Quote:
Originally Posted by orion1
I am loading some .44 magnum rounds. I plan on using 240 grain JHP bullets. I saw a recent thread on here saying that 10 grains of Unique powder was a good load (previously the biggest load of Unique that I had used was 9.5 grains). So I go to my Speer Manuals. Speer #13 gives a range of 9.2-10.3 grains of Unique for that bullet with the later being in bold, indicating that it is a maximum load. Speer #10 gives a range of 11.6-12.6 grains of Unigue with the same caution at the high end. Which brings me to my question: why such a large disparity? Has the powder changed over the years? Is it a fear of liabilty?
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I agree with you - there are a lot of questions with that load. First of all, I wonder why anybody would buy a 44mag and then download it to 357mag/45acp levels. Second, if somebody really wants to load it to 44mag levels, why are they using Unique?
Fast pistol powders are fine for 900fps plinkers. There are lots of fast pistol powders that will do that and just because Abraham Lincoln used Unique, doesn't mean that there aren't better powders for the task. Pretty easy to blow up a revolver by over-charging with fast pistol powders. We get pictures posted every now and then of formerly nice revolvers turned into scrap metal.
I personally prefer a powder that is darn hard to double-charge without noticing, and not so fast that a couple tenths of a grain is pushing the pressure limits.
Here is some 4" 44mag load data you might find useful.