Anybody Else Interested in a .44 Caliber Full Wadcutter Bullet?

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RidgwayCO

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I'm thinking a full wadcutter bullet sized .430" with a BHN around 12 or less would be a big seller. Very nice for target shooting in the .44 Special and Magnum, and maybe even for self defense. Am I alone in my confusion, or are there others who would also be interested? I don't cast bullets myself, so I'd need Missouri Bullets (hint, hint) or some other caster to produce them.

I've only seen .44 cal full wadcutter bullets at a few places (Gardner's Cache who never seem willing to let customers actually order them, and Penn Bullets which is developing a reputation for long, unresponsive waits).

If the .38 caliber can have a full wadcutter bullet, why not the .44?
 
A full wadcutter bullet was desgned to use as a "midrange" load useful up to 50 yards for bullseye shooting . Velocity drops off rapidly past this 50 yards and will become very inaccurate due to this loss. It would be a very poor bullet choice for anything with the exception of target shooting or light plinking. With all the older 44 specials and the newer 44 mags around, someone would have marketed by now a full wadcutter in 44 if it would work. JMHO!
 
I personally find that the swc is easier to stuff into the chamber BUT when going for bullseye scoring a wadcutter will most likely gain some points when used. Nice round hole, no edges to guess about = better score!!
 
At one time Lee made a 208 grain .44 wadcutter mould. I don't know if they still do.
Some of the first bullets I ever cast for myself. I soon decided I'd rather buy them and got by with SWCs.
 
Haendler & Natermann makes very nice hollow-based, plated, full wadcutters in .430 for use in .44 Spl and light .44 Mag loads
I load them in .44 Spl brass (COL 30,5 mm) over either 4.0 - 4.3 Gr of VihtaVuori N320 or 5.2 - 5.5 Gr of VihtaVuori N340.
Extremely high quality products, H&N !.
 
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At one time Lee made a 208 grain .44 wadcutter mould.
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Yep, and they shoot great. :)

I don't know if they still make this mold either.
 
I've only seen .44 cal full wadcutter bullets at a few places (Gardner's Cache who never seem willing to let customers actually order them, and Penn Bullets which is developing a reputation for long, unresponsive waits).
Click to expand...
I just got a thousand of those 180gr WCs from Jim Gardner last week. There's a good reason they're so hard to get. He has to hand cast them from a 2-cavity mold, and I suspect he loses money on 'em. He was nice enough to make me up a batch, though, and they're well worth the wait.
 
I'd really like to have some but they would have to equal the great price I'm paying for 240gr SWC I'm currently buying at $60 per 1k.

I have turned the SWC around backwards and shot them that way, seated with just the bevel sticking out.
 
Parasite you and I think alike. I loaded some 240s backwards also. I didn't think they were that accurate.

I for one wish that Lee would make a 220-230gr tumble lube WC bullet. I have shot thousands of their 148gr 38 WC bullets. It doesn't bother me one iota if the performance starts falling off after 50 yards.

I love the way these flat faced bullets slap a target board or smash a tin can. they just shove the crap out of whatever they hit.

I load the 148 Lee WC bullets in 38 cases with about a quarter inch sticking out of the case. They feed just fine in mt Marlin 357. I would have no problem using one of these on a close range whitetail.
 
I forgot to add that so far as I know Lee doesn't offer the WC mold anymore. Maybe its time to bombard them with e-mails and phone calls requesting a run of these molds.
 
Sure!

I'd take WCs in anything around 200 grains. The 180s would be fine for shooting my CA Bulldog - it's just plain RUDE at the range. I do more shooting at the range than anything else these days.
 
Another thing to bear in mind when loading these is that they seat deep taking up as much space in the case as any standard 200 g.r bullet, so use 200 gr. load data to stay safe. We just ran 53,000 of them and about 32,000 are spoken for already so that leaves about 20,000 available on a first come first served basis. 2500 can be packed into a 70 lb. flat rate box. Free shipping on orders of 2500 or more.
 
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OK, Mr. Palermo, you convinced me to give these a try. My online order was submitted as of a couple of minutes ago.

I'm looking forward to testing these in my S&W 396 and other "lighter weight" .44 Specials.
 
They shoot well in my 696, but would like to see a 200 to 210 Gr one. Hint Hint. :)
 
To: RidgwayCO. Order recieved. packed and ships out tommorow morn.USPS. Would appreciate any feedback that you have on the bullets.
To: Walkalong. I wish I could accomodate all the requests for speciality bullets but the truth is that such designs usually aren't available for commercial production use. This bullet only came about as a special request from me to Wayne Gibbs of H&G and I had to commit to a number of expensive cast blocks to cover the cost of the cherry being made.
The fact is several of the bullets in our line are custom made blocks that I have fronted the costs for the cherries to be made and when all told a set of custom blocks can be over 1000.00 dollars. It takes quite a few bullets to be sold to recover those costs and in some cases there have been bullets that I have offered that never recovered their cost of being put into production. Many of those were discontinued and when possible I have had the blocks recut to a different bullet (larger in size) to recoup at least the block costs. Adding in specialty bullets to any commercial operation is a risk and with litterally thousands of mold designs available one has to be carefull of what one can offer.
The current .45 225 gr. WC is another example. The first version that I offered of this was the 255 gr. plain base WC design from Saeco that Jan Libourel was involved with and the bullet was designed to take up excess space in the case of the old blackpowder round so that the more modern propellents could be used more effectively. The design was effective in that regard but commercially it failed as sales for the design were almost non exsistent despite Libourels write up of the bullet in the gun magazines.
The opportunity came when I had a another set of molds of another failed offering was able to be recut into the current 225 gr version which has been a moderate sucess. Even despite the success of the new design its sales volume overall relegate it to the realm of being a specialty bullet with a narrow limited appeal.
I base the additions of any new bullet on the basis of demand and many times it works out and sometimes it doesn't. So keep hinting. who knows what the future may bring?
 
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Mr. Palermo,

Thanks for the heads up. Just internet ordered 500 of you WCs. Gonna load them in 44 Mag cases for my Ruger Blackhawk. (I put a tiny puff of cotton on top of the powder to prevent shifting.) Plan on using a mid range 44 SPL load of Titegroup and seat flush like 38 SPL WCs.

Does this sound reasonable for max accuracy? If they shoot as well as I think they will, will be back.

Tom
 
I have never played with fillers with the powders but know some who have and the claims that that it results in better SD over the chronograph. The only thing I have heard about Tightgroup is that it tends to be dirty/smoky at the lower end of the charge tables and does better at the upper end. Some powders aren't position sensitive so the filler may not help. its pretty much a try it and see sort of thing.
One other thing to try for max accuracy is to orient all the bullets in the cases with the sprue mark on the bullet to the nose for maximum consistency and the truest bases.
 
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