Lee 215 gr PB .44 bullet?

[Chuck 100 yd]

Anybody try the Lee 215gr. PB bullet in the .44 mag.?
While going through my stuff today I found the Lee 215 gr.
SWC mold.
I bought it for the Marlin 1894 but neither of my rifles would feed it well.
I want to load some in the Super Black Hawk for plinking and target punching.
Unique or Red Dot or 800X or ???
Have you used them and with what load??
Thanks

[Hecter]

I have been shooting this bullet for several years. I like wheel weights mixed with soft lead for target work. This will make bullet weigh a little more. 7-8grs. of Unique powder or 6-6.5 titegroup work real well. I shoot it in a ruger redhawk and a smith 29. They shoot very good.

[earlmck]

I've never shot that type bullet in my 44 Chuck, but I'm interested. Not seeing any responses to your question from fellers with actual experience, I fired up "QuickLoad" to see what it says. Now I plugged in 6.5" barrel and 1.61" COAL. Remember COAL is a biggy with pistol cartridges and a little change in that can shift pressures wildly). So according to this ballistic program, which is just for information and not something to take to the bank (but I do use it for starting ideas when I don't have data from manuals) --

Looking at Red Dot, 5 grains gets a bit over 800 fps with black-powder level pressures (12K psi) and 9.5 grains would get 1200 fps with full blown 44 mag level pressures. Velocity climbs about 90 fps per grain from that 5 grain level.

With Unique, 7 grains gets 900 fps at black-powder (12K) pressure levels and climbs approximately 80 fps per grain until it hits full 44 mag pressure level (35K) with 12.5 grains giving 1350 fps.

So there are some ideas depending on what sort of velocity levels you are wanting. I'd say you have the right powders picked out to play with.

edited to note that Hecter chimed in while I was playing with Quickload, and looks like his info fits right in.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Hecter , earlmck , Thanks for the reply's guys. I cast some up
using 50/50 alloy and plan to stay near the bottom end on velocity due to the pb but I am aware that some bullets need a fair kick in the butt to obtutate enough to prevent leading so that's in the plan also.

I also cast up some Lyman 429421 245 gr. Keith type that have given great accuracy results in the past but also don`t cooperate when trying to get them to feed in rifles.
Those I cast up out of wheel weights + tin + about 10%
extra hard bird shot. That alloy will oven heat treat to about
Brinell #30 as I made it up for the .308 and bench rest paper punching.
I will chrono some loads and report in a couple weeks.
Thanks again