Trailrider,
Thank you for your data. I find that Hodgdon Universal and Alliant Unique are almost identical in burning rate.
Rowdy Fulcher,
I have found that a capacity load of 25.0 grs of RL7 under a 427098 bullet will replicate the original b.p. load.
There is a very small amount of unburned or partially burned powder due to the low chamber pressure but the load does work well.
Also, for some reason, if one wants to shoot a heavier 240 gr bullet in their 44-40, 23.5 / RL7 will do almost 1,300 f.p.s. in a 24" barrel at pressures that are safe in a '73 Winchester.
Coal Creek Griff,
Thank you for your test results. Alliant only showed the RL 7 loading with the 240 gr lead bullet. I decided to try it with the 427098 (213 grs) which seats a bit deeper in the case than a standard 200 gr cast bullet. 25 grs was pretty much a capacity load so that is what I tried with a good solid crimp over the front driving band.
I did find that by using 155 Federal primers (magnum pistol) velocities were more uniform.
Here are my readings from a 5 shot string in the 21" barrel.... 1260/1263/1256/1255/1258 fps - very consistant
Accuracy was first rate as well - 5 shot 1 1/4" groups @ 50 yards.
I first saw the RL7 load for the 44-40 in a Hercules Powder Pamphlet about 20 years ago. When Alliant acquired Hercules they copied the same data in their powder pamphlets up until a few years ago. Don't know why, but there were a number of other loadings for a number of other cartridges that were eliminated as well. Hmmm.....
Lyman does show 8.6 / Unique as maximum giving 1,226 f.p.s. in a 24" barrel with a 200 gr cast bullet. I would expect it to be very close to that in a 20" barrel. By comparison Alliant shows 8.0 grs as max. but with a 200 gr jacketed bullet.
I would suspect the powder was positioned to the rear of the case in those tests with the velocities being less if the powder was not positioned to the back of the case.
If you do run some tests with Unique, please let us know what your test results are.
w44wcf