I finally got a hold of gas checks, time to make some bear/moose/wolverine rounds. For the most part I load lots of 44 special to shoot on my Ruger Blackhawk so I'm trying to go at it carefully as I thread into the deep end of the pool.
The closest recipe I can find is from the Hodgon reloading data for the 325 grain Bear Tooth Bullet, Remington large pistol primers, 20/22 grains of H110, 1.730 COL.
The bullets from this mold are listed as 310 grains. They have two grooves. Loading on the first one I get an overall length of 1.790, on the second 1.705. Even the longer length fits fine on the Ruger.
First question: I should be fine making a run of test bullets using 20 to 22 grains of H110? I plan on doing .5 grain increments to test for accuracy and signs of bad things happening.
Second question: Should I crimp to the first or the second grove? Crimping to the first one seems to use 100% of case capacity. The second gives the powder some elbow room. Eventually I would try both ways but for starters I just want to make sure either using 100% capacity or having extra space under minimum load would be kosher.