35 Whelen
Member
'Twas my day off, so I hit the pawn shops, really just looking for a digital reverb for my Peavey amplifier, nothing else in particular. Was at one of my usual haunts when I happened upon a poor, orphaned '70's vintage Charter Arms Bulldog. The cylinder wouldn't open with the cylinder release and had to be opened by pulling the ejector rod, and once opened, would slide past the cylinder stop on the side of the frame. Figured that was likely a simple fix. It had a little holster wear, but overall didn't look too bad. I pointed out the shortcomings to the fella behind the counter and he dropped the price from $350 to $200. Cha-ching!
Made my way to the house and upon closer examination found my suspicions were true; the crane screw was nearly a full turn loose and the cylinder latch release screw had backed into the cylinder latch. Once these repairs were made the ol' girl functioned normally. I gave her a good cleaning, loaded some shells and hied off to the bench for some chronograph and target work. We got off to a rocky start....
The first bullets I tried were some home-cast 170 RNFP's that I use for Cowboy Action, then some of the 429421's out of an NOE mould both over 5.0 grs. of HP-38. At 15 yds., BOTH bullets hit the target sideways. I then tried the a SWC out of an RCBS 44-250KT mould with the same load and things went much better as they hit nose first and grouped around 3.5". I guess the gun likes the fat front driving band. Even though these loads were light, and the bullets only running a little under 700 fps, recoil was brisk, at least it seemed brisk until I fired the next load....
My practice load for my other .44 Specials is 6.5 grs. of AL20/28 or Unique with any 250 - 260 gr. SWC, so I thought I'd try it in the Bulldog. I used this load with the pictured 247 gr. home-cast HP's. WOW!! I didn't know it was possible to sprain a wrist, dislodge four fingernails and detach a retina by shooting a 21.6 oz. .44 Special! This bullet averaged 835 fps and shot pretty good, around 2" - 2 1/2" if you discount the first shot. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but the first of five shots would always hit a little higher than the other four. Best of all though, no leading with the softer bullets HP bullets as the harder bullets I'd fired prior all leaded pretty bad.
Call me a masochist, but I'd really like to find some of the smaller factory grips.
35W
Made my way to the house and upon closer examination found my suspicions were true; the crane screw was nearly a full turn loose and the cylinder latch release screw had backed into the cylinder latch. Once these repairs were made the ol' girl functioned normally. I gave her a good cleaning, loaded some shells and hied off to the bench for some chronograph and target work. We got off to a rocky start....
The first bullets I tried were some home-cast 170 RNFP's that I use for Cowboy Action, then some of the 429421's out of an NOE mould both over 5.0 grs. of HP-38. At 15 yds., BOTH bullets hit the target sideways. I then tried the a SWC out of an RCBS 44-250KT mould with the same load and things went much better as they hit nose first and grouped around 3.5". I guess the gun likes the fat front driving band. Even though these loads were light, and the bullets only running a little under 700 fps, recoil was brisk, at least it seemed brisk until I fired the next load....
My practice load for my other .44 Specials is 6.5 grs. of AL20/28 or Unique with any 250 - 260 gr. SWC, so I thought I'd try it in the Bulldog. I used this load with the pictured 247 gr. home-cast HP's. WOW!! I didn't know it was possible to sprain a wrist, dislodge four fingernails and detach a retina by shooting a 21.6 oz. .44 Special! This bullet averaged 835 fps and shot pretty good, around 2" - 2 1/2" if you discount the first shot. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but the first of five shots would always hit a little higher than the other four. Best of all though, no leading with the softer bullets HP bullets as the harder bullets I'd fired prior all leaded pretty bad.
Call me a masochist, but I'd really like to find some of the smaller factory grips.
35W
