Yep, I had one. A total fail. I recently got some of these 310-grain boolits, with the intention of making some serious "bear loads" for the Colt Anaconda and also some heavy rifle rounds for the Marlin 1894C.
After I got the boolits in, I began to look at published loads, and the first thing I found out is that the Marlin shouldn't use a boolit that heavy! 260-grains is tops, due to the twist rate of the rifling. Crap on a stick! Oh, well, load the revolver rounds, says I, and maybe I'll melt down the remaining 310s and recast them as 240 SWCs, I have that mould.
I primed up 50 new Starline cases with LPPs, and ran them through the expander die. I decided to skip the usual step of building a dummy or two, so I put the powder in one case to make this load:
| 310gr LSWC | 21.5 gr | H110 | 1,275 fps | 1.749" | Win LP | Admin |
So, I decided to short the powder a full grain and load 20.5 grains of H110. Weighed it out and funneled it into the case, lined up the case and boolit under the seating die, set almost wide open, since that 1.749" might just be too long for the die. I push on the RCBS handle...and the boolit stops cold a full quarter-inch from the seating cannelure. Powder compression limit. This COAL is right up to the 1.9" area, way too long for any .44 Magnum gun, and probably going to be way over SAAMI pressure if it was ever capped off.
Then I make a primerless, powderless dummy, it COALs out at 1.66" just at the start of the cannelure, and I now have to acquire a syringe to fill the hull with a measured amount of water to see how much room there actually IS in there for powder, then calculate the powder so as to be in SAAMI limits. I suspect that I'll use Unique, and I suspect that the load will be between 8.5 and 10.0 grains, but some science lies ahead here.
The usual bleg applies: any one with experience in 44 maggy 310-gr Bear loads please chime in.
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