444Marlin
- Thread starter CzyHorse
- Start date
TargetAcquired
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- S. Ontario
I love reloading and shooting my 444, have never used a viht powder. Results usually sparkling with 4198 and some lighter ones with Unique. Picked up some rl7 to try as well.
I got a 1kg jug of N130 from Tesro. To conserve my supply of 'discontinued' Hornady 265gn bullets, I set up a load ladder with 20 rounds, 3 rounds/load, +2 to get on paper, from 50.0gn to 52.5gn, 0.5gn increments.
- Load #9 @ 52.0gn, chronoed 1st @ 2373fps, 2nd @ 2114fps, 3rd @ error, almost a clover leaf @ 50yds.
- Load #10 @ 52.5gn. I had loaded up 3 rounds and shot the first one, cycled the rifle into a big jam. Looking thru the ejection port I could see the bullet had jumped the crimp. Rifle required a full disassembly to get the last 2 rounds out of rifle. Both of these rounds jumped the crimp. Max COL is ~2.570, my COL was 2.560, not much to play with. I reseated bullets and single loaded them, rocks the 10" gong pretty good @ ~130yds
After the fact, I found Lee's Modern Reloader shows the same load data as Vihtavuori, BUT says all charges from 47.7 to 53.2 are compressed loads.
I've never had a bullet jump the crimp before. I use the Lee FCD and a fairly heavy crimp on my levers - 45-70Gov & 444Marlin. Was not over Max. Load, recoil was hefty but no pressure signs - no flat primers, no sticky eject.
My guess is, the uneven compressed load put pressure on the bullet then when topped up with the hefty recoil, it caused the bullets to jump the crimp.
My plan now is to reload another 20 rounds, Loads #7 thru #10(fyi, my spread sheet numbers), this time I'm going to use a 'powder drop tube'. It should give me more consistent compression, less pressure on the bullet and no bullet jump.
Looking on the youtube, I seen a couple of videos where the same weight of powder takes up quite a bit less volume when using a 'powder drop tube'. If it works and I can get camera to focus, I'll post a couple pictures.
- Load #9 @ 52.0gn, chronoed 1st @ 2373fps, 2nd @ 2114fps, 3rd @ error, almost a clover leaf @ 50yds.
- Load #10 @ 52.5gn. I had loaded up 3 rounds and shot the first one, cycled the rifle into a big jam. Looking thru the ejection port I could see the bullet had jumped the crimp. Rifle required a full disassembly to get the last 2 rounds out of rifle. Both of these rounds jumped the crimp. Max COL is ~2.570, my COL was 2.560, not much to play with. I reseated bullets and single loaded them, rocks the 10" gong pretty good @ ~130yds
After the fact, I found Lee's Modern Reloader shows the same load data as Vihtavuori, BUT says all charges from 47.7 to 53.2 are compressed loads.
I've never had a bullet jump the crimp before. I use the Lee FCD and a fairly heavy crimp on my levers - 45-70Gov & 444Marlin. Was not over Max. Load, recoil was hefty but no pressure signs - no flat primers, no sticky eject.
My guess is, the uneven compressed load put pressure on the bullet then when topped up with the hefty recoil, it caused the bullets to jump the crimp.
My plan now is to reload another 20 rounds, Loads #7 thru #10(fyi, my spread sheet numbers), this time I'm going to use a 'powder drop tube'. It should give me more consistent compression, less pressure on the bullet and no bullet jump.
Looking on the youtube, I seen a couple of videos where the same weight of powder takes up quite a bit less volume when using a 'powder drop tube'. If it works and I can get camera to focus, I'll post a couple pictures.
On Left just used a powder funnel. On Right a powder funnel on top of 24" drop tube.
Not the best picture but there is a difference in the % of case fill.
After getting everything reloaded I went to the range this morning. The target back board was a little wet with dew, the holes in the paper are huge.
Load #7 turned out to be the tightest group @ 50yds, Load #10 - 2 of 4 rounds where sticky to eject, Load #9 @ 52.0gn got voted in as My Max load.
I may have pulled the flier
Load #7 also had the best numbers, chronograph was about 5yds in front of rifle.
I noticed all the loads where more consistent using the powder drop tube.
I had no cycling issues due to bullet jump, recoil felt a bit more 'stout' across all loads.
Going to load up a larger test group of Load #7 @ 51.0gn and hit the range again in a couple of weeks.
