44 Mag Woes

[Mainsail]

As a new reloader I am trying to be absolutely meticulous about record keeping and labeling my reloads. I was looking at some 44 magnum rounds I had reloaded a couple weeks ago. I had labeled the boxes, “240gr SWC 10.8gr Bullseye”. Something didn’t seem right about that so I looked through my reloading manuals looking for that recipe, but didn’t see anything. During my search, I came to the realization that 10.8gr of bullseye would NOT be good, not good at all. I did, however, notice that I had a recipe in my Lyman 49th book with a starting load of 10.0 to a max of 11.7 grains of Unique.

So I knocked one of them apart to weigh the powder, but the powder went all over, so that wasn’t going to work. However, when I looked at the powder I noticed that it was most definitely Unique and not Bullseye. I then took a round from the other box I had loaded at the same time and knocked one of those apart, this time managing to keep all the powder in the hammer. I weighed it and it was 10.6gr (I think I still managed to spill a little plus some was stuck to the SWC lube).

Ok, so I think I avoided disaster with that, but my search has raised another question. The Alliant website lists a recipe for the 240gr SWC as 7gr of Unique. They also have this: “REDUCE RIFLE AND HANDGUN CHARGE WEIGHTS BY 10% TO ESTABLISH A STARTING LOAD.”

The Lyman 49th lists a starting load of 10.0 grains of Unique, which is a hella lot more than the manufacturers recommendation of starting at 6.3 (7.0 minus 10%).

What gives? Do I have 200 44s to hammer apart?

 

[BHPshooter]

If you are POSITIVE they are all loaded with unique at that charge, you'll be just fine. That's just a good mid-level load, probably do in the neighborhood of 1100 fps depending on your gun.

 

[Ben Shepherd]

If you're sure of the charge weight and powder type you should be OK. I load down to 7 grains for my sis-in-laws or for introducing new shooters to the 44 mag. Dad runs as high as 12 grains of unique under a 245. In the older manuals he has, it's a published load.

 

[warnerwh]

Assuming it is Unique in those shells you should be safe. I load 9.0gr of Unique under a 240gr SWC for my light load. Just guessing velocity is 900-1000fps. I just went down and looked in the Lyman Pistol and Revolver load book.
Loads ran from 8.9 to 12.1 and 9.8 to 13. These two loads listed are for 2 different LSWC that each weigh 245gr. In the little manual that only has .44 loads in it they did show 7.0gr loads at about 800fps in one load and there may have been more but I didn't go through them all.
Your loads are safe it there's Unique in there. I'd spot check some more. Unloading that many rounds would be a pain but ruining a gun and possible injury would be the worse of the two options.

 

[Doug b]

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"As a new reloader I am trying to be absolutely meticulous about record keeping and labeling my reloads."

I think you answered your own question in that one sentence.I have a friend that screwed up loading Bullseye in a 44 mag.The 29 Smith survived,the cyl. didn't it was replaced,his broken wrist healed,but the flinch is still with him 25 yrs. later.200 isn't so many to pull is it?

 

[Mainsail]

I'm positive that there's Unique in them, the two powders look very different.

Whew, I was not looking forward to knocking 200 of those apart. I must have been thinking about Bullseye for some reason when I wrote the labels.

Thanks guys!

 

[kestak]

Greetings,

Minsail, I won't go into the details of what you wrote but something you did was "sloppy". (maybe) You wrote the wrong powder name, maybe the quantity, maybe the powder. Thanks God, your "quality verification process" picked up that something was wrong and I congratulate you.

My advice: Discard the powder and reload those cases. At worse, you will throw away a few $$ of the right powder but you will be sure you are loading with the right powder. 3-4$ is cheap compared to a new gun, new cylinder or some bodily arm.

Thank you