measure the twist rate with a rod and a tight fitting patch.

Yes. Your throat is a monster. They all are. That's why the large diameter bullet helps. It contacts the throat sooner and helps cut the jump distance. I also designed mine with a wide front band .170 to cut this down. Now it shoots well enough that I am not going to post it.

But as I said, this was a 6" or worse performer with jacketed until those modifications.

BlueMoon
07-19-2005, 12:53 PM
Denver,

On all my cleaning rods I use a drop of white or red fingernail polish (bought for sights) or tape etc., up near the handle. With a tight fitting bore brush you can tell how far down it takes for the dot to make a revolution.

I think Marlin kept the 38" twist because of older rifles that had that and just didn't change. Browning is a little more modern, I think, and you need to know what your twist rate is before the bore so you can figure which bullets to try in it. Just my opinion, but I would think most any lead bullet sized to .430"-.431" should work just fine in a new Browning. I know the micro-goove is different because I have a 30/30 Marlin with that and found I need a bigger than .309" lead bullet. Sounds like a very nice rifle, once it gets smoothed out, it should be excellent. My eyes don't work well with open sights so I have a scope on mine.

Bill

edit: Looked over what you wrote again and looks like your shooting fairly light bullets in your rifle. I've shot quite a few of the bought 240grn swaged bullets sold by Hornady and they do very well with mild loads. One of my favorites was the 7.5grns SR4756-240lswc from the pistol section of Speer #13. I have bought some odd-ball cast bullets in 190, 205, 215grn and my rifle did not like all of them. They were hard to find a good load for. But, I have some Laser Cast 180grn hard cast that will shoot like a laser beam out of it, at fast velocities.

Four Fingers of Death
07-20-2005, 07:36 AM
Why not rebarrel? You have a lovely rifle and if you rebarrel you can have it set up exactly as you want it, shooting boolits from commonly available moulds. It might seem expensive, but spread over the expected period of usage and considering the level of satisfaction a custom Bbl will provide, I think it is a worthwhile investment. Also, you don't have to waste money changing and discarding moulds, etc.

Just another way of looking at the problem.
Mick.

Denver
07-20-2005, 09:50 AM
Why not rebarrel? You have a lovely rifle and if you rebarrel you can have it set up exactly as you want it, shooting boolits from commonly available moulds. It might seem expensive, but spread over the expected period of usage and considering the level of satisfaction a custom Bbl will provide, I think it is a worthwhile investment. Also, you don't have to waste money changing and discarding moulds, etc.

Just another way of looking at the problem.
Mick.

Mick;

You're absolutely right, this is a great little rifle and would be well worth the cost of rebarreling. I did however find out yesterday that this little beauty will shoot if fed the proper diet. I loaded some of the Lee 429-200 RNFP bullets that were sized to .432 over 9 grs of Unique and seated out to just lightly engrave the rifling. This gives an OAL that is about 1.70 which is too long to feed through the action of course. Anyway, at 65yds, I put 4 in a group that would all be on a half dollar with one at 3 o'clock that opened up the group to about 2 1/2 inches. The "flyer" was the third shot fired.(Coulda' been me). This is only one group and may or may not prove out, but is the first time I've been able to get anything like a respectable showing. I'm going to run off another batch of this boolit today and see if I can repeat the results.

Ron

drinks
07-20-2005, 10:10 PM
I have just started on a new handirifle barrel in .44mag. it is .431 and 12 lands and grooves, but with a 1/16 twist.
I got very good results with waterdropped ww's at BHN 18, Lee 230 hp swc gc, 25gr IMR4227, 1680 fps and also with Lee 310rnf gc , also waterdropped and BHN 18, with 19gr H110, 1460 fps.
Both around 1" at 50 yds with a 2.5x scope.
My molds are .430, so I made a .431 die and crimped the gc's without actually sizing the bullets.
Had to do something similar with a M44 with a .315 barrel to get it to something useable, 2 1/2" at 50 yds.
Don

26Charlie
07-23-2005, 10:36 PM
A friend recommended to me a load of 23.0 gr. WW296 behind a Lyman 429215 GC for the .44 rifle. I had not been using 296 in revolvers, due to excess muzzle flash and blast, preferring H110. Anyway, I put together some of these recommended loads, using Lyman gas checks and sizing to .431, and tried them in four different rifles.
The first is an old post-64 Win M94, (lever action so I can post here) peep and post sight. Group was terrible, 8" or worse at 100 yds.
Second and third rifles were bolt actions with scope sights - a Remington M788 and a Ruger M77. Groups were so-so, 4 1/2" at 100 yds.
Fourth rifle was an H&R Shikari break-open, single shot, with open sights - and the 38" twist barrel. Group was in the 2 3/4" area, with even one shot I called low.
All this with the exact same load. So, I have one box of the load left, marked especially for the Shikari. The moral of the story is play around with the loads until you find what your rifle likes; it won't be the same as another rifle necessarily.

Scrounger
07-23-2005, 11:12 PM
A friend recommended to me a load of 23.0 gr. WW296 behind a Lyman 429215 GC for the .44 rifle. I had not been using 296 in revolvers, due to excess muzzle flash and blast, preferring H110. Anyway, I put together some of these recommended loads, using Lyman gas checks and sizing to .431, and tried them in four different rifles.
The first is an old post-64 Win M94, (lever action so I can post here) peep and post sight. Group was terrible, 8" or worse at 100 yds.
Second and third rifles were bolt actions with scope sights - a Remington M788 and a Ruger M77. Groups were so-so, 4 1/2" at 100 yds.
Fourth rifle was an H&R Shikari break-open, single shot, with open sights - and the 38" twist barrel. Group was in the 2 3/4" area, with even one shot I called low.
All this with the exact same load. So, I have one box of the load left, marked especially for the Shikari. The moral of the story is play around with the loads until you find what your rifle likes; it won't be the same as another rifle necessarily.

The next time you play around with those loads, size the bullet .433" and see if that doesn't make a big difference.

fish_bait
08-16-2005, 07:17 PM
Denver,

I have 5 B92's. 3 are 44's and 2 357's. All three of my 44's have or had the same accuracy problem you have described. It took a long time to get all three to shoot groups that were acceptable.

I found the forearm barrel band on one 44, which is cast aluminum, had fractured and was allowing everything to move around. I ordered five bands from Marlin for their 336C and replaced all of the B92's bands. The front barrel band is also aluminum, but I have not found a band that will fit. I replaced the rear sight on all 5 with Marbles semi-buckhorn and that helped my old eyes a bunch. Remember the Browning is Japanese-made and has a metric dovetail. I have a milling machine which made it easy to open it up for American dovetail sights, but it can be done with a needle file if you are careful.

The throat on one gun was what you have, .195-.200. That barrel never did shoot unless I did as you have done and set the bullet out and single loaded them. The other trick was to use 44 Special brass and then I could seat long bullets and still feed them from the magazine. That gun got a new Shilen barrel last year. I am too old for all this messing around. It now shoots great.

The other two guns have a short throat and will shoot a 200 grain TCFP mold that I ordered from Magma Eng. It is flat based, not those bevel base things they sell.

I have found that the two guns with their original barrels don't like hot loads. They like something that is 100-150 fps below max. I shoot loads that are in the 1200 fps range and all three guns love them. The Shilen barrel will shoot hot, cold or anything in between. The steel buttplate is the limiting factor of what I will shoot. I don't like nasty bruises anymore.

Tha last thing that I experimented with all five guns is bullet hardness. Miruko rifling does not seem to like real hard or real soft bullets. After one hell of a lot of playing around, I found all five guns like a brew in the range of 6% Tin, 8% Antimony, and 86% Lead. This is not hard to make out of wheel weights and linotype. No heat treating necessary, but you could.

My Shilen barrel is a 6 groove right twist and one of the other two 44's is an 8 groove left and the other is a 10 groove right. The "bad barrel" is a 12 groove right. Seems Miruko couldn't make up their mind on the 44's. Rate of twist also varies among the 3. The Shilen is 1 in 18, one B92 is 1 in 38 and the other is 1 in 22. Again they couldn't make up their minds. Shilen gave me the twist for the weight and type of bullet I specified. The 38" twist in the bad barrel would not shoot light bullets past 50 yards worth a hoot. Shilen told me it was because they aren't spinning fast enough for their length. They said 1 in 16 to 1 in 18 is ideal for 44's in a rifle. Pistols are not long range guns, so it doesn't matter according to them, but it seems odd to me that they are generally 1-16 or so. Ruger did their 44 rifle with a 1 in 38. Who knows.

Enough rambling from me. I have put thousands of rounds through these 5 guns and I think I have found all the eccentricities these things have or maybe not.