loading 44 mag shotshells

sisiphunter

sisiphunter

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Saskatoon, SK
Hello,

I've seen the shotshell capsules before in the US, but cannot seem to find them around my area....was wanting to load up some 44mag shotshells....more novelty or for shooting grouse, etc when out on the deer hunt.....i have some 7 1/2 shot....i'm thinking over 6 ish gr of unique, cardboard seperator, then 140gr of shot will almost fill 44mag casing, top off with cardboard and crimp to hold in place.....plan to use in my marlin lever, but could only be loaded one at a time most likely.....like i say more for the odd chicken/grouse or for the heck of it...

anyone try this???? I dont see the harm, still will have low pressure, etc...I know it wont have much range, but thats ok..

Thanks for any opinions or personal results

Matt
 
I've seen guys use gas checks instead of cardboard, seem to work well enough, plus they look nice when you push a gas check over the shot and crimp it in place.

We tried with the cardboard on a guys 45-70 marlin and it worked well enough, pattern was really wide with the rifling throwing the shot around. At 15 feet I'm guessing he will either get nothing or the entire flock.
 
I have loaded & fired #7-1/2 shot size in those capsules on cardboard, but they are a very short range shell, anything past 15' & the pattern really opens up with lots of holes in the pattern. These things were meant to be loaded with #12 shot, which is much smaller, but would give a denser pattern within the same range. I suppose on snakes up close, which I believed they were developed, do that job well, but on grouse you may get a lot of injured birds you may never recover.
I would not recommend them for grouse hunting, but they are fun to plink with....
I'm not sure where you might find them these days, seems like lots of stuff is getting harder to find on this side!

Here's a couple of good reads on them with some good pictures....
http://www.gunweek.com/2005/feature1001.html
http://www.castbullet.com/reload/44shot.htm
 
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I make my 44 mag shotshell brass from 303 brass. You can make them as long as the cylinder then. Also, instead of a crimp, I punch out overshot wads from styrofoam egg carton and seal them in place with a dollop of white glue. The glue comes out clean upon firing.
 
joe-nwt said:
I make my 44 mag shotshell brass from 303 brass. You can make them as long as the cylinder then. Also, instead of a crimp, I punch out overshot wads from styrofoam egg carton and seal them in place with a dollop of white glue. The glue comes out clean upon firing.
Click to expand...

Joe-nwt,

Thanks for an interesting piece of info. Care to share your load?
 
TwoTone said:
Joe-nwt,

Thanks for an interesting piece of info. Care to share your load?
Click to expand...

I'd have to dig it up, but I started with powders listed in the speer manual for those plastic capsuls. I weighed the shot that I was using, did some extrapolating, killed a chicken and used the blood to..........:D

Start low. You can't get too low I don't think, there's no bullet to get stuck in the barrel.;) I was toying with doing a how-to pictorial thread for the newbie's this winter. I'll have to work on it when things slow down.
 
I do the same as joe-nwt. If you have a pinned and recessed older model 29 then you have to trim the .303 case head a bit to fit into the recesses, if you have a Redhawk or a newer 629 then there is no problem at all. You don't have to take off much, just put the case in a drill and with a file slowly remove a little bit at a time until it will fit in the cylinder. As joe said cut to slightly less then the length of the cylinder.

I started with 6 gr. of Unique a cardboard wad over the powder, filled the case with 7 1/2 shot (all I could find) and then another cardboard wad over the top and slightly crimped the case over the wad. I put some white glue around the edge of the cardboard and the crimp and let them dry.

Worked surprising well at close range of course. Shot a grouse at about 10 yards with one.

I have heard that some people do use .44 gas checks as the cover over the shot and I remember reading somewhere that once you fire the brass and the tapered .303 is now straight you can use a .410 wad cup to hold the pellets. Haven't tried that one but it should work with the size of the .410 and the benefit of trying to keep the pellets together for a longer distance.
 
joe-nwt said:
I make my 44 mag shotshell brass from 303 brass. You can make them as long as the cylinder then. Also, instead of a crimp, I punch out overshot wads from styrofoam egg carton and seal them in place with a dollop of white glue. The glue comes out clean upon firing.
Click to expand...

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Credit where it's do!
Very close dimensionally.
What did you achieve for range and pattern?
I’ve got some CCI but never used them.


Driller
 
Well I did my testing with a 629, mostly at >10yards. But it actually shot fairly reasonably for a rifled barrel. Not sure if that's because the short barrel doesn't have enough length to really get the shot swirling or what. For sure the pattern is not perfect, but surprising none the less.

BTW, I am not the inventor of the method I used. Google is your friend.;)
 
I did some testing with those shot cups. Found that the pattern was quite good at modest velocity and then blew out as velocity increased. To choose adequate velocity, I tested on steel cans (not the aluminum pop/beer cans.) When pellets would go through both sides of a soup can at 10 feet, velocity was "adequate".

I like the idea of using a 303 case. I will use a gas check on the bottom and cardboard on top.
 
OK, I cut some 303 cases at the shoulder, trimmed tem and fire formed them to blow the walls out. Discovered the revlover has a throat section in the cylinder, so the formed case has a bit of a shoulder in it. This means I can't use a gas check for the bottom wad.

I have some Speer plastic shot cups. I will weigh the amont of shot each method will allow. Logic says the 303 case will hold more. But unles i get a solid bottom wad, the pattern will be blown.
 
Ganderite said:
OK, I cut some 303 cases at the shoulder, trimmed tem and fire formed them to blow the walls out. Discovered the revlover has a throat section in the cylinder, so the formed case has a bit of a shoulder in it. This means I can't use a gas check for the bottom wad.

I have some Speer plastic shot cups. I will weigh the amont of shot each method will allow. Logic says the 303 case will hold more. But unles i get a solid bottom wad, the pattern will be blown.
Click to expand...

You need something that will fit through the neck but still seal the powder charge. There are not that many options for this task. But shotgun shells don't use a copper gas check, do they. ;) I used styrofoam. That from meat trays is thicker than egg carton. Tamp it down with the heal of a 3/8 drill bit. Maybe cut a second, slightly smaller wad from card.

I don't have all the answers as I'm not a shotgunner. The shotshells I made patterned decently at close range and perforated popcans at that distance with ease. If you fine tune anything, please share your results!
 
Ganderite: Why not use a felt wad for a .44 cal black powder revolver?

You can get them plain with no grease and would work perfectly as far as keeping the powder down where it should be. I am not sure of the total length of the .410 shot cup so with a wad you might have to trim the cup a little or maybe not.

I measured a .44 cal wad and it would be about .1" thick compressed and the diameter is .460 so it would fit perfectly and seal great.
 
For wads, just cut them out of a 2 litre container, milk comes in.
Just sharpen a piece of brass with your deburring tool to cookie-cut them out. Poke em out from the flash hole end with a small nail/drill bit, & you will have as many wads as you need.....
 
Ok, have loaded some shot shells.

Used regular brass and Speer plastic shot cups. This is easy, but the shot cups are thick-walled and only hold 130gr of shot.

I punched paper wads out of a paper plate and loaded 220gr of shot into a blown and trimmed 303 case.

Tomorrow I will test them on steel soup cans for double penetration. My first 303 case only has 4 gr of powder in it. Might not be enough.

44mahshotshells.jpg
 
I made up a bunch for the .45 Colt revolver using card wads and a card wad on top sealed with hot glue gun. Shot a round of skeet and could only hit birds from stn.#7.....3/25!!!
 
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