Quote:
Originally Posted by DWalt
As an exercise, I used the Quickload interior ballistics program to assess a .44 Russian load using a 180 grain bullet and 4.0 grains of Bullseye. With a 6" barrel, the calculated peak pressure was 6593 psi with a MV of 707 ft/sec. That's very mild. My experience with Quickload is that it provides optimistic MVs, so I would expect (especially in a revolver) a chronographed MV closer to 650 ft/sec. Increasing the bullet weight to 240 grains raises the calculated peak pressure to 7800 psi and drops the MV to 666 ft/sec. Thus my preference for using lighter bullets to keep the peak pressure down.
Substituting Clays for Bullseye and with the same 180 grain bullet, approximately the same MV is achieved with 2.9 grains, but the calculated peak pressure is increased to about 7300 psi.
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I'll add some additional Quickload simulation for the .44 Russian loadings with different propellants than above. Each uses the 180 grain bullet and produces a calculated (nominal ) 700 ft/sec MV (6"). Given are propellant/propellant weight in grains/peak pressure (psi):
Unique/4.6/6505
Red Dot/3.3/7402
Green Dot/3.8/6594
Tite Group/3.6/6933
Universal/4.2/6565
WW 231/4.1/6686
AA #2/4.6/6495
AA #5/6.3/6500
Note that this information is calculated and is comparative only for the .44 Russian and may or may not be accurate for real life results. At least for use in the .44 Russian, the relative quickness ranking of propellants is in inverse proportion to the charge weights (i.e., Clays is the highest and AA #5 is the lowest). The same ranking order may not be correct for the same propellants used for other calibers and bullet weights.