.44 WCF carbine

[Carlsen Highway]

Just a follow up and to say thank you for all who have posted and made suggestions over my .44 WCF in some threads I have made over the last while.

I have spent the last few weeks experimenting with ammo, doing a lot of shooting, and also doing a lot of black powder reloading for the first time and messing about with beeswax and animal fat. At the end of it all I have had some modest success, and I would like to thank you guys.

As for my crimp issue with my smokeless 44-40 loads, I have fixed it with a combination of getting a Lee FCD, and also cutting four inches off the mag spring of my carbine. Mr M. Wright suggested this fix straight off the bat and I am a stubborn fool for not following his advice immediately.

I would like to specially say, that wherever I go to research the .44 WCF or the .30 WCF, I always find that 30-30WCF / John Kort has already been there before me. He has provided to the internet the most informed opinions and historical research and experimentation on these cartridges. He has helped me out of a hole more than once or twice, and informed me in a way I couldn't imagine how otherwise I would have found out.

[gamekeeper]

Good to know it's working out, any chance of some photos.....

[Blaine]

The Forumites here are among the best firearms experts to be found anywhere. I learn something new every time I log on.
What was the purpose of snipping off some magazine spring?

[Carlsen Highway]

This is the little rascal here, although she wears a Williams receiver sight at present. Once I am done target shooting I might take that off and start messing with sights, I much prefer a bead front sight and a wide open V rear sight. COntrary to much published opinion, I find the open V like the British express sights remarkably accurate, and better for hunting than a peep sight, which for this rifle is mostly offhand shooting. I am in accord with Elmer Keith in this matter, who I discovered said the same.



This is my version of the smokeless .44 WCF High Velocity load, which is a 200 XTP bullet and 24 grains of H4227, for a velocity of 1640fps. The top target is at 50 metres and the bottom is at 100 metres. I would usually shoot five shot groups but this load is well tested and these were for a zero check after shooting black powder loads. I think this is excellent for a little Rossi carbine.
This is the load that would not hold its crimp and would telescope bullets into the case if I cycled cartridges through the magazine more than once. I need to be able to do this so I can go hunting. I am not just loading the rifle and shooting it at the range, so I need a cartridge that can stand being loaded and unloaded. I solved this with a Lee FCD, a heavy crimp, and then shortened the rifles magazine spring so it was much weaker. I did not think this was necessary at the start, but once I decided to test the rifle and see how weak it could be and still function, I discovered my crimp issue was now gone.



This is the results so far at 50 metres with my black powder loading. This is a 215g 427666 bullet and 36 grains of 3F Black powder 1180 fps. Boom! My black powder loading has been a learning experience. I had no idea about BP lubes for example. I have tried other bullets, the NOE 432 200 for example, and also jacketed bullets over black powder and a 217g Keith style wadcutter with gas checks.
The Keith wadcutter shoots very well for three shots and then goes all over the place. It cannot hold enough lube.

Jacketed 200g HOrnady XTP over black powder work....for four shots, they shoot just as well as the smokeless load, the first three or four into one hole and then the next one will miss the whole target as fouling becomes horrific.

The NOE 432 200 holds the most lube of all, but I cannot get reliable acccuacy out of it. It will shoot two rounds ok, then the third four inches away. IT will shoot three rounds well, then the fourth and fifth wont hit the paper at all. I dont know what to make of this as it is supposed to be a good bullet. The only thing I can think off is that the batch of bullets did have some dents in the bottom of the bullets, around the edges. THis cannot be good for accuracy, so maybe I just got a badly cast batch....I didnt know that I should cull these out, so probably I should try some more.

The 427666 is a bullet I would like to shoot really well, but it what you see here is as good as they will go, accuracy is 2.5 - 3.0 inches for five shots at 55 yards. It will reliably shoot like this without flyers. But this is progress - at the start I was getting six inch groups at the same distance.
I have been using a lube of one part of beeswax to two parts animal fat / tallow and I am not crimping this bullet, as that improved accuracy marginally, but measurably. (I have tried an overpowder wad punched out of playing cards just out of curiosity but could discern no difference in results.)

THe load under all these is the same 36 grains of 3F which is compressed about 1/16 inch. I tried up to 40 grains of BP which was compressed by .20 inch but got no real increase in velocity so I backed off. Accuracy was best at 36 grains. (Although come to think of it that was before I knew that BP needed a different lube....maybe I should reshoot them again....this never ends...)
Velocity with this powder was 1178fps with 36 grains up to 1193 fps with 40 grains. It's a 20 inch carbine so I figured that was fair enough velocity anyway.

[w30wcf]

Carlsen Highway,
Thank you for the report (and the kind words). Happy to see you are making progress.
Nice looking rifle. I have one in .357.

A couple of thoughts.....
429666 - Don't be too disappointed. I get about the same accuracy as you with smokeless and black when I tried it. The bullet should shoot better because the dimensions are right, but it doesn't. I have pretty much given up on it since other bullets group better.

XTP & Keith bullets - If you want to shoot black under the XTP & Keith bullets then perhaps a duplex load will work ok. Since it is a '92 action, I would suggest 6 grs of 4227 in first followed by 30 grs. of black. That should pretty much clean out the b.p. fouling with each shot. If need be, you could up the charge of 4227 and reduce the b.p. by the same amount.

NOE432-200 - Yes, no doubt the imperfect bases will really hurt accuracy. Another thing that can hurt accuracy with the larger lube groove bullets is lube that is a bit sticky / tacky. I use SPG lube and that has worked well with that type of bullet. A few years back I tried some NASA lube which works really well with 2 lube grooved bullets but the two groups fired with the larger lube groove were 2 to 3 times larger at 100 yards as compared to bullets lubed with SPG. The only thing I can figure is that NASA is a bit tacky.

w30wcf

[Carlsen Highway]

W30wcf,
Thanks for your reply,

The NOE 432-200 bullet I lubed with just animal fat, and it was sticky. Might be worth reshooting with bullets with decent bases and a lube 50/50 beeswax and fat perhaps...
I have made my lube even softer than 50/50 beeswax and tallow, I have made it one part beeswax to two parts fat. I did this because I thought it should be soft. 50/50 is very stiff and wax-like, smells of beeswax, and I thought that might be too hard?

I am interested in the duplex load suggestion and will try it out. I am trying to understand the mechanics of a duplex load - the small amount of smokeless at the bottom over the primer ignites first and lights up the black, but how does this reduce fouling?

[M. M. Wright]

There have been times when I had only commercially cast bullets lubed with "crayola" lube. I have loaded these with a nitro card over 36 grains of ffg Goex and a grease cookie and it worked quite well. Especially in the 20 inch barrel. When I went to the 24 inch it took a little more lube to get that star on the muzzle so I had to use a bullet with black powder lube. By the way, I've concocted many different lubes over the years but none of them are any better than SPG. I can get close with melting toilet bowl rings and adding just a little Alox and some olive oil. If your time is worth 50 cents an hour it's cheaper to buy the SPG.

[Carlsen Highway]

I can only get SPG in a form that is used in what is called a 'lubrasizer machine'. Could I manually lube bullets with that?

I am dying to shoot a deer with black powder and one of these lead bullets. With a carbine that shoots them into three inch groups at 50 yards, its the nearest thing to bow hunting and still using a firearm.

[Blaine]

So, about that snipping of the mag spring?

[w30wcf]

I can only get SPG in a form that is used in what is called a 'lubrasizer machine'. Could I manually lube bullets with that?

I am dying to shoot a deer with black powder and one of these lead bullets. With a carbine that shoots them into three inch groups at 50 yards, its the nearest thing to bow hunting and still using a firearm.

Yes you could use the SPG in the stick form to lube the bullets. I have used it to manually lube 5 or 10 bullets to test but for any volume I use a lubrisizer or the pan method where the lube is perheated to liquid form and poured around the bullets in a pan.

There are a number of YouTube videos on pan lubing.

Have fun!

W30wcf

[Carlsen Highway]

So, about that snipping of the mag spring?

Yes. Thank you. You were right. I should have listened to you right at the start...

[Blaine]

So, about that snipping of the mag spring?

Yes. Thank you. You were right. I should have listened to you right at the start...

No, that wasn't me....I want to know what problem it solved for you.

[Carlsen Highway]

Oh, I think it was M.M. Wright actually...my mistake, and credit to him!

The crimp on my smokeless load with jacketed XTP's was failing. Bullets were telescoping back into the case.

I need to be able to load and unload the rifle each day when I am hunting, and so on a trip the cartridges have to be able to be worked through the mag several times. The crimp on the thin .44-40 brass was not holding, the roll crimp didn't work, then the Lee FCD was working better, but not much...turned out with help from here it was pointed out I could use the die properly and get a deeper crimp. This sort of worked...but not enough for me to have confidence that after three days hunting over two days walk from anywhere, that suddenly I would have any bullets left that weren't telescoped back into the case...

In the end I did what was suggested to me at the start and lighten the mag spring so it wasn't shock loading my rounds back so much every time I levered a round up into the action. I simply worked out how weak I could make the spring and still have it function and cut it with wire cutters.
I ran a full mag through four times and measured OAL on each and set back wasn't happening anymore. So I am content.

[M. M. Wright]

Actually, just loading black powder solves the setback problem too. When the case is full and compressed a little, the bullet can't setback, problem solved.
Glad you're enjoying the cartridge, it's my favorite. Got my first SAA Colt "Frontier Six Shooter" when I was 16. 61 years ago.