44 magnum reloading

tactical870

tactical870

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I've only just picked up the dies and materials needed to load for my 44 magnum (S&W 29-5). I will be loading Alliant 2400 and DRG 240gr cast bullets and Hornady 240gr XTP JHP's. How much powder for each type of bullet? Thanks.
 
240 grain jacketed flat points i was loading with 21 grains of 2400 and they were pretty heavy loads. Id say with both bullets start at 18 or 19 grains and work your way up. The only factor may be leading from the lead cast bullets. I never had any real bad issues pushing lead with the heavy loads but that was with a buddies home cast that were sized prperly to my barrel. Bulk hard cast that are just a generic size can cause issues and u will have to experiment with both real light and heavy loads to see what results u will get.
 
The info is in your manual or similar....assuming u have one. If not get one before you start reloading....Not meaning to sound condecending, but 44mag is not a caliber to screw around with if u have not reloaded before.
dB
 
What does your reloading book tell you? It is a bit of a loaded question (pun intended) and I would be remiss to start you with load I used for silhouette shooting.
 
Some more words of caution here. "Working up a load," in a revolver is much different than working up a load in a bolt action rifle. The rifle shows all kinds of sign that loads are getting heavy, but nothing drastic will happen.
A revolver is different. You could load ten heavy loads and shoot nine of them, without any sign of dangerous, or even heavy loading. Then the tenth one could burst the cylinder.
Your Smith and Wesson revolver is just not as strongly built as are Ruger revolvers, so don't play around trying to "work up" a heavy load.
The top loads given in manuals for the 44 magnum are just that, heavy loads.
 
For the 44 cal 240 grn XTP, I use 23grns of H110 w/magmum primers. Out of a 6 inch barrel this produces an average of 1335 fps producing 950 ft lbs of energy. Note that with H110 you must use magmum primers such as CCI 350 or Federal 155.

This is a max load, so consult several reloading manuals, to confirm the load before giving it a try.
 
A quote--" Note that with H110 you must use magmum primers such as CCI 350 or Federal 155."

I often wonder where these kind of statements originate. It says you must use magnum primers, so then I wonder what will happen if you just use standard primers instead. Will they just go phizz, or pop, or what will happen?
Well, in this case I can tell you what will happen. The exact same thing will happen with a magnum primer as will happen with a standard primer in the case.
As I have mentioned on here before, over the years I have owned and shot five 44 magnum revolvers and two Marlin rifles. I have shot silhouette, where one Ruger was being fired 1,000 rounds a summer, all with my own bullet pouring and loading. I have used H110 more than any other powder and I always used standard primers.
Then I got Winchester 296 and they gave the same maximum loading as I had used for H110, 24 grains, with a 240 grain bullet. I think they said to use a magnum primer, so I got some. Then I chronographed some loadings. I found no difference, whatsoever, in any way, between whether I had used a magnum, or a standard primer. And that applies to any powder I have used.
Some will say you "need" a magnum primer in cold weather shooting. I just looked at my notes, and these tests were made during a January at an outdoor range!
It seems to be common knowledge that H110 is the same powder as W296. When I got W296 I noted they said to load exactly as shown, don't reduce the load. Again, it didn't say what would happen if I reduced the load, but it hinted at all sorts of dire going ons, if one reduced the load. I had a bit of a laugh at that, because I had already used H110 for a lot of years, in the 44 mag, as well as the 357, plus as reduced loads in centre fire rifles with cast bullets. I had many times reduced the loading, to find a good shooting, light load in the revolvers. I notice in my notes that in the 44 mag, 15 grains will leave some unburned powder, but even 15.5 seemed to burn OK. Some of my most accurate loadings were in the area of 17.5 grains.
 
tactical870 said:
The books I have list 44 magnum with 2400 and jacketed bullets at 18-19.5 gr. and 16-18 gr for a 240 gr lead bullet. So I suppose I ought to start there.
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That will certainly be a good, safe place to start with your reloading. For the cast bullets you may find that 16 grains is too light to burn completely. No danger from this, but it may not be very accurate. 18 grains will likely be good.
If you read about the history of developing the the 44 magnum, you will see that most of the shooting was done by Elmer Keith. He blew up a lot of 44 Special S&W revolvers in ariving at the gun design that Remington and Smith and Wesson came up with to handle the heavy loading.
A long story short. The charge they settled on and the charge given in all early reloading charts for the 44 mag, was 22 grains of 2400. That was with the old Hercules 2400 and was a mighty stiff load. Modern 2400 may not be the same burning rate. I still have Hercules 2400 and have used the original charge of 22 grains, but I DO NOT ADVISE USING THAT FULL LOAD.
My advice to you would be to load just what your book says is safe.
 
H4831 said:
A quote--" Note that with H110 you must use magmum primers such as CCI 350 or Federal 155."

I often wonder where these kind of statements originate. It says you must use magnum primers, so then I wonder what will happen if you just use standard primers instead. Will they just go phizz, or pop, or what will happen?
Well, in this case I can tell you what will happen. The exact same thing will happen with a magnum primer as will happen with a standard primer in the case.
As I have mentioned on here before, over the years I have owned and shot five 44 magnum revolvers and two Marlin rifles. I have shot silhouette, where one Ruger was being fired 1,000 rounds a summer, all with my own bullet pouring and loading. I have used H110 more than any other powder and I always used standard primers.
Then I got Winchester 296 and they gave the same maximum loading as I had used for H110, 24 grains, with a 240 grain bullet. I think they said to use a magnum primer, so I got some. Then I chronographed some loadings. I found no difference, whatsoever, in any way, between whether I had used a magnum, or a standard primer. And that applies to any powder I have used.
Some will say you "need" a magnum primer in cold weather shooting. I just looked at my notes, and these tests were made during a January at an outdoor range!
It seems to be common knowledge that H110 is the same powder as W296. When I got W296 I noted they said to load exactly as shown, don't reduce the load. Again, it didn't say what would happen if I reduced the load, but it hinted at all sorts of dire going ons, if one reduced the load. I had a bit of a laugh at that, because I had already used H110 for a lot of years, in the 44 mag, as well as the 357, plus as reduced loads in centre fire rifles with cast bullets. I had many times reduced the loading, to find a good shooting, light load in the revolvers. I notice in my notes that in the 44 mag, 15 grains will leave some unburned powder, but even 15.5 seemed to burn OK. Some of my most accurate loadings were in the area of 17.5 grains.
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+1 for everything Bruce said. I'll also add that I used magnum rifle primers (by mistake) in my 44 loads with no ill effects, or any noticable difference. I now use 10-13 grains of Unique in my 44 and nothing else. The only time I've ever had an ignition problem was when there was a problem with the powder dispenser on my Lee Pro 1000. The problem there was 2 out of 3 cycles, it wasn't throwing any powder. Got rid of the press due to numerous issues and I haven't had a single problem since.
 
tactical870 said:
I loaded a hundred last night at 17.5 grains of alliant 2400 behind a 240 gr cast SWC. I'll try them this week and see how they shoot. Thanks for the tips.
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That could be an excellent load for you, one you may want to stick with for some time. I'll give you some comparisons here.
In my Ruger Super Black Hawk, which had a good cylinder to forcing cone fit, 44 mag with 7½ inch barrel, I got the following.
My cast bullets of the day weighed 252 grains. With home made lead alloy mixtures the weights of the bullets vary, depending on the alloy mix. I disregarded any such weight changes and my bullets varried from about 245 to about 255.
22 grains of the old Hercules 2400 gave 1415 feet per second, with extreme spread (es) of 68.
20 grains of 2400 gave 1312, with es of 41.
17.5 grains of 2400 gave 1120 fps, with es of 45.
As I have said, that is a nice load, certainly well down in recoil from the 1415 of the full charge, and in my gun, good accuracy.
 
2400 is a nice, forgiving powder. You can load less of it, or more of it, and get more oe less pressure.

296/H110 is a bit fussy and funny things can happen if there is too much or not enough.

2400 will go from medium to quite hot, so should meet all your needs. And it meters well.

Unique is very flexible in the mid-range but will not meter at all in some powder throwers.
 
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I had really good results with 17.5gr of 2400 and a 240gr DRG cast SWC. As a result I just loaded up 50 rounds of Hornady 240gr XTP's in front of the same 17.5 grains. I'll see how this works next trip to the range...
 
I will just add some additional comments to what the others have said about standard primers vs magnum primers.

I did find once that the difference in speed of the bullet was 40fps faster with the magnum primers vs the normal ones when I used H110. Funny thing was I can not duplicate the results again, I have tried 3 times and they are about the same, not sure why years ago that one time it made a difference. Might have been old powder but the time of the year was the same so temp. wasn't a factor in this case.

For a nice mild load try 8 grn of Unique with a 240 or 250 swc bullet. No matter which one of my 6 44 mag revolvers I shoot this in it is extremely accurate.
 
hunter64 said:
I will just add some additional comments to what the others have said about standard primers vs magnum primers.

I did find once that the difference in speed of the bullet was 40fps faster with the magnum primers vs the normal ones when I used H110. Funny thing was I can not duplicate the results again, I have tried 3 times and they are about the same, not sure why years ago that one time it made a difference. Might have been old powder but the time of the year was the same so temp. wasn't a factor in this case.

For a nice mild load try 8 grn of Unique with a 240 or 250 swc bullet. No matter which one of my 6 44 mag revolvers I shoot this in it is extremely accurate.
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I use standard primers for all my .44 loads, on the recommendation of H4831 and have never had a problem from light loads up to full power H110 loads in all kinds of weather from summer to deepest winter.

I use 8.0gr of WW231 with a 245gr Keith SWC for my light loads and get fantastic accuracy out of my Redhawk. My heavy loads are 24.0 of H110 under the same 245gr SWC bullet.

Mark
 
tactical870 said:
Loaded up another 300 rounds of 44 this am followed by some 357 with 4.9gr of 700X.
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FWIW, H4831 and I mucked around with 700x earlier this year (or was it late last year...?) trying to find a mild load for the 44 with cast 240's. I can't remember when Bruce got one stuck in his barrel, IIRC it was just under 2 grains. I got down to 2.5 grains without sticking one in my 629, but the powder was not burning well at all. I found 4.5 grains to be good; low leading with the crap bullets I had (sized .429), and powder burned fairly consistent.

On the top end, I have loaded 240 XTPs with 11.0 grains of 700x and they are pretty snappy; around 1100 fps.

Interestingly, 22 grains of H110 behind the 240 cast actually resulted in very little leading compared to 9.0-11.0 grains of 700x.

Have fun with it.
 
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