Light .44 Mag loads

[TomB985]

Hi everyone,

Just got a SBH this week and am absolutely loving it. My wife, however, after two rounds is afraid to shoot it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wi4fD5H_4I

And...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUIX02MYRsU

So long story short, I want to make some light loads for her to try. Being relatively new to reloading and revolvers in general this may be a dumb question, but can I get away with loading magnum brass with .44 special loads? I currently have a pile of Unique that I use for my 9mm, and would love to try the minimum 6.5gr load to see if she likes it better.

What do you guys think?

 

[bwelch47]

At least she's not my wife. My wife would have claimed the SBH as hers. My wife owns 6 44Mag revolvers.

 

[Dale53]

TomB985;
Use a cast bullet (a 250 gr Keith works for me) and use about a grain and a half more Unique in the .44 Magnum than is called for in the .44 Special for similar results.

You may have a problem with Point of Impact being different than your full loads. You can solve that by buying her, her own, Ruger Flattop .44 Special. The gift that keeps on giving...

Dale53

 

[Nowata]

I do not even own Special brass, only mag brass. special loads can be loaded in mag brass. Look at Trail Boss as a light load powder. My plinker load is 6gr. of TB and a 200gr. RNFP, and my deer load is just a warm to hot special, a 260gr WFNGC at a paltry 1100fps. .44 kill's really good, and doesn't really need full power loads to easily drop a deer. Just work up a load carefully for your gun. I have 2, and a third .44mag. will be here in a wk. or so.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

Go with 7.0gr of Unique and a 240gr bullet and you will have an 800fps load like a 44special.

 

[VAdoublegunner]

I use a Speer 240gr swaged LSWC and 8.0gr of WSF in a 44 Mag case. It is clean, very accurate, no leading, and virtually anyone can shoot it.

 

[TomB985]

Thanks guys!

I just gave 7.0 gr a shot with my 240gr MBC bullets and they shot great. The other 15 I loaded were shot with the recommended 10 gr starting load, and they felt a good bit softer than the factory Federal rounds that I shot previously.

Never realized how much smoke Unique throws out until tonight...I'll have to grab some 2400 in the next few days.

Otherwise my first .44 reloading experience went well. I loaded and fired 15 altogether, and with the exception of getting the dies right where I wanted them everything went smoothly. I do have a question though...the 240gr MBC bullets that I bought seem to want to seat deeper than the minimum OAL specified in my Lyman's reloading guide. I don't remember the specifics, but lining the top of the rim with the cannelure puts it a good .03" shorter than minimum. These are supposed to be roll crimped into the cannelure right?

With my minimum loads I wasn't too concerned with an exploding gun, but I want to get this resolved before I try to work up to heavier loads. What do you guys think?

 

[Rclark]

Just roll a light crimp into the crimp groove and your fine. Don't worry about the OAL.

 

[contender]

Welcome to the Forum!

Just a thought, has your wife had much shooting experience? If not, then the 44 mag in any form isn't the best gun to start her off with. I teach a LOT of ladies to shoot & have found that MOST prefer to carefully learn things with a 22 LR & work up to heavier calibers.
No matter how lightly you load the 44 mag,, it'll still have more recoil than the 22 by far.
Way too many ladies got turned off of shooting by being scared by recoil.

 

[TomB985]

Welcome to the Forum!

Just a thought, has your wife had much shooting experience? If not, then the 44 mag in any form isn't the best gun to start her off with. I teach a LOT of ladies to shoot & have found that MOST prefer to carefully learn things with a 22 LR & work up to heavier calibers.
No matter how lightly you load the 44 mag,, it'll still have more recoil than the 22 by far.
Way too many ladies got turned off of shooting by being scared by recoil.

You have a good point, contender. My wife hasn't shot my 22/45 much, but she does have some experience with my el-cheapo .380 and G19 9mm. I say "some" and really mean "nowhere near as much as I'd like!" She says she enjoys the G19 the most, and so I figured that it would be interesting seeing her shoot the new SBH. We can all see how that went! :shock:

I'm going to try and get her behind the 22/45 and G19 some more and perhaps some light .44 loads this weekend. Thanks for the level-headed advice; I get so excited with my new toy that I think everyone will love shooting it as much as I do!

 

[contender]

Ok Tom, let me go a little more indepth.
I can see you enjoy firearms, and want your wife to feel the same way. You first have to understand that very few ladies have the same kinds of feelings about firearms as most men do. Ladies just look at things differently. It's not wrong, just different.
That said, when my Miss Penny & I were first together, she had a bit of fear about firearms in general. She wasn't a gun girl at all.
I never pushed her.
She finally decided she might want to learn to shoot "just for self defense." I agreed that I could teach her. But I also had heard her horror stories about how her ex-husband had her shoot a shotgun, and laughed at her response to recoil. I knew how badly it wnet when her father tried to teach her to drive a stick shift car.
Most men can not teach a lady in their life properly w/o getting emotional & condensending.
I never pushed her.
She decided one day when she knew I was going to my range to shoot that she wanted to go. I added a few guns & ammo for her. Her first experiences with me teaching were slow, patient, CALM instruction. We started with 22's, and close, fun, reactive targets. (Plastic bottles filled with water.) All her shooting was followed by praise & NO demeaning comments. CALM patient proper instruction on safety, grip, stance, sight alignment etc allowed her to learn how to shoot properly. I made the day FUN!!!!
I never pushed her.
She finally got around to the Security-Six 357 mag I have. I had assured her I had some light 38 spl target loads with very mild recoil for her. I demonstrated a few rounds for her to watch my hands in recoil. Then she tried it & found it to be fun and comfortable to shoot. She kept claiming "NO magnum ammo," out of fear. So for several trips to the range, she got to enjoy 22's & 38 spls. After several trips to the range & her comfort level was well estabilished,,, I slipped a 357 mag round in one chamber. She fired it after firing 2 38's, and even shot another 38 after it before she stopped. Her only comment was "Hey, one of those sounded louder." I informed her of the 357 mag round. She wanted to try more, but now with less stress & fear.
A shooter was now educated.
I never pushed her.
She now has several of her own guns, she teaches, works tirelessly for the NRA, was selected as the NC State volunteer for the NRA a few years back, and is a life member.
Yet, she still doesn't care for heavy recoil. BUT,,, she loves to shoot HER guns!

All of this is hopefully getting you to think hard about a few things.
Do not push your wife. In fact,, it is often very helpful if you get her another instructor, (one who enjoys teaching ladies,) and pay for her to attend a class. Better still, get her & a girlfriend of hers to go. By removing yourself from the class,, she will be able to focus on learning to shoot properly, WITHOUT the stress of; "Am I doing it right & is he happy with me?" All too often, even though we don't realize it, ladies worry about our approval of how they do things.

So, while you enjoy your new "toy" not everyone around you is as excited as you are. Accept it for what it is,, and be patient & understanding of her. Allow her to learn & progress at her pace.

 

[Dale53]

contender;
What a thoughtful essay - l the forum management might want to consider making this a "Sticky"...

For the record - I would rather teach a group of women than one man...

Dale53

 

[Thel]

At one time Alliant Powder in their online reloader's guide had some loads for the .44 Special

http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/index.aspx

under Cowboy Loads for a 200 gr bullet. In the past there were more loads listed for the light bullets. I loaded a number using Red Dot and 200 grain bullets and the recoil was quite light in my Redhawk, a lot less than a .38 Special in a medium frame gun. There are probably other sources one could check online at the various powder companies under Cowboy Loads.

 

[Thel]

At one time Alliant Powder in their online reloader's guide had some loads for the .44 Special

http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/index.aspx

under Cowboy Loads for a 200 gr bullet. In the past there were more loads listed for the light bullets. I loaded a number using Red Dot and 200 grain bullets and the recoil was quite light in my Redhawk, a lot less than a .38 Special in a medium frame gun. There are probably other sources one could check online at the various powder companies under Cowboy Loads. Using lighter than 240 grain bullets allows one to reduce the recoil.

 

[TomB985]

Contender, thanks for the well written post! I think you're right about the difference in the way most women feel about guns, and perhaps I should keep that a little more in mind when working with her.

In the past I've tried everything I could to make it fun for her, but she always has some excuse as to why she doesn't want to for some reason. When she does go out shooting with me she typically shoots pretty decent once she remembers how to chamber a round! Her interest level varies frequently, and I've never made fun of her for it. Well...short of posting a video on Youtube I guess.

I loaded 10 low-power loads this morning with 7 grains of Unique, we'll see if she's interested this afternoon in shooting some 9mm and maybe the .44 again.

At one time Alliant Powder in their online reloader's guide had some loads for the .44 Special

http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/index.aspx

under Cowboy Loads for a 200 gr bullet. In the past there were more loads listed for the light bullets. I loaded a number using Red Dot and 200 grain bullets and the recoil was quite light in my Redhawk, a lot less than a .38 Special in a medium frame gun. There are probably other sources one could check online at the various powder companies under Cowboy Loads.

Thanks Thel. I've never had any trouble finding loads for .44 special, my question was more whether or not it was safe to load them in longer magnum brass. I'm not adventurous enough to risk blowing up my guns, so with my newbie level of experience I've always done everything by the book. The Lyman's reloading guide mentions that it can be unsafe to go below the minimum charge because it can actually increase pressure for some odd reason. While it's hard for me to believe that undercharging could blow up the gun, I wanted to be sure. So far so good, and I think she'll like the relatively light recoil!

 

[sandman228]

Go with 7.0gr of Unique and a 240gr bullet and you will have an 800fps load like a 44special.

ditto, thats the exact load i was gonna recomend 7 gr unique 240 gr lswc bullet on a 44 mag case shoots great ive also loaded the same bullet with 7.5 gr herco in 44 spl case or 8 gr herco in a mag case ive also loaded 10 gr bluedot with same bullet in mag cases . it might just be me but it seems i cant pick a bad load for my super blackhawk

 

[Corbi]

My target load is 6.5 grains of Uinique with a 255 grain Keith. It goes 700fps through my 4" Redhawk.

Corbi