First shots BB Brass 44

[220]

With son not able to get home due to covid restrictions here in Aus and today being fathers day down under fired the first shots from his Big Boy Brass 44 mag that has been sitting in the safe for 6 months.

Started load development with some cast, 210gr Lee flat point to be used as a plinking load and maybe some lever action silhouette.
In a bid to keep this load as simple as possible bullets were unsized and lubed with LLA. Tried 2 powders, Trail Boss and one of the older Aussie made pistol powders AP-50 with a standard LP primer. Only tested these at 25y today but seems there is a sweet spot around 1020fps with both powders putting 5 shots well under 1/2" on centers.

The other bullet tried was the lee 310gr WFP with gas checks, these will be a hunting load so chasing around 1500fps if we can get it. Another Aussie powder used (Ar2205) with LP magnum primers. Tested these at 50y and it wasnt looking good until the last load tried (20gr) that went a touch over 2" and 1429fps. ADI data lists 21gr as max with a 325gr cast GC so have a little room left to get our target velocity and hopefully accuracy continues to improve.


While I was set up checked zero on my BBS 327FM at 100y, happy with the group just a fraction over 2"

Didnt put any on paper but tried some of my 90gr Lee SWC at 50m on steel, like the 210gr in 44 these are unsized and LLA lubed. Velocity is around 1050fps, aiming point was the crater just to the left of where the group was. The sight adjustments for the 100y 327FM group should have these just a fraction low at 50y.

[JEBar]

good to see but not surprised in the least that your Henry 44 is a real shooter .... looking forward to following your load development

[BigAl52]

Nice shooting 220. There is some great groups up there with the lee 210

[Rifletom]

Yep, the 210 load looks like a keeper. Good shooting 220!

[220]

Interesting the best trailboss load averaged 1020fps the best AP50 load 1017fps.
Will load up another 20 of both and test them at 50 and 100.

[220]

Son loaded another 20 of each of the 210gr load that showed promise yesterday along with 10 more of the best 310gr load and a couple more with 0.5gr increase in powder charge.
With a bit of luck we will test them today.

[JEBar]

hope you are able to get back out there .... looking forward to your next report

[220]

We managed to test most of these again yesterday at 50 & 100m all 5 shot groups
Interesting that nearly all the groups were more than doubled in size by one shot
At 50m
Federal AE 240gr factory 2.8moa 1735fps
310gr Lee 20gr Ar2205 3.6moa 1452fps
velocity with the 20,5gr and 21gr loads was good at 1475 & 1519fps but both shot over 6moa
210gr Lee 6.0gr AP50 5.4moa 1062fps
210gr Lee 6.9gr TB 3.6moa 1057fps

At 100m
Federal AE 240gr factory 3.4moa
310gr Lee 20gr Ar2205 5.0moa
210gr Lee 6.0gr AP50 4.6moa
210gr Lee 6.9gr TB 2.4moa

Really need to sort what is responsible for the one flyer in just about every group. Shooter/projectile/rifle? could be any or all contributing
Happy with the trailboss load more than enough accuracy for plinking, small game and silhouette so looks like we have that load sorted.
Need to a bit more work with the 310gr Lee 5moa, is bigger than we are aiming for but 100m is getting towards the maximum range for a 44 on medium game and even 5moa would see every shot in the vitals and isnt significantly worse than the only factory load we have tested.

Interesting that despite ADI powders being temp stable we had a fairly consistent 30fps gain over the previous tests with all 3 powders. Could be atmospheric conditions as well as temp as I dont record them.

[JEBar]

did you happen to keep track of which round in each of the 5 shots taken was the flyer .. .. were you firing at a pace that heated the barrel .. .. I know that for me its pretty easy to have a flyer when shooting at longer ranges

[220]

No consistency in which shot it was JEBar, sometimes it was the first others one of the middle shots or last.
Son was doing the shooting and he is very good at calling his shots, have seen him call shots at 600y telling me exactly where he has put them only to look through the spotting scope and find he was right but the shot he is calling as poor is less than 2" from the group but exactly the direction he has called.
LA do tend to be a bit harder to shoot off a bench but he was quite meticulous in trying to ensure his hold was consistent shot to shot.
We will keep experimenting and see if we can find the cause, even at 50m the flyers were evident but dont look nearly as bad as they do at double the distance.