Original .44 Special Loaded With Black Powder

[mec]

Early.44 Special Black Powder Factory Loads

In March 2006 I published this on an on-line site where it remains in obscurity. The find was interstingas was the experment, though of limited scope, pretty interesting.The proprietor of Clarksville Ark. Rod and Gun was a depository for items picked up by the local police and other sources. He found a couple of packages of reloads outside his door one morning-source unknown. They included new-looking .45 auto wc target loads markedIMR 5056 and dated 1935.

There was two 50-round boxes of Remington .44 Special factory loads with a red “black-powder labelon one end. They were designated for the “Smith and Wesson .44 Hand Ejector Revolver and others.”

The full box was in very good shape and we forwarded it to the revolver guru who channels Elmer Keith and is reported to Know Everythng. .According to the guy that sent it to him He was aware the the.44special was a Black Powder load but had never seen any such boxes orammunition. A photograph has appeared in one or more of the gure's books The other full box was ugly enough to abate anycollector's remorse and would lend itself handily to an exercise in ballistic archeology. It languished in the shop for another year and I went back and got in 2006.. Our best guess was that the ammo dated from 1920 or before and some correspondence withRemington- UMC collectors provides a fair amount of confidence in a production date between 1913 and 1916. While a couple of loud and vociferous Internet experts loudly dispute the fact, everybody who has read even one of the major reloading manuals is aware that the.44 Special came out as a black powder cartridge. It arrived in 1907 along with the Smith and Wesson New Century Hand Ejector revolver otherwise known as the Triple Lock and “Gold Seal.“ It was a lengthened version of the .44 Russian containing, according to Elmer Keith, 26 grains of black powder-three grains over the Russian loading. Nominal velocity was 770 Feet Per Second. It was a target-level load and when the smokeless powder loads came out in the same velocity range, Keith considered it an insult to a cartridge of such potential

To the Laboratory

I began a routine post-mortem by pulling the bullets so; the bullets would be a good place to begin.At first I misinterpreted the bullets as fully cupro-nickel jaketed but later found that only the nose wore a jacket and the body of the bullet was extremely hard lead alloy. Weights ranged from 244.6 to246 grains and the diameter was .428=inch consistent across five bullets. . There are two narrow lubrication grooves still containinga light -colored, waxy substance much like modern beeswax/alox Lubricant or parafin..

I weighed the powder charges from twenty cases finding that they ranged from 24.2-27.0 grains andaveraged out at 25.5 grains. The weights were fairly evenlydistributed across this range. This charge filled the case close enough to the neck to afford 1/8th inch or more of compression under the bullet. The powder resembles modern Goex 3fg in the shape and size of the grains and the presence of a substantial number of grains of smaller size. It departs from the Goex in that it contains fine black dust that is light enough to hang in the air and leave asmudge on light paper. This residue is probably graphite but couldjust as well be charcoal. I put several of the still-primed cases inmy Mountain Gun and determined that the primers were totally enert .An explanation for this is not available The storage history is unknown. It is not uncommon for older primers to produce misfires,hang fires and apparent perfect ignition in the same box of ammunition. I reloaded the ammunition using the original powder and bullet from each case and replacing the primers with new RemingtonLarge Pistols primers. I ran them through the full sequence of RCBSdies including the carbide sizing die , the neck expander and bulletseating die and roll crimping in a separate operation. I then dismantled twelve more rounds replacing the original powder with newly opened Goex 3fg. I used the average measured dose of 25.5grains with my charges varying no more than one tenth of a grain incontrast to the 2.8- grain extreme variation of the original loads.

Range Work

My test vehicle is a Smith and WessonMountain Gun directly descended from the old N-Frame Hand EjectorTriple Lock. It has a 4-inch barrel. The chronograph is a Competition Electronics ProChrono set about ten feet down range. Elevation is four hundred feet above sea level and the temperature was seventydegrees. I clocked the loads sitting on the ground, back rested and the revolver braced over my knees. My casual aiming point was an eight-inch steel gong 41 yards distant. I noted that it clangedalmost every time with the loads using the vintage powder charge andsomewhat less often with the Goex loads. Previous data collected under similar conditions shows that I have gotten 659 fps from that revolver and the traditional 246-grain smokeless .44 Special factoryloads from Winchester Western. The vintage loads produced anaverage 709 fps ten round average with a 73 fps spread. The samebullets and cases with Goex 3f substituted got 762 fps with a 56 fps spread. As is often the case with black powder loads, the more precise powder charge of the Goex loads does not produce any great increase in measured consistency. Both of the black powderloads are faster than the modern smokeless powder loads. By thistime, I believed that I had learned something about the relativeperformance of fresh new black powder versus 90- year- old blackpowder. I dispelled this notion by doing the same basic comparisonwith a Uberti Paterson loaded with .380-inch round ball andeffectively reversed the relationships I had gotten with thecartridge loads.

UbertiColt Paterson Replica

• 22 Grains Goex FFFg --.380" Ball-- 879 --37

• 22 Grains Ninety Year Old FFFg --.380" Ball --943-- 75

Groups

Firing the .44 black powder loads overthe chronograph, I was cleaning the barrel after every five shotstring. There was considerable fouling but it came out with aboutthree swipes of a spit-moistened patch. I shot two groups with theloads using the original powder. Onthe first, I cleaned the barrel between each shot. This produced athree-inch five round bench group from twenty-five yards. Thisrevolver usually does significantly better than that so, I fired thenext five without shifting the gun from the rest or cleaning thefouling out of the barrel. This paid off with a two and one tenth-inch group- a typicalperformance for this revolver with a variety of smokeless loads.

Gunk

After thirty rounds of black powder loads, with no cleaning other than removing barrel fouling, theMountain Gun looked pretty nasty but the fouling did not impair function. The action cycled and the cylinder spun on its arbor just as freely as it would have with smokeless powder loads. Although an nteresting exercise, there is enough contradictory data to prevent drawing hard conclusions about the difference in velocities between the ninety-plus year old powder and the new Goex. My personal prejudices say that black powder is a very stable commodity more subject to variations in chemistry and production methods than deterioration over time. The data also tends to support the notion that the .44 Special lost a little steam with the transition from black to smokeless. The Goex loads are getting the high 700 fpsvelocities claimed for the cartridge and the old powder would have c closed in on this standard if fired from a 6.5" barrel.