Deserately seeking .44 Spl...
- Thread starter Cold Warrior
- Start date
Low loads work fine on 44 mag. I have a scoped Contender that I fire a 180 gr wadcutter with 5 grs of Unique. Full house loads I
keep for my Raging Bull. I have a choice of 5 moulds I can choose from. I usually fire to least 250 rounds out of the two guns when I go to the range. Factory cost would be high. Reloading is the way to go.
keep for my Raging Bull. I have a choice of 5 moulds I can choose from. I usually fire to least 250 rounds out of the two guns when I go to the range. Factory cost would be high. Reloading is the way to go.
hatman1793
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Find some 44mag brass and trim it to 44 Special dimensions.
Or,
Use your available 44 mag brass with 44 Special loads. Fast burning power works well.
Or,
Use your available 44 mag brass with 44 Special loads. Fast burning power works well.
I'm sure he won't mind me adding that he's Nanaimo based.
CW, another suggestion to take this new gun as your excuse to dive into reloading. A quick look around shows me that Magnum and Special is all well over a buck a pop. Yet I can reload .44Mag to whatever power level from mild to wild I want for just under 30 cents a round even with today's prices on components and powder. Brass is not included in that price as it lasts for a long time if you are shooting at Special power levels. And even with full magnum loads I can typically get 20 to 30 firings from the brass before they start splitting on me frequently.
A basic reloading setup can be purchased for probably around $300 for all the stuff you need. But when you're saving from $.90 to $1.20 every time you pull the trigger that's only 300 rounds you have to shoot before you pay for the equipment. And that won't take long at all. The savings is based on the $1.20 to $1.80 pricing I see for .44Mag. And even a low cost single stage press would see you able to load anywhere from 100 to 150 rounds per hour after some learning and practice.
A basic reloading setup can be purchased for probably around $300 for all the stuff you need. But when you're saving from $.90 to $1.20 every time you pull the trigger that's only 300 rounds you have to shoot before you pay for the equipment. And that won't take long at all. The savings is based on the $1.20 to $1.80 pricing I see for .44Mag. And even a low cost single stage press would see you able to load anywhere from 100 to 150 rounds per hour after some learning and practice.
- Location
- Vancouver Island
"I don't want to use the magnums for plinking at the range because they're overkill"
Well, where are you planning to use the .44 Magnums? If you're not going to actually shoot them, why acquire the gun?
(OP is a buddy of mine)
Well, you never know when a buddy of yours might show up at the range just to impress the hell out of some other buddy. You'll recall, I shot a lot of .38Spl w/my Vaquero just to get the basics nailed--it was a less expensive way to learn how to quickly and efficiently perform the process of manually ejecting the spent casings and replacing them with live ones while bad guys were creeping up. So same deal w/ the S&W --
It's a totally different operation compared to the Colt's, and I'd much rather get familiar with the new method using less expensive .44 Spl before I move on to the Magnumbs. :]
I might even try out some of those 'speed loaders'.
- Location
- Vancouver Island
thx
Thank you for all of your helpful suggestions! At Christmastime I got a 'Rockchucker' reloading kit, all neatly packed into a shipping crate. Then there came a move in March, and that reloading press is now buried under a tonne of gunstuff on my workbench in my new shop (box still unopened!). Ah,but at least I've been "collecting brass"! I also recently found "The Bullet Barn" just across the Strait (~25nm as the eagle flies, but two ferryboat rides if you don't have wings, or a boat). The folks at the Barn met my needs "faster than a speeding bullet": I placed my order on-line, Thursday at 0845, and the ammo was delivered by CANPAR at 0830 this morning. Less than 24 hours. It takes me that long to decide to get on up to Cabelas (which is just up the hill from me)...and Cabs didn't have the ammo I wanted!
I'll file a progress report as further developments occur.
CW
Thank you for all of your helpful suggestions! At Christmastime I got a 'Rockchucker' reloading kit, all neatly packed into a shipping crate. Then there came a move in March, and that reloading press is now buried under a tonne of gunstuff on my workbench in my new shop (box still unopened!). Ah,but at least I've been "collecting brass"! I also recently found "The Bullet Barn" just across the Strait (~25nm as the eagle flies, but two ferryboat rides if you don't have wings, or a boat). The folks at the Barn met my needs "faster than a speeding bullet": I placed my order on-line, Thursday at 0845, and the ammo was delivered by CANPAR at 0830 this morning. Less than 24 hours. It takes me that long to decide to get on up to Cabelas (which is just up the hill from me)...and Cabs didn't have the ammo I wanted!
I'll file a progress report as further developments occur.
CW
If you find any .44spl ammo it would probably be as expensive as the Mangum ammo anyway. You need to reload if you're going to get any use out of something like .44mag. my second gun was a 44mag and it's what got me into reloading.
- Location
- Vancouver Island
Trying both
"I never make the same mistake twice--I keep on making different mistakes!"
"I never make the same mistake twice--I keep on making different mistakes!"
That's excellent news.
During my own retirement move and before I was able to unpack my progressive loader a buddy and I kept up with our cowboy action needs with a single stage press that by luck I found on the edge of the mountain of boxes stuffed into the garage for a few months until the basement renos were completed. With a good setup and some practice we found that we could do a batch of 50 starting with cleaned cases in about 20 to 25 minutes. That included sizing, depriming and mouth flaring with the first two dies, priming with a hand primer, then powdering with a Lee dipper and funnel then finally seating the bullet and crimping. Even early on when you are still learning you should not have any trouble or skip anything important and still do a batch of 50 in about half an hour. And there's some tricks you can do like using a powder measure mounted on the flaring die to flare and powder at the same time even on a single stage which would easily let you reach 150 rounds per hour. Not at first maybe but with a little learning and practice quickly enough.
We had a checklist to follow. And as well the cases were turned head and mouth up for different operations so we knew where each of the next cases were coming from which aided in cutting down on the risk of a mistake.
One thing we always did though was to take a moment with a flashlight to peer down into the cases sitting in the loading block with powder in them to -a) be sure there was powder in the case and -b) be sure that they were all the same depth of powder. Only THEN did the bullet go on and get seated. This avoided any risk of either a squib or a double charge.
