The 44 Associates

[Piedmont]

Thanks! This should put to rest a board blowhard or two who say Keith bullets won't shoot, but of course it will not.

[Outpost75]

Thanks! This should put to rest a board blowhard or two who say Keith bullets won't shoot, but of course it will not.

Important feature of original Keith bullets was full diameter front driving band which could be sized exactly to fit cylinder throats. Later versions adapted by Lyman have a reduced diameter front band which is smaller than the driving bands, so bullets may or may not fit your gun... But in doing so Lyman avoided complaints from people who didn't understand how to size and fit bullets properly, who had problems chambering larger diameter bullets in their revolvers.

Another feature was large lubricant grooves having a flat bottom and angled sides, which held more lube, important back in the days when bullet lubes were less effective. The deep lubricating grooves also aided the base of the bullet upsetting upon discharge, providing what Erik liked to call a "greasegun effect" ensuring that the lube would actually coat the bore. He liked soft lubes and disliked hard ones. Erik was the first person I knew to talk about "lube purging" effect upon accuracy. His feeling was that if recovered bullets still had intact lube in the grooves the bullets and lube were too hard and no good. "You want the lube left in the barrel, not left on the bullet to imbalance it."

The smaller, modern, round-bottomed lube grooves provide a stronger base to resist upset in heavy magnum loads, but may also contribute to leading when excessively hard bullets are used with then fail to seal the powder gases behind the bullet. Keith was not one who favored "hard" alloys. He liked 1:20 or 1:16 tin-lead.

In my experience most leading of revolver bullets is caused by bullets which are too hard and don't fit, rather than by "soft" bullets which are over-driven at the sought pressure and velocity. I use 1:30 for all of my hunting loads in .38 Special, .357 Mag., .44-40 and .44 Magnum. I do limit velocities to about 1080 fps in revolvers and 1350-1400 fps in handgun caliber carbines. I don't find heavier loads necessary in the Eastern woods I hunt because I only rarely shoot beyond 50 yards with a revol ver or 100 yards with a rifle. There are no predators here big enough to eat 'cha either. Deer, coyotes, hogs, and VERY rarely maybe a black bear.

I don't use gaschecks because within these limits they are unnecessary and only serve top increase cost. I have no issues with leading using Lee Liquid Alox or 45-45-10 in recreational revolver ammo. I do use pan lubing with 1:5 ATF-beeswax for .44-40 and .44 Magnum rifle hunting loads or 50-50 Goya Manteca and beeswax, for black powder cowboy ammo. I size all of my .44-40 bullets to .430" and .44 Magnums to .432" to fit cylinder throats of my Rugers and S&W 544.

[JAC43]

Old thread, but question to smarter folks than me...what do you think the number .335 denotes in the photo? The header of the page is cut off. Seating depth?

[Matt_G]

Yeah, it is unfortunate that the header is cutoff.
99.99% sure you are correct.
The .335 denotes how much of the bullet is inside the case.
Note 12 on page 3 states that seating depth is shown in the tables.

[JAC43]

Thanks, and a debt of gratitude to you for hosting all those documents. I don't know how many times I've referred back to them!

[ddixie884]

Yes, THANX Matt.............

[Matt_G]

I am glad folks find it useful.
It is just a tiny way I can give back to the community.

[JoeJames]

Thanks. I thought I was the only 44 Special nut.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

The January 1967 article by Bob Hagel in Handloader has an interesting bit in it about Bob being caught out at the end of WWII without enough reloading supplies during the primer and powder shortage. The more things change......

[Nueces]

An older thread that is a perfect example of why I treasure this board. I first heard of the 44 Associates from a Skeeter Skelton article in, I'm sure, Shooting Times. I have always wished that they had called themselves The 44 Specialists.

As to the question of the existence of some form of regular communication among them, Skeeter mentioned in his article that such did exist, containing, as he put it, 44 loads and jokes about 357 shooters. We may someday see some of these if the 'old man's' stuff ever falls into the hands of someone who knows what he has.

[Matt_G]

Nueces,
Check this site out.

[Electrod47]

All the .44 special stuff at Goodrich I printed up and put in my ".44 Binder " years ago along with everything I could find in print to add.
A fascinating topic stoked many years ago by Skeeter Skelton. Find a lot of his stuff at Darkcanyon.com

[Nueces]

Nueces,
Check this site out.

Thanks much, I already have that one saved. I think I also kept the original articles, generally cut from the magazines to save space. Right there in the lead article, is the quote I remembered, "They already had their guns, and interchanged loading information and jokes about .357 shooters in a regular newsletter."

So, I think we may yet have a chance of happening across some of those. Had I been a 44 Associate, I'd still have them. I even have a file of Bob Brownell's original gunsmith newsletters, from which the Gunsmith Kinks books grew.

Years ago, I had to fire the ex to gain room for my stuff!