Thread: What Have You Loaded Today

Loaded up some more .44-40 cartridges.
Jacketed XTP bullets with 26 grains 2207 smokeless, gets 1400 fps with a 200 grain XTP bullet. This is mightily progressive using these copper jacketed bullets. All of the deer I have shot with the .44-40 so far have been with blackpowder and pure lead bullets, so I expect this modern technology to make an exceptional difference...

I discovered this week that loading lead bullets with chefade and beeswax as lube, over smokeless loads does not work out so well long term - I fired some rounds I made up over a year ago - they went Fsst! pop - one actually made a LuuuuUUUUp noise, which was literally teh noise a bullet makes as it is pushed through the bore! They went through the chronograph and get results of around 300 fps. I dicided I should stop shooting them or I was going to get a bullet stuck in the barrel!

Turns out the fat/cheafe has melted at some stage and run down and contaminated the 2207 powder. So it was only ignited a bit of powder around the primer and the rest was in the bore and action. The bullet was just popping out of the muzzle.

So, now I only load jacketed with smokeless and lead with black powder ( compressed BP is not a powder will not be contaminated in the same way - it becomes a solid cake and is as hard as wood.)