The .44 Special/.44 Magnum as a target round

The most accurate one I had so far was 7.5 grains of Unique under a Matt's Bullets 185 grain wadcutter. Oops, WLR Winchester primer. The 6.5 and 7 grain loads were not as good. Starline 44 Special Brass.

Years ago lyman came out with a lite weight type 3 swc for the 44spl/mag, it was a 180gr wc (429348). I prefer the cramer 200gr version better. Cramer came out with a nose pour 200gr verson of the lyman's type 3 wc. 6.0gr of clays in 44mag cases with that cramer 200gr wc.


4.5gr of clays with that same bullet in 44spl cases are extremely accurate also.

Lyman did have a heavier type 3 wc, the 429352 245gr wc. It's a little heavy recoil wise for nra bullseye but it's a lot of fun to shoot & is a real thumper for bowling pins.


I've had a bunch of different 44cal wc molds over the years, double end wc's (type 1), button nosed wc's (type 2), tapered nosed wc's (type 3). I also swaged different wc designs/weights looking for that "magic bullet". After thinning the herd I still have these 5 bullet molds that I cast wc's for the 44cals with.

The 162gr button nosed wc's are from a 6-cavity lee mold. I hardly use it anymore & should sell it to someone that will use it.

Those 175gr wc's are from a custom 6-cavity mold. They can be seated flush or crimped in either of the offset crimp grooves. Doing this gives the reloader more/less case volume with the same load, testing for accuracy. Those crimp grooves are spaced so that if you load the bullet with with the small end up/sticking out of the case in 44spl cases or long end up/sticking out of the 44mag cases. You can use the same load, will have the same case volume.

That 220gr wc pictured above is actually a 220gr hbwc cast from a custom mold. I shot a lot of those in a 6 1/2" bbl'd 624 & they shot bughole @ 50ft/25yds. They fell apart @ the 50yd line, the 1 in 20 twist bbl didn't like that long bodied bullet.

Myself, I would recommend a type 3 wc in the +/- 200gr range.

Decades ago I used the Lee 200 grain full wadcutter bullet in 44 Magnum cases. I do not recall the charge weight but I was only using Bullseye for target loads. From my 29-2 the accuracy was almost as good as my PPC revolver built by Davis.

Kevin

Walkalong said:

forrest r, is that an old frosting container? Looks similar to the one I have these Lee 208 Gr WCs in. Very accurate from my .44 Spl. They liked being put through the lubrisizer a little better than being tumbled with liquid Alox.

Lee 208 Gr WC Really good stuff.
View attachment 839568

Click to expand...

Nice!!!!
I keep those bullets in that container because their a real "treat" to shoot.

5 gr of bullseye with a 200-250 gr bullet is probably pretty standard

the Black Spot said:

5 gr of bullseye with a 200-250 gr bullet is probably pretty standard

Click to expand...

I'll have to try that.

I'm a huge bullseye fan & I pretty much test it with every bullet/cartridge combo I make. For some reason clays has always out performed bullseye in the 44mag cases with plinking/target loads. Any 200-250gr bullet with 6.0gr to 6.5gr of clays in the 44mag cases produces +/- 1 1/2" 6-shot groups @ 25yds.
The 200gr wc group I posted earlier in post #3 was shot with a beater 629 truck gun that was scoped and a rest was used @ 25yds. By truck gun I mean I bought that 629 used at a gunshow, didn't need it but it was being sold cheap, real cheap ($400/$500???). So I bought it and thru it in the toolbox of my truck & it rode around in there for a couple of years, I'd forgot about it. Was cleaning out the toolbox and found it in there so I started using it for general range play/plinking. Decided to do some head to head testing with traditional cast/sized/lubed bullets vs pc'd bullets with that 629 back in 2014. Interesting results, that target in post #3 was 1 of those targets as are the targets posted below.
This is the 1st target/test load it tried in that beater 629. Had to adjust the scope, was aiming at the left target and shot 3 shots (way right). Moved the crosshairs and shot 3 more (still right). Moved the crosshair to the left again and got down to business and shot that 6-shot group.


I never like to hit the aiming point when testing loads. The Mihec 245gr 503 clone (keith swc) shot extremely well with that 6.0gr of clays load.

These 200g sp's liked 6.5gr of clays better


Same with these 200gr hp's/220gr swc mix cast from a 2-cavity mold (1 cavity hp/1 cavity solid nose) the h&g #142.


Anyway, clays is worth taking a look at after you get done with your bullseye loads.

On a side note:
If you look at the groups I posted in post #3 and post #10 you'll keep seeing 4 & 5 shots in and 1 or 2 shots out of the group. Most reloaders would think that this is caused by the difference in bullets, reloading errors, operator error, a bad hole in the revolvers cylinders, etc. The tell tale is it's happening with all the targets. Time to take a hard look at the revolver and a harder look at the brass.

Several years ago I bought a nib 686 357. 1 of the things I wanted it for is a game we play. Instead of bowling pins & 25ft we use 12ga shotgun shells @ 50ft. Same rules just 12ga shotgun shells instead of bowling pins. And 50ft instead of 25ft. So I worked up loads for the 12ga/50ft game using 38spl cases. It didn't take long to find a couple loads for that game. The actual test targets used to test loads/not hand cherry picked by any means. 6-shot groups @ 50ft


After finding a couple 38spl loads I started testing 357mag loads. Was using a 110gr wc and several different powders looking for a general plinking load to start with. Didn't matter what powder I tried, kept getting 4 or 5 shots in & 1 or 2 shots out of the group.


Look familiar????
My 44mag loads are doing the same thing.
I took a hard look at my 357 brass and realized I was the problem. Being cheap & never tossing plinking brass until it splits, there was once fired brass mixed in with brass that looked like the puppy played with it for a week. I culled/tossed 90%+ of those 357mag brass and bought 2000 new from starline.

No more fliers/back to shooting bugholes.

Did the same thing with my 44mag brass and the fliers went away.

Just something to think about when your looking for accuracy.

I do a lot of shooting with my .44 Magnum, mostly full power loads with H110.

But last year I started shooting a milder, plinking load. I use a Rainier 240gr plated bullet and 10.0gr of Unique. Nice, comfortable load.