Historically correct .44-40 mold?

[Little Dalton]

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.

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!

[Black River Smith]

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!

[MikeM.]

I got my 427098 on E Bay. Pretty common on there..

[Bryan Austin]

The 427098 is a latter copy of the Winchester cast mold bullet, however, it is not a replica of the factory swaged bullet. Some of this information can be found here https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/ballistics-handloading/handloading-components/bullet-profiles-and-chamber-issues

The very first hand cast mold offered by Winchester had no lube grooves at all. https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/ballistics-handloading/handloading-components/bullet-molds/winchester-bullet-molds

I have an original Bridgeport mold that closely replicated the original bullet https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester/ballistics-handloading/handloading-components/bullet-molds/bridgeport-bullet-molds many photos of the bullets can be seen there.

The lyman 42798 and 427098 closely replicate, but not exact.

John Kort replicated the 427098 with the 43-215C, and added a crimp groove. I cam up with the 43-214A, no crimp groove, and a smooth o'give transition...also can be seen at the link provided.

The specific design, or custom design really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.