I almost exclusively shoot 44 Special out of my two model 29 Smith and Wesson revolvers. I went through one box of magnum cartridges the last two years, occasionally shooting six at a time and letting a few friends try their hand at Dirty Harry's gun. I've decided to reload a couple boxes instead of buying factory ammo and will use the two powders I have to find a load I like. I have H110 and Accurate No. 9 on hand. I started with H110 and dropped the starting load of 20.7 gr. into the case. Holy Cow! I've never come close to putting that much powder in a case before. It gives me pause. Can you guys that regularly load 44 magnum cartridges reassure me that I'm not going to blow myself up!
I have one other question. I'm using 240 gr. Hornady XTP bullets and when I load them to the middle of the cannelure the COAL is 1.603 and the minimum COAL is listed as 1.610 at max load. I could back them out a little, but I don't know that I'd get to the minimum length anyway. I'm not going to max load, in fact, I'm only using the bottom three loads from the chart.
I have one other question. I'm using 240 gr. Hornady XTP bullets and when I load them to the middle of the cannelure the COAL is 1.603 and the minimum COAL is listed as 1.610 at max load. I could back them out a little, but I don't know that I'd get to the minimum length anyway. I'm not going to max load, in fact, I'm only using the bottom three loads from the chart.