Reloading heavy boolits in 44 magnum

[texasbilly]

I am looking to load 290gr SWCGC boolits in my 44 magnum. I tried 18.5 gr of Winchester 296, and those loads were rather stout. I am looking for something a little milder. Does anyone have a nice load for these heavy boolits using powders such as Clays, Unique, Green Dot, or other shotgun-type powders? Let me know.

Thanks.

[Larry Gibson]

Not being facetious but perhaps just using a 200 - 240 gr PB'd cast bullet for a light load might be a better option? They work well with those powders.

Larry Gibson

[BNE]

I have tried 5.8 Gr of Red Dot with a 305 Gr bullet. It was a mild shooting load. I think any of the powders you mentioned would work, and most would have load info available on the manufacturers web site.

[DougGuy]

Heavy for caliber boolits are meant to be driven hard, otherwise you don't achieve enough spin to stabilize the boolit. 44 mag revolvers often have a slower twist than 45 caliber guns, you can't make target loads with those boolits.

[dale2242]

I`m with Larry,
Push the heavy boolits.
Use lighter boolits for light loads....dale

[GhostHawk]

Shot some home swaged bullets made from .40sw brass, a .358 200 grain bullet, and an old RCBS .270 win sizing die with decapping pin removed. Put bullet in case, put case in die. Add square punch, whack 12 times with hammer, get nice lead nose brass cased bullet.

My load was 6.5 grains of Red Dot, CCI LR primers. Although this is essentially a .44 mag load I loaded mine in some .444 marlin nickle cases. I was having scope issues (Everything came loose) so no report on the accuracy side.

On the recoil side, these were awesome, very mild, I could shoot these all day. Very low noise, very audible whap from down range when they hit.

While these are interesting to make, load and shoot. The .40sw brass seems to fall into 2 size groups. Those which are at .430 which make perfect bullets for the .444.
And those which are at .427 which just do not get enough bigger in the process and so do not.

The only way I have found thus far to sort them is with my Lee .430 size die.

Those which take a little push of the press to go through go into the swage into bullet pile.

Those which drop through get reloaded.

Even with that I am seeing some big weight differences between them. So poor boy whack a mole swaging is not the most consistent method.

Worth what I paid for it, being essentially nothing.

Those brass bullets sure do look purty in those nickle cases.

[curator]

8 grains of Unique makes for a "nice" load using 280 grain LBT LFN boolit in my Ruger SBH. Veral cut the 2-cavity mould to cast one gas-check and one plain base boolit. I save the gas-check ones for full power loads and the plain base ones for "lighter" loads that are more fun to shoot. The LFN design is plenty accurate at 800 to 1000 fps.

[starnbar]

You can use 2400 if its available in your neck of the woods it's what I use for heavy bullets.

[racepres]

BlueDot for me
but, I do Not light load heavy boolits. I have swaged for that.

[clum553946]

9 grains of Unique with 280gr WFN pc's gives a manageable but "has some giddyup" load that's not punishing like 296. You can go a little higher also.

[texasbilly]

On the recommendation of this site, I just tried 8 grains of Unique behind my 290gr SWCGC boolits. The combination performed well. It was an accurate load, and was very controllable. Before I settle on this recipe, I would like to see if there is a comparable recipe using 231 or 700X. Does anyone have such a load that they have used?