Rossi Rifleman

I broke out a batch of new Starline 44 mag brass and chamfered, de-burred, sized/flared and primed. Opened a new box of 240 gr HNDY XTP and pulled a can of AA#9. I reckon they're gonna get loaded real soon.


jd

Sounds like what I'm doing with some 450 Bushmaster cases. Got the bullet picked out 250 grain FTX, need to decide which powder, probably Lil'Gun. Gonna' have a lot of testing to do when the ranges reopen. I've already warned my shoulder.

Stay well, be safe, make smoke,

Our "old man park" isn't closed (yet), but my buddy that was planning to meet me at the range this afternoon called while I was loading the 44 mags. He said that half the range is shut down due to dirt work for re-building the berms and the other half is crawling with cabin-fever infected old men. Looks like I'll have to make an unplanned trip to the park sometime during work-day hours this week.

jd

proof

The golf course was PACKED today. I did nothing firearm related. Probably will on my paid day off tomorrow.

mr surveyor,
I see at least two problems...

Not enough rounds....

I need to dig a bunch of mine out and load them up.
I picked up another couple hundred Winchester 240gr SJHP bullets to load a couple weeks ago when I found them in stock.

Yep, 50 rounds at a time just isn't much, but I usually don't load anymore than a hundred or so at a sitting. Since I normally only shoot 40-50 rounds in a weekly range trip myself, and I do some type of reloading at least as often as the range trips, I keep up with my needs. It seems that I'm always into tinkering with my loads so I don't normally keep more than 100-150 of a particular load. The bottom feeders (45 auto and 9mm) aren't much of a concern so I do keep 400-500 rounds for each of them on hand, but for the most part the revolver caliber rounds and 30-30 are limited to a couple hundred rounds of each on hand. Playing with 4-5 boolit/bullet varieties and 4-5 different powders for each, I try not to get too many of one type loaded up in advance until it's on my favorite chart.

I'm good on brass, primers and powders for the next 6-8 weeks, but I've let myself get pretty low on bullets. Having started this nasty re-loading habit just as the obomination was beginning, I really got to live through what should have been a real learning lesson. I knew I should have stockpiled and had full intentions to, but other unforeseen boogers along the way stopped that.

I really need to order a few thousand cast bullets … do the commercial casters have anything left?


jd

I think, at the moment and for .44 Mag, that I have the following bullets on hand:
240 grain Winchester SJHP
240 grain Hornady XTP
240 grain Sierra JHP
300 grain Speer (probably reserved for .444 Marlin as it looks like these are discontinued and may be hard to get now)
240 grain Xtreme RNFP
265 grain Hornady FP (again may be reserved for .444 Marlin since it looks like Hornady has discontinued them in favor of their fuzzy FTX crap.)

Plus a few 240 grain LSWC that I intend to load on top of a reasonable amount of Unique and push them somewhere near .44 Sp levels.

(I will NOT be loading ANY FTX bullets in .44, .444, .45-70 (458) or .357 calibers. I expect I won't try them in .30-30 either.)

mr surveyor wrote:snip

I really need to order a few thousand cast bullets … do the commercial casters have anything left?


jd

Try Acme. I got an assortment of 300 from them last week. I've been pleased with their product.

Stay well, be safe, make smoke,

Mr. Surveyor, I concur on your load recipe using AA#9. I've used the Hornady 240gr. XTP successfully on an elk, but I cannot comment on its expanding performance, as it hit the spine at base of neck. My long time load for .44 mag revolvers has been 20.0 gr. of AA#9 using a mag primer for better ignition in cold temps.

I used to load H110, but when November temps are 12- 15 degrees at sun up, I could feel the drop in performance, even ignited with mag primers. I don't use H110 in my .44 hunting loads anymore. I have better performance with AA#9 or Alliant 2400.