Quote from: Little Dalton on December 18, 2024, 01:00:02 PMDid you check out Bryan Austin's website that I referred you to before? It's really the best resource for reloading information and data. Most modern writers and testers are basically useless when it comes to this caliber. Here's the website again:

https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/ballistics-handloading

I did, it was interesting, though I'm curious what 3F would do vs 2F.

My understanding is that they loaded with 2F in the 19th century, however "2F" in the 19th century was closer to 3F today.  Also all I have is 3F and 4F.

He mentioned though using a neck expander die for compressing the charges though, but how do you do that?

Little Dalton,
I did read all of John Korts internet info and also had some discussion with him, here on the forums.  But, I do not agree with the excessive compression idea to get more powder and higher velocities.
To me loading BP in a casing and compressing -- is an approach to create a 'nice solid' column of lets say 2F grain size of powder.  But when you take a casing with excess powder and extreme (more than 1/8" to me) compression, then you are not just compacting you starting to crush, grind, pulverized the granules from the 2F size to a 3F or 4F grain sizing.  That change in grain size is what is increasing the velocities along with just some extra powder.

This is just how I envision what is happening in the casing to make room for the bullet seating.

As a 'beginning' BP loader, I would rather see '9245' start off with the basics of loading blackpowder rather than jumping right to John Korts level of 'extreme' experimentation.

As far as Mike's books, I think he gave us 'New Cowboy Shooter'(like 9245) some very good reloading information for the older designed firearms, back when most people, where just trying to get in the New Sport.  He covered both general smokeless and general blackpowder loading for whatever you would like using.

With Copyrights of 1995, 1997 and 2010, I can't say just how many of the 'New' powders like Swiss, Wano & others existed back when he wrote them.  I myself only used Pyrodex, before all the newer subs came out in the 2000's, and still did up to 2008.  So, I do not know how to address your comment, He only used GOEX.

But, I will leave it at that thought.

Little Dalton,

You are welcome.  I hope you can see that project to completion.  That bullet in a crimped groove design would be nice to see.  Awhile back I bought an Accurate 43-215-C thinking it would be OK for the 44-40 smokeless because it had a crimp groove.  Well that mold dropped a 224 grain bullet with my pure lead.  That would not work for me even though John Kort designed it for longer ranges.  But, last week I was lucky to win a NEI 427-200 aluminum 4 cavity mold, my first big production mold.  It will be a Christmas present, so I cannot cast some to see what the final weight will be with my lead.  But it does have what appears to be a small crimp groove and one grease groove and is slightly longer than the original, we will see.  What I found was this mold was first produced in 2002.  This mold looks unused.  Amazed!

I don't say this lightly, but I trust Savvy Jack's data using this powder more than any manual.

Quote from: Black River Smith on December 18, 2024, 02:16:02 PMThe value I get is 0.591".  This is an average of 5 bullets measured on the flat portion of the nose and the best portion of flat base.  Negating the seam where lead is slightly higher and any flowing of lead from sprue cutting.

The value I get is 0.3088".  This is an average of 5 bullets measured from the base flat(as stated above) to the best I can do seeing(using magnifier headset) the top edge of the forward band.

I used a dial caliper with the sharp edge of the arms/claws.  I did not save each individual measurement for a range level, sorry about that.

This is coming from bullets molded out of a Perfect condition mold (I got luck with the condition of this 44 WCF mold) and using 'my' purest lead.  Other alloys or purity may change these values slightly.

BRS, you are THE MAN! Thank you! I'm going to talk to Tom at Accurate as soon as the budget allows, and work on modifying the the 43-210B to bring it down to closer to 200 grains in pure lead. These measurements are exactly what I need. Thank you!

Quote from: Black River Smith on December 18, 2024, 03:26:31 PMFirst never have any air space with BP(except for one type of modern BP sub. I do not know its name).  Second your idea of filling all the way up to top of case and then compress is too much compression.  The general approach is 1/16" to 1/8" compression, only.  How you measure it is something you need to figure out with your bullet and powder measuring method.  Think of a way to drop your bullet in the casing with a powder level in it to have the bullet 1/16 to 1/8 distance to your desire crimp marker, making adjustments up or down in powder level.  Then measure that volume out and consistently throw that amount into each casing and seat your bullet, by what ever method you like.  Make your own powder scoop out of a casing.  It is not hard or any level of technical science.
PS Something else to know -- Tapping a casing with a level of BP in it, will settle the powder, thereby decreasing the powder volume. allowing the addition of more powder.  This will sometime allow the addition of 2 more grains.  But the settling technique must be somewhat consistent and the final throw volume determined before hand.

I used back in '91 and still today 7.9 to 8.0 grains of Unique with the 200 grain 44/40 bullets.  Also a very respected cowboy gun writer by the name of Mike Venturino, who wrote several book on the old west guns and reloading for CAS, published the 8.0 grains of Unique behind a 200 grain bullet in his "Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West" and then 8.0 grains of Unique behind a 200 grain bullet in his "Shooting Colt Single Actions".  You have to choose what is right and good for you.  To me this is the factory equivalent and the maximum for 44/40 safe load.  This is for modern guns like yours but probably or definitely not in old original blackpowder firearms. 

You need to continue looking on the internet and book already published and read - read.  There is a lot of good information and also books about the Cowboy Guns out there.  I still look through the many books I have for loads on different caliber.

That rule of thumb for compression may result in generally the most accurate loads in a lot of calibers, but there is nothing wrong or dangerous about more compression- and as John Kort's research showed, dissected original Winchester .44WCF cartridges showed charges that were compressed well over 1/4". As long as you don't bulge the thin case, you can compress as much as you like. Though loading for highest velocity and loading for greatest accuracy admittedly may not result in the same load.

Venturino's book "Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West" is great, but it should be taken with a grain of salt- first off, all his blackpowder testing was done with Goex, which is demonstrably dirtier and weaker than the powders used commercially in the late 1800s by Winchester and others. Therefore, he doesn't get near as close to the original black powder loadings of any of the pre-1900 cartridges as one could with Swiss powder. He also states that 33-34 grains of powder is "about all that can be drop-tubed into modern .44-40 cases" which just isn't true. John Kort loaded more, and my standard load (thrown from a mechanical measure but not drop tubed) is 37.5grs of Swiss 3F in Starline cases. I have found this to be the max that I can compress enough for the Accurate 43-215C to seat without the compression bulging the case occasionally. He does talk about the common issue of large bores and small chambers in .44-40 guns both old and new, but nowhere does he mention the crucial fact that Winchester originally loaded the .44WCF with pure lead bullets- which have been proven to be able to "bump up" significantly from smaller diameters to fit bigger bores, greatly improving accuracy in many instances. Again, John Kort covered so much of this, doing much more in depth research on this cartridge than was in Venturino's book, and if they didn't get to talk about it in this life, I'll be willing to bet Big Mike would have been tickled pink over "Jack Christian"'s further research, as this cartridge was one of Mike's favorites.

Quote from: 9245 on December 18, 2024, 11:12:35 AMOK I finally got my manuals, and my dies, so now I have data from Lee, Lyman, and Hornady.

As far as black powder loads I found the lyman black powder manual to not be of much use, all I got out of it was basically to use a full case load, which I already knew, their actual data was pathetic, apparently whoever did it was terrified of compression as they consider a 30 grain load with room left at the top to be a full case load, their velocity numbers were nowhere near the period loadings and they had no data at all for Swiss.  So I think I will just do Swiss 3F up to the case mouth and compress it until I can make the bullet fit (Lyman 427098).

First never have any air space with BP(except for one type of modern BP sub. I do not know its name).  Second your idea of filling all the way up to top of case and then compress is too much compression.  The general approach is 1/16" to 1/8" compression, only.  How you measure it is something you need to figure out with your bullet and powder measuring method.  Think of a way to drop your bullet in the casing with a powder level in it to have the bullet 1/16 to 1/8 distance to your desire crimp marker, making adjustments up or down in powder level.  Then measure that volume out and consistently throw that amount into each casing and seat your bullet, by what ever method you like.  Make your own powder scoop out of a casing.  It is not hard or any level of technical science.
PS Something else to know -- Tapping a casing with a level of BP in it, will settle the powder, thereby decreasing the powder volume. allowing the addition of more powder.  This will sometime allow the addition of 2 more grains.  But the settling technique must be somewhat consistent and the final throw volume determined before hand.

Quote from: 9245 on December 18, 2024, 11:12:35 AMOK I finally got my manuals, and my dies, so now I have data from Lee, Lyman, and Hornady.
As for smokeless loads, there was some actual interesting data.  The only powder that was in common across all sources though was Unique, which I came up with 6.3-7.9 as the correct charge weight (Those are the Lyman numbers, the Lee data did not specify if it was for revolvers or rifles (7.6-8.6) and the Hornady numbers were just plain weak sauce popgun loads 5.1-5.9 for rifles and 5.7-6.5 for revolvers).  According to the Lyman numbers that would give 853-1044 fps out of a 6 inch barrel and 895-1127 fps out of a  19 inch barrel.

I used back in '91 and still today 7.9 to 8.0 grains of Unique with the 200 grain 44/40 bullets.  Also a very respected cowboy gun writer by the name of Mike Venturino, who wrote several book on the old west guns and reloading for CAS, published the 8.0 grains of Unique behind a 200 grain bullet in his "Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West" and then 8.0 grains of Unique behind a 200 grain bullet in his "Shooting Colt Single Actions".  You have to choose what is right and good for you.  To me this is the factory equivalent and the maximum for 44/40 safe load.  This is for modern guns like yours but probably or definitely not in old original blackpowder firearms. 

You need to continue looking on the internet and book already published and read - read.  There is a lot of good information and also books about the Cowboy Guns out there.  I still look through the many books I have for loads on different caliber.

Quote from: Little Dalton on December 18, 2024, 01:00:02 PMDid you check out Bryan Austin's website that I referred you to before? It's really the best resource for reloading information and data. Most modern writers and testers are basically useless when it comes to this caliber. Here's the website again:

https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/ballistics-handloading

This is very good advice. Set aside a significant amount of time to spend on that website and you'll be rewarded.

Griff

Quote from: Little Dalton on December 18, 2024, 01:09:54 PMWould one of you gentlemen with an original mold be willing to share some measurements with me? I specifically need the overall length of the bullet

The value I get is 0.591".  This is an average of 5 bullets measured on the flat portion of the nose and the best portion of flat base.  Negating the seam where lead is slightly higher and any flowing of lead from sprue cutting.

Quote from: Little Dalton on December 18, 2024, 01:09:54 PMWould one of you gentlemen with an original mold be willing to share some measurements with me? I specifically need the length from the very bottom of the bullet to the top edge of the forward driving band (the lip that the case gets crimped over).

The value I get is 0.3088".  This is an average of 5 bullets measured from the base flat(as stated above) to the best I can do seeing(using magnifier headset) the top edge of the forward band.

I used a dial caliper with the sharp edge of the arms/claws.  I did not save each individual measurement for a range level, sorry about that.

This is coming from bullets molded out of a Perfect condition mold (I got luck with the condition of this 44 WCF mold) and using 'my' purest lead.  Other alloys or purity may change these values slightly.

Would one of you gentlemen with an original mold be willing to share some measurements with me? I specifically need the overall length of the bullet, and the length from the very bottom of the bullet to the top edge of the forward driving band (the lip that the case gets crimped over). Thanks in advance!