.44 magnum light loads

[PaShoot]

The 29/629 guns are known to loosen up if fed with a long term diet of full house loads. We've got one in the family and my mother really doesn't feed it a lot of full speed stuff. It's her's afterall.
I know what happens when you take after a smith with high pressure loads for thousands of rounds; I did it to a 586 357 mag. It grew to 12 thou. cyllinder gap from about 4 thou.

Could you please expand on your definition of a full house load? I hear it all the time but I would like to know some pressure specifications for what is termed an unsuitable load for a 629? Thanks for any insight.

 

[johnler]

Trickymissfit: Thank you so much for posting specifics on loads. There are some people out here, me, that think a 125gr bullet at 1380fps does not qualify as a pleasant plinking load. I think that a 230gr bullet trickling out at 830fps is a light plinking load that I can shoot. 250gr bullets at 900fps out of a 6 inch barrel revolver also fall into that category. 1380fps for a 260gr bullet would qualify for a light plinking load out of my Marlin 1894S but it also a pretty deadly short range load on anything I am likely to find in West Texas. Answering a question of this type is kind of like finding a movie critic that agrees with you and then using their reviews to select movies for viewing. You have to have a reference point.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Could you please expand on your definition of a full house load? I hear it all the time but I would like to know some pressure specifications for what is termed an unsuitable load for a 629? Thanks for any insight.

Max pressure loads, as in factory or hotter. Basically don't shoot rocks and dynamite silhouette loads all the time; try to keep it to 30Kpsi or less like you would for most lead.
Most serious steel shooters will shoot ruger, dan, freedom, TC, rem xp, not smith; there were of course a few pistols other than those though. I shot at a range in OR. with a bunch of them many moons ago.
The smith x frame is another animal; they are built pretty well and I suspect would hold up to thousands of rounds of stiff loads.

 

[Trickymissfit]

The 29/629 guns are known to loosen up if fed with a long term diet of full house loads. We've got one in the family and my mother really doesn't feed it a lot of full speed stuff. It's her's afterall.
I know what happens when you take after a smith with high pressure loads for thousands of rounds; I did it to a 586 357 mag. It grew to 12 thou. cyllinder gap from about 4 thou.

I shoot a lot of H110 in my 44 mag T/C barrels, and often with that same cast lead bullet. 1750fps is about it with the 12" barrel, and there seems to be very little gain in the 14" barrel with H110. The same loads I shoot in my 629 will clock at nearly 1600fps with the 12" barrel.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

Could you please expand on your definition of a full house load? I hear it all the time but I would like to know some pressure specifications for what is termed an unsuitable load for a 629? Thanks for any insight.

simply the term refers to a near max load in a certain caliber, or a max load for the particular firearm in question. And example would be shooting the 44 mag in a 629 verses doing the same in a T/C or Dan Wesson. The latter two will handle a lot hotter loads than the 629 will. Years back I had a lengthy conversation with the folks at Smith & Wesson over this and a couple other issues. The person I spoke with was part of their silhouette team. They're good people.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

Trickymissfit: Thank you so much for posting specifics on loads. There are some people out here, me, that think a 125gr bullet at 1380fps does not qualify as a pleasant plinking load. I think that a 230gr bullet trickling out at 830fps is a light plinking load that I can shoot. 250gr bullets at 900fps out of a 6 inch barrel revolver also fall into that category. 1380fps for a 260gr bullet would qualify for a light plinking load out of my Marlin 1894S but it also a pretty deadly short range load on anything I am likely to find in West Texas. Answering a question of this type is kind of like finding a movie critic that agrees with you and then using their reviews to select movies for viewing. You have to have a reference point.

I could have made my post a little clearer (never have great writting composition skills as most of you know by now). If I were looking at low pressure plinking loads for the 44 mag, I'd be looking at powders like AA#7 and AA#5 along with HS7 under a 200 grain bullet. A 260 grain bullet at 1380 fps out of an 1894 Marlin would be a light load. With an 18" barrel length, #9 runs out of steam too soon. That's where H110 starts to kick in big time. A good compairison would be with 21.0 grains of #9 and the 250 grain cast bullet. In an 8" barrel it was good for about 1380 fps. In a 20" barrel that same load should give you about 1550 fps with no other changes. In a jacketed bullet you'd probably loose about 30 to 40 fps in both guns. Yet the chamber pressures in both guns will be similar.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

Max pressure loads, as in factory or hotter. Basically don't shoot rocks and dynamite silhouette loads all the time; try to keep it to 30Kpsi or less like you would for most lead.
Most serious steel shooters will shoot ruger, dan, freedom, TC, rem xp, not smith; there were of course a few pistols other than those though. I shot at a range in OR. with a bunch of them many moons ago.
The smith x frame is another animal; they are built pretty well and I suspect would hold up to thousands of rounds of stiff loads.

I'd love to see S&W do the .375, .416, and the .445 Supermags in their X frame revolver. I shoot the .445 in a 14" barrel with 300 grain bullets, and it's some serious magic! I have shot five shot groups with that bullet at nearly 1700fps average. Problem is that there were really only two owders that seemed to work well, and Winchester no longer makes 680. AA1680 works nearly as well. Recoil is very serious!
gary