ball and bullet in a .44?

[Primer]

Is anyone casting their own bullets to go in their .44 muzzle load revolvers , if so what size and weight bullet are you casting and what make of die are you using ?

Or does everyone just shoot ball?

[dromia]

Discussed this recently.

At our pistol ranges there is no real accuracy benefit from conicals over ball, however in saying that I have just had a set of moulds from a fellow in the US who had Lee cut some custom moulds for him, it is a wide flat nose design for hunting and the few I have shot so far have impressed me.

The standard conical is the Lee and works well enough but as I have said ball is just as good and probably more accurate at 25yrds, shooting ball from my Pedersoli 1858 Target at 100 yrds I can hold a sheet of A4 paper shooting rested, the odd shots that don't hit the paper are due exclusively to operator error.

The only thing about conicals is that the loading opening at the base of the frame where the seating rod comes through might need opening up with a Dremel or such like tool, best to check your revolver with the bullet you intend to use to see if this necessary.

Look back a few threads for the previous discussion.

[1066]

I never could improve on a good swaged ball (much as I've tried) I have always thought I would do some experiments with full wadcutters in the interest of pure accuracy.
This would mean removing the cylinder to load and using a separate press to seat the bullet. The idea is still in the "in tray", I've never got round to giving it a try.

I've shot loads of centrefire groups from a Ransom machine rest and full wadcutters are capable of really excellent accuracy at usual pistol ranges. Ragged hole groups from 4-5 inch barrelled target pistols were not unusual at 25 yards.

[Triffid]

I've shot Lee balls, Lee conicals and Lee REAL's in my Ruger Old Army.

Quite honestly there's not much difference in accuracy between them, I just enjoy tinkering. Ball is much the easiest / quickest to load.

Triffid

[Primer]

If I was to tinker with conicals what Lee mold would I look at, Kranks list this:

LEE MOULD DC .450-200-1R

As the option for .44 muzzleloader revolvers, would that produce the correct fit as the Pietta manual says to use .454 ball?

[dromia]

You really need to measure your cylinders to get a suitable ball size as they do vary.

I use the conical that you have referred to, cast oversize and then sized to fit. That will depend on what your particular mould drops and what your alloy is. Lee dimensions are all over the place and their QC is non existent.

My Pedersoli likes 0.451" ball, my Ubertis and Piettas like everything from 0.452" to 0.455" +.