Paging 44 Man

[cabezaverde]

I have seen various posts of yours where you state that the 44 magnum is best served by Hornady dies.

Could you please share your findings relative to this with me and others that might be interested?

[44man]

OK, I use fairly hard boolits, about 22 BHN. However I found the problem of different case tension causing very poor accuracy with jacketed bullets years ago when I shot IHMSA. I was using RCBS dies and accuracy was nowhere to be found. I experimented and even had special BR dies made for the .44 with sizing collars. I worked out a way to measure and sort rounds by the amount of force it took to seat bullets. Accuracy went way up until I could get 1/2" groups at 50 meters with some guns.
Brass is so different I would have 10 piles of rounds on the bench. If I took the looser ones I could shoot 1/2" and the same size groups with the tighter fitting bullets but the groups could be 10" apart. Mix these loads and the best to expect would be 10".
But the BR dies were a REAL pain to set up and use. I tried different dies and when I got the Hornady's, I found the dimensions were just right. A lot easier then polishing down expander plugs. Most expanders go too deep in the case too so they need shortened.
I want good neck tension and since I switched to cast only for hunting, I had to make sure seating boolits did not size them down. The reason for a harder boolit.
I use nothing but Hornady dies in all of my revolvers now. If you look at my avitar, you can see how the .475 and 45-70 BFR's group at 50 yd's. And I have done better since I took that picture. From the bench I can get 1" or less at 100 yd's IF I see the target good with the red dot. The .44 Ruger is much harder to do it with but pop cans are easy.
I then read where one fella uses nothing but new brass for every shoot, VERY expensive. So I took 50 new cases and shot the whole batch at 50 yd's. I had 5 different points of impact on the target. Some very high, and some very low. I sorted by where they hit and load each batch by itself. So you see, even new brass varies a great deal.
I played with every crimp that can be used and found it had little effect bringing back accuracy. I only use enough to hold the boolits under recoil.
Years ago I also found the .44 with 296 shoots 3 times better with the Federal 150 primer then it does with mag primers.
I would say brass is 95% of the problem causing poor groups. My guess is that Hornady dies reduce this to about 30%.
You will never get them perfect but if you have a flier, toss that case in another box.

[cabezaverde]

Thank you.

So I think what you are saying is that the Hornady expander is the key, not the sizer die as much?

[44man]

Yes, very true. But I like the titanium size die too although a good carbide set would work as long as the expander is correct.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
I am a .41 shooter. I will have to say neck tension MUST be = between rounds and you do have to experiment. It can be to little and can be to much (resize boolits). I remember reading years ago a "RELOADER" article stating that about .005 ( for .41) neck tension was a good place to be looking with a HARD cast boolit. What ever the figure was I measured my expander and it sure was too Fat. I chucked it into my old 1/2 drill and gave it the emery cloth reducing it. Did not take very long and groups improved in my Dan Wesson. And to shorten an expander... a bench grinder with a cup of water handy will sure do the job in a few minutes. Now the problem arizes... what to do with with 30-1 Boolits... well you get another expander for less tension on soft boolits and clearly mark the two.