Hi all,
I've been handloading for 30 years now, but I've never loaded cast bullets in .44 before but I've recently acquired some unusual bullets. I have about 1500 or so out-of-production 260 grain hollow base, hollow point bullets and would like to make some use of them.
I have quite a few powders on hand that should be suitable but I can't find any loading data at all on a bullet of this style & weight. I've always loaded .44 with jacketed bullets, so other than knowing these will need to be loaded lighter to avoid leading, how would you proceed to work up a load?
I plan on punching paper, not hunting. Doing some bowling pin or silhouette would be interesting. I'm not really looking on a super hard hitting round, but I'm quite interested in accuracy.
My .44 Mag firearms I'd like to load for:
8-3/8" Ruger Super Redhawk
6" S&W 629
8-3/8" S&W 629
8" Anaconda
8-3/8" Taurus M44
Powders I have on hand that I suspect may be suitable:
H110
W296
Unique
Red dot
IMR 4227
Hodgdon Longshot
I'm not opposed to buying a different powder if there's something that would be magical with this bullet in .44 Mag.
With all this in mind, and I'll be using published load data as a guide as much as I can, but where would you start?