Choosing .44 cal bullets: actual bullet diameter.
- Thread starter Pond James Pond
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Pond James Pond
New member
I just keep loving this revolver more and more!
Thanks for the reassurances.
And thanks to all for the responses.
I've now learnt how to measure my revolver's various bores and match bullets to it.
Mehevy's first post offers excellent advice. My experience with a half dozen Smith's and Rugers is that any LSWC less than .430" will tend to lead the bore and be less than accurate. I cast and size my own for both rifle and hand gun and usually size them to 0.432" with no adverse pressure indications; but that's because the same completed cartridges are used in a couple of Marlin .44 Magnums with 0.432" groove diameters.
I cast with a wheel weight alloy sweetened with 1-2% tin to give good mold fill out. I've had no problem with leading up to 1200 fps with bullets sized to fit the throats of the guns involved. Too, even at 0.432" with throats at 0.430", I've had no pressure issues. Then too, I do not push the upper limits of any cartridge. My working load in .44 Special is the Skelton favorite: 7.5 gr of Unique with any good LSWC for 950 fps from a 4-5/8" bbl'd Ruger Flat Top Special. In .44 Magnum, I like 8-8.5 gr of Unique with the same bullet for a 1000 fps load. These are my loads, safe in m guns, chk a good manual before using them.
If you can get 0.430" dia. LSWCs I'd say you'd be well on your way to accurate loads. The 0.427" dia. bullets are generally for .44-40 guns which historically used that smaller dia.
If forced to use that dia., try swirl lubing them in Lee Liquid Alox, thinned 30% with paint thinner and warmed so that it's of water consistency. It's cured some problem guns of mine over the years.
Best Regards, Rod
I cast with a wheel weight alloy sweetened with 1-2% tin to give good mold fill out. I've had no problem with leading up to 1200 fps with bullets sized to fit the throats of the guns involved. Too, even at 0.432" with throats at 0.430", I've had no pressure issues. Then too, I do not push the upper limits of any cartridge. My working load in .44 Special is the Skelton favorite: 7.5 gr of Unique with any good LSWC for 950 fps from a 4-5/8" bbl'd Ruger Flat Top Special. In .44 Magnum, I like 8-8.5 gr of Unique with the same bullet for a 1000 fps load. These are my loads, safe in m guns, chk a good manual before using them.
If you can get 0.430" dia. LSWCs I'd say you'd be well on your way to accurate loads. The 0.427" dia. bullets are generally for .44-40 guns which historically used that smaller dia.
If forced to use that dia., try swirl lubing them in Lee Liquid Alox, thinned 30% with paint thinner and warmed so that it's of water consistency. It's cured some problem guns of mine over the years.
Best Regards, Rod
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James,
A couple of points: Slugging has to be done with nearly pure lead or with lead that has only the smallest amount of antimony, like standard velocity .22 rimfire bullet lead. Everything else is elastic to some degree, your polymer bullet coatings in particular. Even Cast alloy bullets will be too springy. Only nearly pure lead will give you a precise reading. Only nearly pure lead will let you feel if you have any bore constrictions during the slugging, as anything springy, like a harder cast bullet alloy just springs out after passing constrictions and is just hard to push all the way down the bore. If you need to keep tapping on a slug, it is too springy for a good measurement.
See if you can buy some pure lead balls for muzzle loaders. Get them slightly oversize and roll them between a couple of plates until they are only a few thousandths oversize, then wipe them with an oily patch. Push the oily patch through the bore, too, then slug. Once you have tapped a proper hardness slug in at the muzzle, you should be able to push it through by hand with a wood dowel. Do this slowly so you can feel the bore surface for tight spots. If you have any, they may need to lapped out before you can shoot cast bullets without leading.
Second, get a tool that can measure slugs precisely enough to make good comparisons. What you actually want to use is an OD thimble micrometer with a Vernier scale that will let you see tenths of a thousandth of an inch. You will get more accurate slug readings with that. Even the inexpensive Chinese made ones are adequate for bullet measuring. Once you have one, slug the cylinder, too. Calipers are famously less precise measuring small hole ID's than measuring OD's due to the small flats on the ID jaws.
A couple of points: Slugging has to be done with nearly pure lead or with lead that has only the smallest amount of antimony, like standard velocity .22 rimfire bullet lead. Everything else is elastic to some degree, your polymer bullet coatings in particular. Even Cast alloy bullets will be too springy. Only nearly pure lead will give you a precise reading. Only nearly pure lead will let you feel if you have any bore constrictions during the slugging, as anything springy, like a harder cast bullet alloy just springs out after passing constrictions and is just hard to push all the way down the bore. If you need to keep tapping on a slug, it is too springy for a good measurement.
See if you can buy some pure lead balls for muzzle loaders. Get them slightly oversize and roll them between a couple of plates until they are only a few thousandths oversize, then wipe them with an oily patch. Push the oily patch through the bore, too, then slug. Once you have tapped a proper hardness slug in at the muzzle, you should be able to push it through by hand with a wood dowel. Do this slowly so you can feel the bore surface for tight spots. If you have any, they may need to lapped out before you can shoot cast bullets without leading.
Second, get a tool that can measure slugs precisely enough to make good comparisons. What you actually want to use is an OD thimble micrometer with a Vernier scale that will let you see tenths of a thousandth of an inch. You will get more accurate slug readings with that. Even the inexpensive Chinese made ones are adequate for bullet measuring. Once you have one, slug the cylinder, too. Calipers are famously less precise measuring small hole ID's than measuring OD's due to the small flats on the ID jaws.
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Pond James Pond
New member
Thanks for the advice. I could get some .454 muzzleloader balls from someone who has a 1858 Rem replica: sounds like that would do.
The Thimble caliper sounds like a good idea too. It would open up my options through greater precision, not to mention a wife-proof reason to buy some more tools!!
As things stand I have the digital verniers: second down in that photo.
The Thimble caliper sounds like a good idea too. It would open up my options through greater precision, not to mention a wife-proof reason to buy some more tools!!
As things stand I have the digital verniers: second down in that photo.
Pond James Pond
New member
Honestly, .454 is the best I can do locally. BP shooting is virtually non existant and getting a .433" would mean ordering a full 100 roundballs from Germany.
I want to slug my barrel properly but not for €35 inc postage!!
I want to slug my barrel properly but not for €35 inc postage!!
Jim Watson
New member
OK, roll a .454" between two boards to prolate it down to just over throat or groove diameter so that you don't have to hammer on your gun so hard.
Pond James Pond
New member
They've arrived.
The packaging looks ancient so I guess this must be old stock: lucky that bullets don't have a sell-by date.
The lube in the crimp groove has been jostled around a bit but otherwise they look fine. Just need a load now and decide if I load them as Mags or Spls.
Pond James Pond
New member
I have slugged one chamber throat which came in at between 0.4315 and 0.432" (the caliper's reading was wavering between the two but seemed to settle on 0.4315"), and the bore is .429" exactly as measured using a lead round-ball that I rolled down from .454" to .433".
black mamba
New member
Regardless of bore diameter, with your throats at .4315 - .4320, then for cast bullets the best diameter would be .4310". You ideally want them just barely under throat diameter. There is really no pressure concern with cast bullets .002" oversized for your bore.
There's no pressure concern with any cast bullet size you can squeeze into your case and still fit the result into your chamber. But for accuracy, 0.310 is the right idea. If you are allowed to case your own bullets there, you will find Lee Tumble Lube 240 grain SWC bullets come out of the mold at about that size and can be fired as-cast (meaning without sizing). This will minimize leading and maximize accuracy anyway, IME.
Pond James Pond
New member
OK, so I jumped 1500 lead SWC bullets because they were a very good price. I got them all for a little over what a b500 box of my regular plated TC bullets would cost, so in that respect I did OK...
The down side is that I did jump before looking and it now seems these bullets are not the best fit for my gun. They might be OK, they might not, as the are exactly the bore width of my gun and not the <bore+0.001/0.002"> that people are recommending.
So my question now is: where from here?
Do I buy a load of casting bits and bobs and smelt them before reincarnating them as .430-.431" 240gn SWCs?
Or, is there some way I can swage/size them to .430-.431 without breaking the bank? (read at a lot less than a basic casting set-up)
The down side is that I did jump before looking and it now seems these bullets are not the best fit for my gun. They might be OK, they might not, as the are exactly the bore width of my gun and not the <bore+0.001/0.002"> that people are recommending.
So my question now is: where from here?
Do I buy a load of casting bits and bobs and smelt them before reincarnating them as .430-.431" 240gn SWCs?
Or, is there some way I can swage/size them to .430-.431 without breaking the bank? (read at a lot less than a basic casting set-up)
black mamba
New member
Before you do anything, shoot 'em and see it they're accurate! Hopefully they're soft enough to obturate and seal the throats against powder gasses slipping around them and ruining accuracy. If they're not very accurate, try seating them out as close to the end of the cylinder as possible and load them a little hotter.