Another horrible day with the 1894 44 mag.

0.4335- 0.434. I use the NOE expander that goes in a lee universal expander die.
My RCBS expander will mess up a case before it opens up the case mouth enough to allow for bullet seating.

Outside dimension, not inside. Sorry, I wasn't clear. I want to see if I have a seater that is large enough to handle the belled case.

Here's some of the better groups from today. I tightened up some of the action screws.
I am not sure what's going on still. Seems I always get a crazy flyer. Most of the time it's the first or last shot.

That 240 shoots better in mine than anything I have tried.
I really want NOE to make the 240 RD they have a discussion thread about. That should be a good shooter.

What's strange and is the 240gr bullet target those bottom two shots were the first and the last shot.

The 240's shot horrible with lighter powder charges. I may have to try going up another half a grain.

Mine does the same. First or last is out, the middle few rounds go where I want. I get the vertical too.

H110 will pretty much always shoot best at max charge.

21gr H110/265gr 4/5 shots in 1" at 50 yards is promising. What lube? Maybe too much or too slippery lube. Uneven case length makes for uneven crimp so can cause flyers. Changing primers might also help. I would be working hard to iron out the wrinkles of that load.

I'm gonna try it again with new brass. I have been using just mixed brass.
I'm lubing these with 6-6-6-1 lube.

Much more important than the crimp unless the case length varies by a lot is neck tension. Even if all the brass is from the same lot is if some has been fired say 12 times and others only a couple of times neck tension varies by enough to open groups a lot. Crimp will help with bullet jump under recoil and of course should be consistent but neck tension is more important in grouping.

You can see from the below crimp testing that from a heavy crimp to no crimp at all the chrono results (and the groups) did not change. Neck tension however in these tests were uniform throughout.

Crimp Tests
FA 357 Mag 9”
RCBS 180 GC Silhouette @ 192 gr. (WW HT @ 18 BHN)

16.0 gr. H-110
Winchester brass
CCI 550 primer
Temp 70 Humidity 38%

All chrono tests 10 shots

1>
My normal profile crimp, second firing of WW brass, Carbide die sized
E.S. 30
A.V. 1518
S.D. 9

2>
Roll crimp, second firing of WW brass, Carbide die sized
E.S. 30
A.V. 1520
S.D. 9

3>
No crimp, second firing of WW brass, Carbide die sized, very slight bell
E.S. 30
A.V. 1528
S.D. 9

4>
Light profile crimp, virgin WW brass, not sized, not expanded, slight bell only
E.S. 26
A.V. 1532
S.D. 8

5>
My normal profile crimp, virgin WW brass, not sized, not expanded, slight bell only
E.S. 26
A.V. 1536
S.D. 8
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I need to prep another 100 cases and go back to new brass. Mine must have 10+ firings on them. Key is that every case has the same number of firings. All cases get fired then all are sized, cleaned, and flared together. Trying my best to keep them all as similar as possible.

Darn consistent results in that FA, Rick. A 192 grainer at ~1525 FPS is honking it right along. I thought that running #358156 at 1550 FPS and #358430 at 1400 FPS was intrepid--I'm a piker. (Ruger BisHawk x 7.5")

I have seen 50 fps velocity difference between brass brands when using 19.3 grs of 2400.
airc it went win 1600, rem 1625, and s-line 1650 all with the same powder and primer and boolits.

if the rossi giving you grief is a newer taurossi I'd look at first the twist rate then measure the [cough432] bore and see what you come up with.

Al, that's my silhouette load. I should have included the standard disclaimer about Freedom Arms load ONLY. The 357 is inadequate for the 200 meter rams with most revolvers. The Model 83 is built on the same frame and cylinder as the FA 454. With the smaller caliber there is even more meat around the chambers and the FA handles these loads easily.
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On the subject of lack of uniform neck tension with different # of firing cases would it not be beneficial to anneal these?

I've got the BC-1000 auto case annealing machine from Ken Light and it is a high quality very well made machine. This is it with the 357 cartridge wheel. The science of brass annealing is pretty clear cut and works quite well. If it didn't the factory couldn't anneal brass and if they couldn't they couldn't make brass at all. That said there is also an art involved in getting the required uniformity with straight wall revolver brass. I didn't trust my ability to achieve the uniformity required for long range revolver competition brass and used new brass for major matches. It seems to me that bottle neck brass is easier to achieve needed uniformity but long runs of straight wall brass perhaps not so much.


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But does proper annealing level the playing field somewhat with mixed-fired brass? I never really have tested that, I'm pretty anal about keeping lots grouped and labeled for firing count.

I dunno Ian, I have never made such a comparative test either. Trying to apply some common sense I would think that if you have a lot of known mis-matched brass all fired different amounts and in different firearms that even less than perfect annealing should be an improvement and probably is the way to go for brass not destined for a long range National Championship events. The competition and not trusting my ability to achieve max uniformity across a fairly large lot of brass was my concern. Don't take anything I have said here as being anti-annealing, I am not.
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Ian I am going to start being anal about it. I messaged Rick about this last night and he said he buys new brass and puts it into ammo boxes. None of it gets reloaded until it's all fired to maintain uniformity.
This will be what I do from now on. Problem is I have coffee cans of mixed fired brass.

Don't discount annealing for your old brass. Much depends on what the intended use of the ammo is, the distance you plan on shooting it, the ability of your revolver and your goals and what you personally consider good. When I was at a match if I missed a target I wanted no doubt in my mind that it was me that missed and not a short cut in the loading room. I loaded accordingly and basically picked the fly poop out of the pepper barrel.
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I have another mould like the 245 gr I sent Brad, if you see his results I can send it off to you with your checks. It is a duplicate of the 240 gr Speer HP.