What do you consider a "good" 44 mag group?

[fatelvis]

My latest project is trying to wring out top accuracy from my pre-lock S&W 629 w/6.5" bbl., with mild to medium loads. It has a nice tight barrel/cylinder gap, tight lockup, I had the undersized throats honed out to .4308" by Dougguy, and it has an EXCELLENT trigger. I consider myself a proficient shot, especially with a good solid rest, and can usually test a firearm's inherent accuracy when I concentrate on eliminating all my possible human errors. That being said, I'm currently only able to shoot about 3" groups at 50yds., using a sand bag rest and iron sights. Is this considered acceptable by most? I can't seem to accept any larger than about 2" at that distance. Am I expecting too much from this revolver/cartridge?
BTW, after trying several powders/charge weights, I found the best so far is 8.5grns Unique under a NOE 432421 lubed with Speedgreen.

[Jack Stanley]

Your group size sounds very good to me . Back when I could see the sights and was using a model 29 very regular , my standard was two cylinders full with all shots touching at twenty-five yards .

Jack

[243winxb]

3" is good.

Note that the target in the photo is a standard 50 yard Bullseye target.
A high master will score in the 90's with a 45 acp, standing, using 1 hand.

[Whitespider]

I'd be extremely happy with 3-inch, 50-yard groups from any iron-sighted revolver.
*

[fatelvis]

I'm starting to feel a little better about my progress with this revolver. Thanks guys.
You've got a lot of cool pics there 243, thanks for sharing them!

[44deerslayer]

Try 2400 I get the best groups out of my prelock 29-2 4inch and 6.5 inch with 18.5 grains of 2400 with a 429421 boolit

[rugerdude]

Dang, I'm plumb happy if I can keep a whole cylinder on a 8" paper plate at 50 yards with iron sights! 3 inches would have me grinning like a ******* eating briars!

[Beagle333]

I'm with you, Rugerdude. 50 yards is a long way to me. Even before I got the astigmatism.

[HeavyMetal]

3 inch isn't bad but I think a little "wring out" of your load may help shrink that, or not depending on what your doing right now, LOL!

Suggest the following:

1 same HS on all brass better yet get a small lot of new Starline 44 mag and dedicate it to load development only.

2 trim to length after full length sizing

3 ream primer pockets to a specific depth cull any that do not ream a full cut into the primer pocket their crooked!

4 play with different primers, avoid Mag primers with Unique you won't need them, my best loads for my 29 use Federal standard pistol primers

5 play with crimp, unfamiliar with the NOE mold your using, but will look it up, but crimp can be both good and bad depending a lot on how your case's are prepped and sorted by HS. With a soft load like the Unique one you list it my do better with a mild to no crimp provided you have good bullet pull which is based on both using the same HS case and having an expander set just over boolit diameter by one to two thousandths of an inch.

6 avoid the SWC for distance shooting, 44man will advise the whole layout if he posts and he speaks with great authority as far as I am concerned! the 429421 usually is out of it's league by 50 yards the WFN's do much better! So much so that my Lyman 4 cav 429421 has been reduced to the Skelton load in my 44 Ruger flattop Bisley.

[fatelvis]

Any and all tips are appreciated!
I am using virgin Starline brass and Winchester standard primers. I have been using a light to medium crimp, in the crimp groove, but may try some loads without a crimp. My muzzle hasn't been showing the lube star that I like seeing, but my bore is remaining lead free and shiny. I will try the federal primers, and venture out and try a WFN style boolit. Have you guys found that using gas checked bullets generally improved accuracy even further?


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[fatelvis]

I was actually thinking of mounting a scope, just for load development, and then removing it for use with iron sights.


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[HeavyMetal]

I've not found using gas checks makes any difference, every mold I own is a plain or bevel base mold, my thought on checks is simple, if you swage them on the are whatever diameter the sizing die is and most check don't stretch to fit over sized mold, aka 430 or 431 instead of 429 diameters.

Now for a blatant attempt to sell a mold: I have a single cavity 429434 that cast at .432 diameter it was a gas check mold nd I had Eric at Hollowpoint mold enlarge the gas check shank and make it a 245 grain flat base WFN mold.

Liked it so much that I bought an Accurate 43-240G 4 city plain base copy.

I now have no use for the single cavity Lyman which also has one of Red River Ricks thick sprue plates on it, this is a casting monster but still isn't a 4 banger, LOL!

If your interested in tying a WFN design in a quality mold I'm asking $45.00 and shipping for this one, see my old post in swap and sell.

[C.F.Plinker]

I belong to a club with an indoor 25 yard range. So I do my accuracy testing at 25 yards for handguns. Indoors for non-magnum calibers and outdoors for magnum calibers. For me a good load shot off sandbags will be 5 shots 2 inches or less center to center on the two outside shots, an inch and a half on the best 4 out of 5, and an inch for the best 3 out of the five.

For rifles I use the same criteria except the distance is 50 yards for iron sights and 100 yards for scoped rifles.

[Lloyd Smale]

back when I had good eyes I wanted a 2 inch 50 yard 6 shot group. Shot many one inch groups at that range. today with my old eyes those 2 inch loads go about 4 inch and it doesn't seem to slow down my hunting success other then I pass on 100 yard shots I used to take under IDEAL circumstances.

[44man]

Back when I shot IHMSA I had as many as 5 29's. Every one was extremely accurate and with jacketed Hornady bullets, 296 and a Fed 150 primer they would do 1/2" at 50 meters from Creedmore.
I never did well at shoots with them, found it was my hands, I could not pick the gun up without a change in POI. A 1/2" group would move 10" on me.
The secret to the .44 is to have even case tension from one piece of brass to another. I can measure seating pressure to sort loads. If each boolit feels different as you seat, you will never get groups.
Next is don't over power with a mag primer with ANY powder or you will push out boolits varying amounts and change air space before ignition. No matter what books say, the .44 is too small for mag primers.
Crimp with good tension should be just folded mild, crimp will not change a thing but you want to hold boolits under recoil. A great boolit is the 265 RD, Felix lube, 22 gr of 296, Fed 150. Don't shoot heavier boolits, the S&W does not like recoil inertia on parts. A good 240 to 250 is great.
I shoot water dropped WW boolits, soft will open groups.This in my heavy boolit (Ruger only) you can see the crimp and tension on the boolit. Soft boolits do not take kindly to tension like this.This is the 265 RD 50 and can at 100. I hit the rail once so held higher for the last shot. Red dot on gun.
I would go with a RNFP or LBT style nose.

[44man]

One more thing to mention, hammer springs. NEVER replace with a lighter one for a trigger pull and never loosen the strain screw on a S&W. This goes for any gun or caliber. Bolt, lever, whatever.
I hate Ruger springs, they take a set and I bought them by the dozen. As soon as I stopped hitting steel I would replace the spring. I went to 26# Wolfe over power variable springs in Rugers and BFR's. Primers need a strong impact to be consistent.

[fatelvis]

Ok 44man, I am taking your advice and gonna spring for a new NOE mold. A 165 RD specifically. Unfortunately, they are sold out of the "combo" molds, so I must choose between PB or GC. Which style would you suggest? Thanks again to everybody!

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive seen accuracy deteriorate backing the grip screw off with cci primers. Using federals makes a big difference. they ignite with a lot less hammer pressure.

Back when I shot IHMSA I had as many as 5 29's. Every one was extremely accurate and with jacketed Hornady bullets, 296 and a Fed 150 primer they would do 1/2" at 50 meters from Creedmore.
I never did well at shoots with them, found it was my hands, I could not pick the gun up without a change in POI. A 1/2" group would move 10" on me.
The secret to the .44 is to have even case tension from one piece of brass to another. I can measure seating pressure to sort loads. If each boolit feels different as you seat, you will never get groups.
Next is don't over power with a mag primer with ANY powder or you will push out boolits varying amounts and change air space before ignition. No matter what books say, the .44 is too small for mag primers.
Crimp with good tension should be just folded mild, crimp will not change a thing but you want to hold boolits under recoil. A great boolit is the 265 RD, Felix lube, 22 gr of 296, Fed 150. Don't shoot heavier boolits, the S&W does not like recoil inertia on parts. A good 240 to 250 is great.
I shoot water dropped WW boolits, soft will open groups.This in my heavy boolit (Ruger only) you can see the crimp and tension on the boolit. Soft boolits do not take kindly to tension like this.This is the 265 RD 50 and can at 100. I hit the rail once so held higher for the last shot. Red dot on gun.
I would go with a RNFP or LBT style nose.

[Kraschenbirn]

Back in the heyday of the original (Elgin Gates) IHMSA the accuracy standard was 2" groups @ 50 M. from a rest. This (theoretically) would translate to 8" groups at 200M which would keep your hits on body of a ram silhouette. And, believe it or not, it was doable. I had two DWs that would shoot sub-2", using full-house loads, from a Creedmore with a couple sandbags under my wrist.

Bill

[fatelvis]

Back in the heyday of the original (Elgin Gates) IHMSA the accuracy standard was 2" groups @ 50 M. from a rest. This (theoretically) would translate to 8" groups at 200M which would keep your hits on body of a ram silhouette. And, believe it or not, it was doable.

Ahhh, now THAT is what I was looking for! I respect the he** out of Elgin and his accomplishments. I will adopt his accuracy standard as a personal and practical goal for this revolver. Thanks for that bit of info Krasch!