I took Mari out shooting my Ruger Bisley .44 magnum. She really enjoyed it and wants a .44 of her
own. The Bisley grip is a bit large for
her hands so she is looking at the Super Blackhawk with the 5 ½ inch
barrel. The 4 5/8 inch and 5 ½ inch
Super Blackhawks have smaller grips than the Bisley or the longer barreled
Super Blackhawks. In fact, the grips on
the 4 5/8 inch and 5 ½ inch barreled revolvers are the same size as the
standard Blackhawks. While the smaller
grips make trigger reach easier, they do increase felt recoil and muzzle rise
over the Bisley. Since I own a 4 5/8
inch Super Blackhawk, we took that out shooting so Mari could get an idea of
what the recoil will be like with the smaller grip.
We burned up all my odd .44 magnum reloads the last time we
went out shooting. Mari was interested
in reloading so I let her load up 50 rounds for our next range session. I talked her through it but Mari did all the
work.
She started with some Winchester Western brass I had. She took it from the tumbler and resized and
decapped it with a Lee carbide die in a Lyman single stage press. Next, she checked the overall length. This brass has been reloaded a few times and
may need trimming the next time but was still just below the maximum overall
length. Upon inspection we found no neck
cracks and the primer pockets are still tight.
She continued with the brass prep by scraping out the primer pockets
with an old Herter’s primer pocket cleaner I picked up many years ago.
For powder I had some Hodgdon Universal Clays I wanted to
use up. I picked up a pound to use in a
2 inch barrel .38 special revolver. It
wasn’t compatible with the Ranier plated bullets I wanted to use as they
wouldn’t take a heavy crimp and Universal needs a lot of bullet pull to get a
good burn. In the .38 I couldn’t get any
velocity to speak of and the powder wasn’t burning clean. I decided to try it with moderate loads in
the .44 with some different bullets just to get rid of it.
For bullets I had some 250 grain Keith style cast
bullets. They were cast with an LBT mold
out of straight wheelweight alloy. I
hadn’t heat treated this batch of bullets as they were for moderate loads. The large crimp groove on the Keith bullets
would allow a heavy crimp and I was hoping the Universal would work with
them. Mari lubed the bullets with
Javelina 50/50 beeswax Alox and sized them to .430 with a Lee push through
sizer. .430 inches provides a tight slip
fit in the chamber throats on this revolver and has given good accuracy with
other loads in it. I’ve always gotten
good accuracy with the Keith bullets in all my revolvers with light, moderate
or heavy loads.
Since I’ve not used Universal in the .44 before, I chose a
starting load from the data to get a base velocity and see how the powder would
perform in this pistol with these components.
Hodgdon’s data gives a velocity of 850 feet per second out of an 8 1/8”
barrel. Out of a 4 5/8” barrel, I
expected to get about 100 FPS less. I
like to use an old Lee Safety powder measure for my moderate handgun loads as
it’s easy to set up and can’t get out of adjustment. One of the cavities threw a charge just .2
grains above the suggested starting load but still well below the maximum so I
set the measure with that cavity.
Mari primed the cases with CCI 300 standard large pistol
primers. I had a bunch of the CCI
primers on hand. I don’t care for magnum
primers unless I’m shooting a powder that’s hard to ignite like H110. Magnum primers raise pressures and I’d rather
get my pressure from the powder as I think I get slightly more consistent
velocities. She used a Lee hand primer
to prime the cases. I like the Lee as it
gives me a better feel than a press mounted primer.
Mari flared the case mouths until they’d just clear the
bullet bases. I try not to work the
brass any more than necessary to get longer case life. This batch of Winchester cases has been
reloaded several times and I still see no signs of case mouth cracks.
After checking the powder charge on a scale, Mari charged
all the cases with powder. She checked
the powder levels visually to catch any double charges. We also pulled several cases and weighed the
powder to make sure the loads were consistent.
The Lee Safety measure can’t get out of adjustment but powder can settle
and start throwing heavier charges. We
kept the measure more than half full and tapped it down so the charge weights were
consistent from start to finish. The
Universal works well in this measure.
Next, Mari seated the bullets. The cartridge overall length is determined by
the crimp groove location with the Keith bullets. The deep crimp groove allowed for a fairly
heavy crimp so I was confident we’d get a good burn with the Universal.
We got out to the range early to beat the heat, wind and
crowds. Mari was the first one to shoot
her reloads. The revolver is sighted in
for my eyes so it was hitting a bit high for Mari but she was getting decent groups. At about 20 yards we got a three shot group
right at an inch and about two inches above the aiming point from the offhand
position.
I fired a couple of rounds over the chronograph before the
battery died. The velocity was averaging
750 FPS which is about where I was expecting.
Recoil and muzzle blast were quite comfortable with this load.
We backed off to 50 yards and Mari was keeping most of her
shots on the paper but was still hitting high.
I think we were getting some glare off the front sight and should
probably throw a little sight black on it.
We couldn’t do any real long range shooting as there were cattle in the
area but did get to shoot at a stump about 100 yards away. We burned up the rest of the ammo plinking at
various objects left by previous shooters.
The day was a success.
Mari got a feel for the smaller grip on the Ruger and got in some
practice with her handloads. The load
was accurate and we obviously have some room to bump up the load if we decide
to. Now, all I have to do is cast up
some more of those Keith bullets.
