44 Special Mouse Fart Load?

[Uncle Grinch]

I sold my wife’s Colt Diamondback 38 Spl snubnose for a premium and have traded a couple of rifles for a new Charter Bulldog 44 Spl for her. Now I need to ease her into the “Bulldog mode” with some very light mouse fart loads. I will be loading RCBS-44-250K plain base boolits and need something real easy on recoil. I have Red Dot, 231, Green Dot, Unique, and 5744.

Any thoughts on where to start?

[Texas by God]

I think in the Bulldog you'll want less bullet weight for easy shooting. A .433" Speer round ball over 3 grs of Red Dot is fun. The standard 246 gr/750 fps is not that fun unless you're shooting a bigger revolver. Just my .02

[bmortell]

you could go 3 gr red dot and seat with a tiny crimp over the front driving band to reduce capacity. id just make the bullets soft and tumble lubed. wont burn very clean but thats to be expected.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

The Lee 200 RNFP over a starting load of Red Dot is a soft shooter. There is also the 44 Russian route if you want something that ejects easily from the Bulldog.

[Uncle Grinch]

I found some loads on handloads.com for the 250 grain ......

LSWC 5.0 gr AA #2 imp 610 fps 1.57" Win LP guest
Lyman(Keith)429421 a nice accurate load fired from my Taurus 445 -2"brl. std. dev. of 6 fps.

Thomas, you’re probably right on the 250 being too much in the Bulldog. I may have start looking for something more in the 200 grain like Lee.

[yeahbub]

In .44 mag, I load a .440 - .445 dia RB Cast of air cooled WW's over 8gr of Universal. A card wad and lube cookie go in the case and the RB seated on the case and pressed in half way + .010 more and given a light crimp. when fired, they size to throat diameter and have a generous band of engagement. They're low recoil, accurate, fairly snappy and fun, but might hit a bit low, being so light.

For a conventional boolit, the Lee 200gr RNFP has given me good performance run at moderate velocities, 800-1000 fps. The faster powders you mention will do very well with these.

[Walks]

I've used a 210gr RNFP over 4.2grs of TiteGroup for some 20yrs of Cowboy Action Shooting. About 725fps with 9500cups.

Or even lighter 200gr FP over 3.5grs TiteGroup in a
.44 RUSSIAN Case.

[Chainsaw.]

4.3 grains of trail boss under a 200 grain lead bullet. Nice and mellow.

[Uncle Grinch]

Good advise, but not quite what I’m looking for. I don’t have trail boss or universal, or titewad, nor do I have the 200 grain mould. I did find a Lee 430-240 SWC 90357 in my stash. I’ll do a little more research with the powders I have and see how low I can safely go. I don’t want to scare my wife away from this big bore. It’s going to be her defense gun and I want her to feel comfortable shooting it.

[Chainsaw.]

I mention trail boss because in my opinion, based on comparison between it and titegroup, I can feel the titgroup being more snappy. The trail boss is slightly slower and doesnt seem to put the gun back into the hand as bad. Miiight be beneficial to getting your Lady to like the gun/round. And, frankly, Im biased, I really like the powder. And can be used with any weight bullet. I load it under 300 grainlead bullets for slow heavy thumpers. Any way, best of luck to ya!

[ulav8r]

MOLD DC 429-214-SWC

This is an excellent bullet for that purpose, less weight for lower recoil and and a good profile for effectiveness. Push it to about 650-700 fps and it hits with authority.

[smkummer]

I wont bring up that you sold a premier small frame Colt 38 that could be loaded as light as any recoil sensitive shooter would want, but I would even go lighter than 200 and use a 180 or if a 160 grain bullet can be found. Since you have a short barrel, you can start at a starting load and back off .2 or .3 grains and check for consistency. Bullet weight = recoil in these light guns.

Oops, my cowboy action 44 special/mag. load is 4.5 700x with Lee’s 200 FP bullet. I will go to 4.2 in a 44 special case in the future as I shoot a Colt sheriff model 3” ( like your charter’s 3”) and for rapid cowboy action it has a bit more whip than my 5 1/2” SAA. The recoil is not excessive for normal plinking but I can definitely tell it takes more time to come back on target for fast cowboy action.

[17nut]

I have gone as low as @200fps from a 7½" Colt SAA in 45LC.
@1.2grains of TB behind a 255grain lead bullet.
Consistent ignition and no stuck squibs.

The 27yds to the target took some time ;-)

[Walks]

I gave up on Trailboss in light loads because of pressure spikes.
TiteGroup shows lower pressure then Trailboss in those light loads.

But I do use it in heavier .45Colt loads & lots of older RIFLE Cartridge loadings.

The old Hodgdon Cowboy Action Reloading Handout from 2003 shows pressure tested loads for 4 different powders & 4 different bullet weights from 160gr to 240gr.

If your interested, send me a PM with your mailing address. I'll mail you a copy of the .44 Mag, Spl & Russian.

They show even lighter loads then I shoot.
The load I use does very well in a 624 - 3" & a COLT Clone in 3 1/2" bbl.

[JoeJames]

Good advise, but not quite what I’m looking for. I don’t have trail boss or universal, or titewad, nor do I have the 200 grain mould. I did find a Lee 430-240 SWC 90357 in my stash. I’ll do a little more research with the powders I have and see how low I can safely go. I don’t want to scare my wife away from this big bore. It’s going to be her defense gun and I want her to feel comfortable shooting it.I experimented a bit with 6 grains of Win 231 and Speer .430" 240 grain swaged SWC's. In my 4 /12" Ruger 44 Special Blackhawk it was averaging 810 fps, and was a light load. I did not try to go any lower than that. In the event you try Trail Boss, with 4.8 grains of Trail Boss and the same bullet it averaged 686 fps, which is really getting pretty light.

[RED BEAR]

i really like 4.5 grains of unique and a lee 240 swc very mild and very accurate in my tauras and sw. my wife and niece just love this load.

[Forrest r]

3.5gr to 4.0gr of 231 or greendot pushing a 160gr to 200gr bullet makes for excellent plinking load in the ca bulldogs. I've owned bulldogs since the 80's & have shot countless 1000's of the light wc's in them. Any of the top row will work

https://i.imgur.com/iMopAGs.jpg?3

[slughammer]

I would work with Red Dot and W231. Unique and 5744 would probably have large velocity extreme spreads for really light loads. (No experience with Green Dot).

Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook gives 3.5gr Red Dot as a starting load. 545fps out of a 7-1/2" Blackhawk. I'd start there and the same 3.5gr load with W231.

[Uncle Grinch]

Looks like I need to look for a lighter boolit mould. Not sure if slowing down the 250 grain is going to be enough.

[rintinglen]

Lee makes a 429-200 RF (SKU 90285) that is both inexpensive and accurate. 4.0 grains of Red Dot under this results in a lighter recoiling load than just about any you can conjure up with a 240-250 grain boolit.

[longbow]

If you want light and have the budget I had Tom scale down a TC design from .45 to .44 at 165 grs (#43-165B). It works great as a light plinker from my 1894. I don't have a .44 handgun so haven't tried it there but fast powder and that light boolit should work fine for light to fairly high velocity loads without a lot of recoil. Accurate has several othe rdesigns in that weight now too which they didn't before so there must be others that like the lightweight boolits.

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=12

That #43-165R with large meplat looks like it would be good for defense.

More common is the 180 gr. boolit weight and lots of load data available. That should also produce light recoil.

In short, I'd be looking at a lighter boolit.

Longbow

[Eutectic45]

If you load the 250 SWC backwards and seat it below the case mouth as far as it will go, you can use 1.5 grains Red Dot for a very light load.
The secret is to minimize the load volume. It will not be accurate over about 20 yards, but it will do nicely for a new shooter.

[Uncle Grinch]

If you load the 250 SWC backwards and seat it below the case mouth as far as it will go, you can use 1.5 grains Red Dot for a very light load.
The secret is to minimize the load volume. It will not be accurate over about 20 yards, but it will do nicely for a new shooter.

Now that is an interesting idea. Reduce case volume and increase efficiency.

[parkerhale1200]

If you have a powder that has simulair burnrate to d032.
I like the 250gr from rcbs with 4,2 grain in it, give very good results on 25 yards for me
The recoil is like a 38 spl.

Best

[mogwai]

I use 6.5 gr unique with a 240 gr cast in my bulldogs

[rintinglen]

233868
Had I been there before you turned on this road, I'd have told you not to go this way. But since you have decided to go for a 44 for your fair lady, I think you could do a lot worse than to peruse the catalog of NOE and look for one of the Swede's .432-110 WC molds. Load them one at a time for practice over a dainty charge of Red Dot or Bullseye, and then load 2, one a top the other, over 4,5 grains of Red Dot for what was once described as "serious social purposes."
233869 This is a target of 3 at a time 44 magnums 10 shots at 7 yards, with some deliberate scattering of the aim point to spread the holes out some.

[Uncle Grinch]

Guys, it took me a while, but I found some 185 grain wadcutter boolits at StateLine Bullets. I loaded up a few with 6 grains of Red Dot. This boolit is a strange wadcutter. It sits out above the case maybe a 1/4 inch.
Will try them at the range soon.

249387

Darn sideways picture... sorry!