.44/40 and Titegroup

[Carlsen Highway]

Does anyone load the .44/40 with this powder? (This is for 200g jacketed bullets in a Rossi 92)
I am interested in making hunting loads of around 1500 fps in a carbine.
Is there anything to recommend it over H4227 other than economy?

Any experiences of interest.

[w30wcf]

I load Titegroup in 6.2 gr doses under a 200 gr cast bullet. Velocity runs around 1,150 f.p.s. and produces very good accuracy.
That s the recommended max load from Hodgdon to meet SAMMI MAP for the .44-40. It is too fast burning to reach your 1,500 f.p.s. goal.

4227 would be a much better choice. 20 grs / H4227 should get you there. (NOT FOR TOGGLE LINK RIFLES!)

[OldWin]

While I've never used Titegroup, I can vouch for w30wcf's advice on 4227. I've loaded 19.0gr of it under a 200gr. jacketed bullet with excellent results.

[Sixgun]

While I've never used Titegroup, I can vouch for w30wcf's advice on 4227. I've loaded 19.0gr of it under a 200gr. jacketed bullet with excellent results.

Jay,
While you have never used Tightgroup, have you ever used Tightazz?

Hey, Tightgroup is like Bullseye. EVERYONE wants a piece of the action.......6 grains in the 44-40.38-40,45 Colt, 44 Spl. Or the 44 mag. will yield subsonic velocities and excellent accuracy.----6

[3leggedturtle]

RL7 will give what you want. The Alliant website has the charge and PSI.

[OldWin]

Hey Six,
I've used em.........but I sure ain't got one.

I will have to try it, I like the universal charge solution for the old pistol cartridges.

[M. M. Wright]

I load mostly ffg in 44-40 but keep a box of 200 grain XTPs loaded over H110, (WW296) for use in the '92 ONLY. I have a couple of 73s in 44-40 so am careful to keep these loads away from them and my Colts. Notice I didn't say how much H110? Unless you're willing to work up slowly stick to what the Hogdon manual says.

[earlmck]

I don't think we addressed Carlsen Highway's question very well, since most of us 44/40 shooters are either shooting old guns or are loading new guns for cowboy-action velocity ranges. But reloading for the 44/40 is real similar to loading for the 45 Colt: the reloading books have to assume you are feeding one of the old black powder rifles or revolvers and keep pressures down accordingly. But if you are shooting this ammunition in a Rossi rifle or something of similar strength, and your are interested in generating more powerful loads for a hunting situation, it would be nice to have some load data equivalent to those "Ruger only" loads some books show (or used to show?) for 45 Colt loads -- loads ranging up in the 30 to 35 K psi pressure level.

I played around with this idea in "QuickLoad" a bit. And indeed it looks like if you really wanted to do so you could hit the 1500 fps velocity level using Titegroup without unduly stressing a Rossi. You would, however, have something generating over 30K psi that you wouldn't want anywhere near one of the old revolvers or rifles chambered for the cartridge back "in the day", and your case life might be not so great.

That said, if you really want some hunting level loads with a jacketed bullet you would be better served to use H4227 or H110 or Lil' gun powder. Using the H110 or Lil' gun you are probably going to be a lot closer to 1900 or 2000 fps before they start burning good and clean, with pressures close to 30K psi.

On the other hand, if my objective was a load at 1500 fps with the jacketed bullet I would use Blue Dot (because I have that one on the shelf) but Power Pistol would also look really good, or Hodgdon's Long Shot, or Accurate's #5 or #7 or Ramshot's True Blue or Silhouette --- depending on what I could find or had on the shelf. These medium-burning rate pistol powders would make 1500 fps loads that burn clean at around the 20K psi level and give that 1500 fps velocity level with no strain (for the Rossi action).

I also have a Rossi in 44/40, but have done no loading with either Titegroup or the Hodgden ball powders: all my messing has been with plain-based cast bullets and Green Dot, just because I have great gobs of Green Dot, and I don't have any real need to develop a hunting load. I hadn't worried about pressures with the Green Dot (which is similar to Titegroup for burning range) because the plain-based bullets get too fast for good accuracy somewhere around the 20K psi range which certainly doesn't even get your attention when shooting something such as a Rossi. Though it would, of course, be well above SAAMI specs which are based on black-powder pressure levels.

[M. M. Wright]

Earl,
I developed the load I was talking in a Winchester '92 that had a 4340 barrel but they work fine in the Rossi I currently have. I guess I should set up the chrono and see just how fast they really are. I had guessed them to be around 17 or 1800 from the 20 inch barrel, quite accurate and devastating on deer.

[Carlsen Highway]

Thanks for your considered replies.
I have already used 24.0 grains of H4227 with 200 g XTP's in two other Rossi .44/40's with success; my question arises because I really only have two choices of powder for this cartridge where I am - either H4227 or Titegroup. And so I wondered about Titegroup. Also, I am cheap. I could see myself living off the same bottle of Titegroup for the rest of my days.

Since I am shooting a modern Rossi 92, I treat the .44/40 cartridge like I do the .257 Roberts; downloaded for no real good reason. The exact same rifle with the same barrels shoot .44 Magnum, the only difference is the cut of the chamber, and the .44/40 has slightly larger case capacity although brass will be weaker.
But my point is not to run it like a .44 Magnum, but rather to run traditional HV loads. The gallery loads for cowboy action shooting and the SAAMI pressures have hogtied a perfectly adequate hunting cartridge I reckon.
I use it on red deer and I have an 18 day packrafting and hiking trip 80km into a wilderness area coming up in beginning of January. The little carbines are perfect for this kind of thing (and were what they were used for in the old days too.) I am taking the .44/40 and my mate is taking a Win 94 .30/30.

[w30wcf]

I would definitely not use Titegroup to try and achieve the early W.H.V. velocity (1,580 f.p.s.). A little too much and pressures will soar! Not good.
Probably ok for close to 1,400 f.p.s. velocities though.

Back then the factories used Sharpshooter or SR80 which have burning rates closer to 2400 which is a bit slower than 4227.

In my Marlin .44-40 w/ 24" barrel
200 gr. Winchester bullet
H4227E / 22 grs = 1,685 f.p.s. average

200 gr. Speer H.P.
H4227E / 26 grs. = 1,880 f.p.s. average - Some cases show a potential case head separation if fired again.

w30wcf

[earlmck]

It's great to have some real data to check against QuickLoad's predictions. Thanks, John!

So for w30wcf's 22 gr H4227/200 Win bullet, 24" bbl, QL thinks you'd get 1620 fps at 20K psi -- a most pleasant load I'd think.

And the 26 grains H4227/200 Speer, QL thinks 1890 fps and a bit over 30K psi. So if that is resulting in very short case life that would tell us those 44/40 cases just aren't made to take 30K psi even though the gun is fine with it.

And since reaching that 1500 fps level using the Titegroup would considerably exceed 30K psi, this is maybe not a good idea at all. But QL thinks something like 8.5 grains of the stuff would get 1350 fps at 24K psi. This would do in a deer and still allow the cases to live a decent life if you just have to use Titegroup. Sure get a lot of shootin' in with a pound of powder that way.

And MM -- QL thinks you'd get 1800 fps out of your 20" barrel with 25 grains of the H110, and pressure about 23K.

For all this calculating I used a COAL of 1.59". And with these short fat cases, slight changes in COAL make big differences in pressure, so take my contributions with many grains of salt!

[w30wcf]

earlmck,
Thank you for the additional information. Previously, I had done some interpolation of .44 Mag pressures with similar loads.

The cases were R-P which had been fired several times before with standard loads. They weigh about 15% less than Winchester and Starline brass and thus the case walls are a bit thinner. Perhaps they would hold up a bit better than the R-P in the higher pressure loads.

w30wcf