As with most little reloading projects, there is a story. My relationship with the 44-40 is no different, a journey controlled by luck and happenstances beyond my control.
I was sitting at my gunshow table a few years back and the vendor beside me and I got to talking. Yes, it was a slow day. He was an real gun enthusiast and one of his passions was Cowboy Action. I went to a few of his meets and I decided I'd like to participate. I had a pair of cowboy pistols, and that was about it. My cousin came through and for my birthday gave me a well worn 1897 shotgun and borrowed me a Commemorative 1894 in 44-40. Thus began my relationship with the 44-40.
Some Starline brass, a LEE 429-200-RF double cavity mold and a # of Unique and I was on my way. I was dabbling in 44 Mag and my lubesizer was full of Lyman Moly, so that is what I used.
I used data from several Lyman manuals and information from Ken Waters Pet Loads and came up with a nice load. Unfortunately it was a bit too much for the steel targets at the club. I was within velocity limits, but my load was more than most cowboys use, and I needed to tone it down. I reduced my charge of Unique until accuracy went south and used it for the next meet. It was mild enough, but not a nice load, a bit sooty and accuracy was mediocre.
Load development on the quest for a decent low velocity cowboy load was challenging, I couldn't seem to find a load that sparkled, nothing to brag about. Then a I remembered that my brother's neighbor had given him a bunch of Red Dot. It came in a couple of tobacco tins if I remember. The little red dots in the powder confirmed that it was as the writing on the tin indicated. Out of desperation I tried some and got a pretty decent load. I had several rifles in 44-40 by this time and my Red Dot load worked in all of them.
Around this time I bought a 1866 in 38 Special and it became my Cowboy rifle. I sold all my 44-40 rifles and gave back the loaner. I also sold the LEE 429-200-RF, as the boolits refused to work in any of my 44 Magnums. Just about a clean sweep, only left with some brass, some ammo, a 100 or so cast bullets, and just under a # of Red Dot. And I still had the Lyman 427666 double cavity mold. I tried a few combinations and that boolit never worked out in any of my rifles, never showed any promise at all.
Then, last fall, on a Black Friday sale, I saw a nice Ruger Vaquero on sale, at a decent % off, and I bought it. Yes, it was in 44-40.
I tossed in a few of my rifle loads and I was amazed, one and done, accurate and no leading. A bit of crud buildup on the mouth of the forcing cone, but that was the norm for most of my revolvers. Take note that I mentioned earlier that Lyman Moly was my lube.
The gun was fun to shoot, I could see that my meager supply of ammo and bullets would not last long. I tried ordering a new LEE 429-200-RF mold, but they are on backorder everywhere, so out came the Lyman 427666. It came with a rifle I'd bought, a Rossi with issues that were a bit too much for me to ignore, that is why it was sold. That rifle was a gunshow pass-around. When I put it on my table at a gunshow, a fellow vendor came over and said he'd once owned it, sold it in Ontario and it had come back to Manitoba the following year and another vendor had bought it. I bought it from that vendor about an hour later. I found out that the mold hadn't worked out, but that the ammunition loaded with Gold Dot bullets had worked fine.
I wasn't very optimistic, but the 427666 was pretty much the only option I had. The mod needed a bit of help, a bit of work with the alignment pins and all was good enough. My Vaquero is pretty much a 429 gun, throats and grooves, so I knew that I'd have to cast as large as I could. I cast with a hot mold, and kept my alloy below 700. I cast just below frosting, and the bullets worked with my Red Dot load. I was low on Lyman Moly so I sized in my other sizer, with Micro-Lube, my last 1/2 stick.
The common theme to this whole adventure is changes and shortages. I had about 1 cup of Red Dot left, maybe 20# of lead alloy, 1/2 a stick of Micro-Lube, and I'd retired my Lyman T-Mag II in favor of a Dillon 550.
After blowing through most of my ammo it was time to reload. Setting up and getting a working combination of dies was an adventure. In summary I ended up trimming about 0.050 of the bottom of my LEE sizer and ordering a new seating stem for my Redding seater/crimp die. Trimming of the sizer was required as my chambers in the Vaquero have the shoulders a bit more forward than my rifles had. The chambers are just a bit over min and each is identical. I'm very happy with the Vaquero.
To solve my alloy shortage I smelted all my odds, culls and discards, got about 60# of alloy and it casts well. Bullets come out 4295 to 430 and I size them at 430, because it seems like 429 sizers are all sold out, backorder only with an undisclosed delivery date. The 430 works, the bullet is just barely touched and I only get the odd lube blowout when I let an undersized boolit slip through when culling.
I have an order of Dragon lube coming, but in the meantime I melted my bench ball and filled my sizer. I save the bits of lube that seem to happen and just have a ball of lube next to my sizer. So no more Micro-Lube, which is a shame, because with Micro-Lube, that crud buildup on the mouth of the throat is only 1/3 of what it used to be with Lyman Moly. And the new batch of wonder alloy doesn't seem to lead at all. Sometimes you are good, sometimes you get lucky. It was my lucky day.
I've saved my latest frustration for the end. I'm a lazy reloader, don't usually go out of my way to look for challenges. So, instead of finding a replacement for Red Dot, I was able to find a # locally from a fellow shooter and gunshow vendor. I'm pretty sure my Red Dot was old, and probably Hercules, but hey, Red Dot is Red Dot.
A quick check with the chrono told me otherwise. My load wasn't working well at all. My methodology on chrono testing handgun loads is to shoot a 5 shot string with the powder against the boolit, and another 5 shot string with the powder against the primer. The goal, in an ideal world, would have the velocity from the powder forward string equal the velocity from the powder against the boolit string, and to have a small Standard Deviation (Sd) with both strings.
It's been my experience that sometimes a primer change will help with a powder forward/back velocity spread. There are no bad primers, or good primers, but some primers work better than others in some circumstances. I'd always used a CCI 300 in the 44-40, it seemed to do a good job, but something wasn't working for me. My velocity spread was 100 fps, and I wanted to tighten that up.
I had some Federal 115 LPM primers, those tightened up the spread a bit, only 60 fps, but the Es/Sd numbers weren't spectacular.
I tried some Winchester WLP (for standard and magnum) next. The spread was still around 40 and the primers were struggling with powder back, poor Es/Sd. I lowered the charge a 1/4 grain and retested. That cut the spread in half, but the powder back numbers were still poor(ish).
I had one primer left to try. I went back up to 5.2 grains and substituted the WLP with a Rem 2 1/2. The spread was 30 fps, but the Es/Sd numbers for powder back were better than forward, which was encouraging. In reality, it's only on the first shot, which is fired after pulling the gun from the holster where the powder is hard against the boolit. IOW, 80% of the time the powder is more towards the primer. I felt that perhaps a slight reduction in powder may help. At 5 grains the numbers were good enough for this cowboy. not great, not as good as with my dried out old Red Dot, but a whole lot better than from where I started.
Velocity Av = 756/737, Es = 22.2/40.5, Sd = 10.3/16.5, Shots 5 powder back/5 powder forward.
Well, that's my story. I've been accused of overthinking the game, been told it's not that complicated. Just put in enough powder to get the boolit out the barrel, with ammunition that fits the chamber and go shooting. Sorry, but that won't satisfy my OCD brain or quell my quest for perfection. But in this instance, I have settled for good enough. Previous testing has shown that the 427666 will never equal the LEE 429-200-RF, and I believe that magic tobacco tin of Red Dot is forever gone. My quest for WW 452 cured me, I'll not be looking for any Hercules Red Dot. Like my buddy once said, "I couldn't get Hi-Vel #2 anymore, the RWS bullets were NLA, so I sold my 6mm."
I have no questions, no concerns, but feel free to add comments. Hope you didn't mind me sharing my story.
Nitro (aka Big Boston)
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Originally Posted by Outpost75
