.44 boolet size?

[Krag 1901]

I got out my .44's and tested the .44-40 boolets I bought which are .430" dia. They fell right through my 29 & 629's cylinder throats. My reading tells me they should be bigger to work well. In my previous testing they didn't do very well but early days.

What about it guys. Do you think I need a .431-2" dia boolet? Will these rather hard boolets bump up with a good snappy powder? Say a stiff charge of 700x?

[Outpost75]

My experience is that "hard" bullets of commercial 92-6-2 alloy do not "bump up" and when undersized are a textbook recipe for leading. Softer alloy in the range of 8-10 BHN will upset and shoot well in full charge loads if only about 0.001" undersized. Best is to have bullets which are about one half thousandth 0.0005" smaller than the cylinder throats. If your cylinder throats are not uniform, fit bullets to the largest throat and hope for the best. Best technical solution is to have DougGuy hone your cylinder throats to uniform size which is about 0.0015" larger than the barrel groove diameter, but up to 0.005" larger than barrel groove diameter does no harm if needed to overcome frosting or pitting from use of black powder or corrosive primers in an old gun.

[Earlwb]

I think it depends on the barrel bore sizes with the rifling done and its groove and land measurements. Bullets being loose inside of the revolver cylinders is normal in my thoughts. That was always the big problem with revolvers being the bullet jump from inside the cylinder, through the forcing cone into the barrel. It affects the accuracy. It is the barrel that really counts. If I remember right, .429" was usually for jacketed bullets, .430" for lead bullets and maybe .431" for lead bullets too. But .431" may result in the cases bulging out and maybe not going into tight chambers.

[DougGuy]

Well, 29 and 629 are not 44-40 caliber so you don't have the neck issue to deal with. Size to fit the throats for sure. Like Ed says, hard alloy won't obturate and will guarantee poor results if not sized to the throats.

Worse comes to worse, I have taken boolits and set them on the anvil part of my bench vise and smacked them with a hammer, then run them through a .432" sizer to fit my SBH's .4325" throats. The target couldn't tell the difference in which hammer I used so I called it good.

[Thumbcocker]

Outpost 75 is spot on. Listen.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[ABJ]

To expand on what "Outpost" said,
My Redhawk has .432 throats, a .430 boolit with my alloy 94/2/4, brinell 14.0/14.5 they will bump up and not lead at 9.0 grains of Unique. Anything with less pressure will lead badly. A .432 boolit will shoot down the the low 700's fps without leading. Not very accurate but no leading.
My flattop 44 special has the same .432 throats. with .432 bullets it will shoot one ragged hole at 25 yds between 750 and 850 fps. The flattop with 430's shoots patterns not groups and leading is horrible.
As long as the throats are the larger than the forcing cone and barrel groove, size to the throats. I am assuming the forcing cone and leade are smooth.
Tony

[Char-Gar]

I agree with the prior posters. Your starting point is knowing the groove diameter of your barrels and the cylinder throat diameter of the cylinders. I don't know the vintage of your 29 and 629, but it quite common to find them with barrel groove diameter of .429 - .430. and cylinder throats that run .432 - .433. This would explain why your .430 bullet dropped right through.

In the last twenty or so years, Smith has tightened the cylinder throats up to .430 - .431.

[Krag 1901]

All of my .44s are modern, 1980's to 199X, pre lock. My calipers say the throats are .430 and yet the boolets fall through only one chamber held the boolet and was easily pulled thru. I don't have a sizer so I guess I'll just shoot them and see what happens. I tried the boolets in the muzzles and they didn't get past the ogvie.
I'm going to load up some spl with ~4.5 gr 700x and ~7.0 gr Unique and try them. Next time I go by my LGS I'll pick up some 240 gr .44s to see if they are .430 or larger.
I don't have a .44 mold and I'm not paying scalper prices for any.

[white eagle]

if you need to bump up the size powder coat them
should ad .002-.003 in dia.

[Char-Gar]

All of my .44s are modern, 1980's to 199X, pre lock. My calipers say the throats are .430 and yet the boolets fall through only one chamber held the boolet and was easily pulled thru. I don't have a sizer so I guess I'll just shoot them and see what happens. I tried the boolets in the muzzles and they didn't get past the ogvie.
I'm going to load up some spl with ~4.5 gr 700x and ~7.0 gr Unique and try them. Next time I go by my LGS I'll pick up some 240 gr .44s to see if they are .430 or larger.
I don't have a .44 mold and I'm not paying scalper prices for any.

Calipers are worthless at measuring round holes. Guaranteed your throats are larger than .430.

[Krag 1901]

Calipers are worthless at measuring round holes. Guaranteed your throats are larger than .430.

Probably but, that's all I have.
Funny but I haven't had any problems when I bought boolets in the Bay Area. But up here in Sacto, there seem to be fewer selections and harder to find cast boolets, even before the panic!

I may have to run down to Fremont to see if my old source is still active.

[bobthenailer]

Over the years and owening about 15, 44 mag revolvers most all shot well using bullets sized @ .430 dia except for 2 for them they had larger chamber throats i had to use bullets from a beagled mould and size bullets to .433 dia after using the larger bullets they now shoot as good as the other handguns.