44 Mag load with Barnes 225 gr bullet

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Stumps13

Single-Sixer
Joined
Feb 13, 2009
Messages
471
Location
N Ind
looking for a rifle load for my Encore 44 mag rifle using a Barnes 225 grain bullet.
Thanks
Stumps13
 

BuckRimfire

Bearcat
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
66
Hodgdon's website has load data for that bullet, but only for Accurate/Ramshot powders. At least as of this moment, AA#9 and Enforcer (same powder as AA4100) are available from them. I've always wanted to try Enforcer...

Alternately, I'd try the data for a similar LENGTH bullet in the lead-core JHP class and use H110 or Lil'Gun, maybe dropping down a grain from starting load and working up cautiously for any signs of sticky ejection. I'd be pretty surprised if 22 grains of H110 wasn't safe, and you might be able to sneak up from there.

It's generally said that any amount of IMR4227 that you can get into a .43 Magnum is safe. I use 23.5 grains under 240 JHPs and it is somewhat compressed at that load. They aren't as fast as high-test H110 loads, but they're almost as accurate. I'd say figure out how much fills the case exactly to the base of the bullet, and try that and also a half-grain more.

And finally, if you're trying to cheap out by using less of a faster powder (which sounds like a bad idea to me, and probably unproductive in a rifle-length barrel), you're on your own, except that I'd think about Longshot.

All of these powders are currently in stock at Hodgdon.
 

BuckRimfire

Bearcat
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
66
Looking in my Lyman 49 manual had no help for your Barnes bullet, but I did see something that might be interesting: That manual has data for .43 Mag* in both rifle and handgun length barrels. For both 225 gr and 240 gr jacketed, the gap between 4227 and Unique got larger in the rifle (about 300 FPS difference in rifle), but the gap between 4227 and H110 got smaller, going from about 200 FPS in the handgun to a little under 100 FPS in rifle, on average.

That suggests to me that in addition to being a very safe powder in .43 Mag, 4227 is more suited to your rifle than a hangun. This makes sense, as it's pretty much the slowest-burning powder you can use in a handgun cartridge. When fired in my revolvers, I always find partially burned grains of 4227. It would be interesting to see if that goes away in a rifle.

The other nice things about 4227 are A. nobody wants it, so it's the last powder to disappear during a component panic and B. it seems to be very gentle on the bullets. I had a bag of RMR plated 240 grain bullets that shot not great but OK over a full load of 4227, but looked like I'd been firing buckshot when using a load of Longshot that, by the book, should have produced at most a similar velocity. My guess was that the faster burning powder was causing them to hit the rifling harder and tearing up the plating.

*To explain this: Not a typo. Some joking-not-joking honesty on my part, since some .45 Colt guys get SO excited about the 23 thousandths difference between .44 Magnum and .45 Colt bullets. ;^)
 

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