I got a GP 100, 3 inch barrel .44 special for Christmas. I worked up a bunch of loads for it and when finally got to shoot it I found out the front sight was too short. I went ahead a shot everything I had worked up using a very low aming point. I rectified that with a new sight from Dawson's. I came in last week I and finally got time to install it and figured it would be a good time to go ahead and tumble the brass from load development. I used the Keith bullet and the 240 gr OWC from Montana Bullet Works and 3 types of powder, HS-7, 2400 and Unique. This is where it gets weird. I noticed the brass using Unique didn't have the crimp ironed out and had a lot of soot up the case, almost like an under power load. None of the other loads were like this. When I tried wiping it off I realized that a lot of the soot was bullet lube. Going back to my data, both bullets were loaded on top of 7.5grns of Unique and was lit of using a standard CCI LP. These were the only loads using Unique. The velocities were as expected with the Keith bullet averaging at 880fps and the OWC at 928fps. Has anyone seen anything like this? I am thinking before I load any thing back up I will get some magnum primers for the Unique. My 5inch doesn't like Unique either so do I drop it all together or do I try same magnum primers? 2400 does good out of both guns but see below.
I am also sad the HS-7 gave me the best groups and lowest standard deviation of all the loads tested. 13grns gave me 948fps with the Keith and 12grns with the OWC was 942fps, these are my pet loads for the 5 inch. Both 10 shot groups stacked in a inch and a half from 20 yards. HS-7 also shoots very well out of the 5 inch with me being able to keep a 3 inch group at 50 off of a bagged rest. It is sad that this is a discontinued powder. I only have 1 1/2 pounds of this powder left.
Thanks, FES