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Its been about 5 years since I last played with a 44 mag and reloading. Recently I bought a Ruger Super Blackhawk Bisley Hunter to hold me over while I wait for my 475 Linebaugh from Freedom Arms to be made (about a 3 month wait right now).
I have quite a bit of experience with .40 and 45acp with my Dillon XL650 and have loaded 454 Casull on it as well but I wanted a single stage press in hopes for more consistency. I went back and forth between RCBS, Redding and Hornady. Finally I decided on the Lock and Load classic. The twist lock bushing system is fantastic so far. While I was at it I went for the Hornady auto charge as well.
So I wanted to work up a nice stiff 240gr load for the Biesly using H110. After much reading and calling Hornady and Hodgdon I decided to use the Federal #155m Large Pistol Mag Match primer to insure a constant and repeatable ignition with H110. Knowing the mag primer could add to the peak pressures some I decided to start with 22.5gr of H110 (well under the 24.8gr max listed by Hornady and Hodgdon). While measuring my spent factory loaded brass from 200gr Hornady XTP's I found the brass to be about 0.020" shorter then I though it should be. Measuring 1.255" and the loading manuals call for a trim to length of 1.275. I called Hornady and they said their brass could have been cut back some for use with the LEVERevolution bullets. I then measured the 200gr and 240gr factory XTP C.O.L. and found it to be 1.575 and 1.580 respectively. The loading manuals call 1.6" in most cases. With the shorter case length I found seating the 240gr XTP's to 1.585 with heavy crimp as about the max and still get the crimp to seat at the lower edge of the cannelure.
I loaded 6 rounds each at 22.5, 23.0, 23.5, 24.0 and 24.5gr of H110. Carefully measured the head diameter of the brass at 0.455" of every reload and that of unfired factory rounds. Im no expert at this and wanted to proceed as carefully as I knew how to using extraction effort, primer condition and head diameter change as indications of overpressure.
At the range Saturday using the HILL-23/2 ALCO Bullseye Target at 50 yards where I had sighted in the Leopold 4x28 scope using 200gr factory XTP loads I started off with the 22.5gr reloads. I fired one shot, then checked the spent brass. It fell out of the cylinder and no change to the head dia. I fired 4 more then removed the 6th round to check for bullet pull, none. I repeated these steps for each load and measured the head on each spent round. What I found was, with each progressively hotter load the groups would shrink in vertical spread. About 1.5" for the 22.5 working down to 1" with the 24 and 24.5gr loads. I found the hotter loads tended to shoot a little higher probably do to muzzle lift.
What I found out was, at least with the Ruger SBH 24.5gr of H110 with a mag primer and a relatively deep seat works very very well. So, I decided to work up 5 more sets of loads last night starting off at 24gr followed by 24.5, 24.8 (max load according to the Hornady book), 25.0 and 25.2gr. Repeating the steps above I found the exact same results this morning. The stronger the load the tighter the groups, working down from 1.2" to 0.8" this time at 25 yards. The vertical spread was most noticeably affected and steadily decreased with the rise in charge. Even with the 25.2gr loads there were no indications I was pushing the cartridge though it was a stout round to fire (and a lot of fun).
I also found an article by John Taffen where he indicated his preference for 25gr of H110 with the 240gr XTP as well. http://www.sixguns.com/tests/tt44mag.htm
I think I will call it quits here and just have fun shooting the 25gr loads. Plenty of fun, very accurate and more then enough power. Soon I will be picking up a Chronograph to help validate and put a fps # on my loads.
Sitting here board at work waiting to go home so I thought I would share.
I have quite a bit of experience with .40 and 45acp with my Dillon XL650 and have loaded 454 Casull on it as well but I wanted a single stage press in hopes for more consistency. I went back and forth between RCBS, Redding and Hornady. Finally I decided on the Lock and Load classic. The twist lock bushing system is fantastic so far. While I was at it I went for the Hornady auto charge as well.
So I wanted to work up a nice stiff 240gr load for the Biesly using H110. After much reading and calling Hornady and Hodgdon I decided to use the Federal #155m Large Pistol Mag Match primer to insure a constant and repeatable ignition with H110. Knowing the mag primer could add to the peak pressures some I decided to start with 22.5gr of H110 (well under the 24.8gr max listed by Hornady and Hodgdon). While measuring my spent factory loaded brass from 200gr Hornady XTP's I found the brass to be about 0.020" shorter then I though it should be. Measuring 1.255" and the loading manuals call for a trim to length of 1.275. I called Hornady and they said their brass could have been cut back some for use with the LEVERevolution bullets. I then measured the 200gr and 240gr factory XTP C.O.L. and found it to be 1.575 and 1.580 respectively. The loading manuals call 1.6" in most cases. With the shorter case length I found seating the 240gr XTP's to 1.585 with heavy crimp as about the max and still get the crimp to seat at the lower edge of the cannelure.
I loaded 6 rounds each at 22.5, 23.0, 23.5, 24.0 and 24.5gr of H110. Carefully measured the head diameter of the brass at 0.455" of every reload and that of unfired factory rounds. Im no expert at this and wanted to proceed as carefully as I knew how to using extraction effort, primer condition and head diameter change as indications of overpressure.
At the range Saturday using the HILL-23/2 ALCO Bullseye Target at 50 yards where I had sighted in the Leopold 4x28 scope using 200gr factory XTP loads I started off with the 22.5gr reloads. I fired one shot, then checked the spent brass. It fell out of the cylinder and no change to the head dia. I fired 4 more then removed the 6th round to check for bullet pull, none. I repeated these steps for each load and measured the head on each spent round. What I found was, with each progressively hotter load the groups would shrink in vertical spread. About 1.5" for the 22.5 working down to 1" with the 24 and 24.5gr loads. I found the hotter loads tended to shoot a little higher probably do to muzzle lift.
What I found out was, at least with the Ruger SBH 24.5gr of H110 with a mag primer and a relatively deep seat works very very well. So, I decided to work up 5 more sets of loads last night starting off at 24gr followed by 24.5, 24.8 (max load according to the Hornady book), 25.0 and 25.2gr. Repeating the steps above I found the exact same results this morning. The stronger the load the tighter the groups, working down from 1.2" to 0.8" this time at 25 yards. The vertical spread was most noticeably affected and steadily decreased with the rise in charge. Even with the 25.2gr loads there were no indications I was pushing the cartridge though it was a stout round to fire (and a lot of fun).
I also found an article by John Taffen where he indicated his preference for 25gr of H110 with the 240gr XTP as well. http://www.sixguns.com/tests/tt44mag.htm
I think I will call it quits here and just have fun shooting the 25gr loads. Plenty of fun, very accurate and more then enough power. Soon I will be picking up a Chronograph to help validate and put a fps # on my loads.
Sitting here board at work waiting to go home so I thought I would share.
32 PM 
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