44 mag load

I am looking to build up a load for my SBH and Desert Eagle, both in 44 mag. I am looking at a 260 grain swaged jacketed bullet backed by Unique. Not interested in other powders right now. The only load I could find handily was topping out at 9.3 grains of Unique. Some of the older books were showing 240 grn bullets with as much as 12 grns of Unique. Any suggestions how high I can go with the Unique in the above two guns. Please nothing about other powders I am only interested in Unique right now.

well humpf powder bigot.
in 250gr lead I use 10.0 gr unique with a standard LP primer. I dont load jacketed with unique but its a good powder for that. Since you dont wanna know I aint tellin you what i use for my jacketed LMAO.

Realy what I am looking for is enough pressure to function the slide on the DE without blowing up the SBH. If you own a Desert Eagle you know what I am talking about.

Many years ago I had an old 1st generation .44 Mag DE with dual SxS recoil springs. Cleaning that damn thing I used to launch the slide, barrel, and recoil springs many times across the room until I got the pin seated.

I understand your loading issues for the DE. I have used around (something in the low teens) gr of Unique before and had no problems with function in either gun.

I never have ignition issues using reg large pistol primers unless shooting in sub zero weather and then use mag primers solves ignition hesitation.

I no longer have a self-loading .44, but I have my notes somewhere for when I loaded for the DE.

In my Encore and G2 Contenders .44 mag barrels low teen charges of Unique are no problem even with 310 gr semi-jacketed soft points.

I still have the Ruger SBH with it's 10" barrel but sadly I let the DE go in a sale for something more interesting (caugh LAR Grizzly in .45 Win Mag caugh caugh.)

I'd start loads around the 10 gr zone and slowly worked up watching for signs of overpressure.

In my Encore .44x356 barrel chambered by Mike Bellm we have loaded charges of Unique in the stupid zone and we got nervous before the gun started showing signs of overpressure.

So Scorge, from what you are saying I should be able to safely go 11 or 12 grns unique (working from 11 to 12 carefully) without a problem? I know the 10 grns with a 180 grn jacket I loaded is like shooting a 44 spl.

The reason I am asking is because in all the manuals the heavier the bullet the lighter the powder charge and I didn't know if there is significant difference between the older powders from the 70's and the newer powders.

My DE is a first gen with the small slide release and safety tang. I once tried to fire some factory blazer (beer can ammo) and it jammed almost every time. Took one of the finest made semi's and turned it into a single shot. I have never bought centerfire blazer again.

I am not saying you cannot do what your asking. I would be very cautious about it. I went down in my load room and dug out some old Hercules Load data. (the people who owned the company before Alliant) they stop listing loads using Unique at 250 gr lead and are using 10.6 grains max. then they switch to slower powder like 2400 and even RL-7. I know the DE is a tough son of a gun but you could end up eating it. I Know you aren't interested in slower powders. But maybe you should be. For the 44mag and doing what you are wanting to do H110,2400,4227,AA#9 are all much better choices. they will give you the pop your looking for and keep your gun intact. my .02 if its worth that

Reload3006 wrote:I am not saying you cannot do what your asking. I would be very cautious about it. I went down in my load room and dug out some old Hercules Load data. (the people who owned the company before Alliant) they stop listing loads using Unique at 250 gr lead and are using 10.6 grains max. then they switch to slower powder like 2400 and even RL-7. I know the DE is a tough son of a gun but you could end up eating it. I Know you aren't interested in slower powders. But maybe you should be. For the 44mag and doing what you are wanting to do H110,2400,4227,AA#9 are all much better choices. they will give you the pop your looking for and keep your gun intact. my .02 if its worth that

I used 2400 when I first started decades ago and loved it. I used 296 for a short time and it was OK. The nice thing about those is it is absolutly impossible to trow a double charge.

I currently have an eight pound jug of Unique and if I don't use it in my 44's I'll die before I use it all.

I loaded up some 260's with 9 grns of Unique and will try them out this week I hope and see if they work the action. I'll work up by half grains from there.

Another off topic for this thread question for you and anyone else who uses them. Do you find extreme differences in the weight of same head stamp brass you use for jackets?

yes I do and how I get around that is I put a piece of trimmed brass on my scale and swage the core to match the jacket. In other words i put my trimmed brass on the scale and if im looking for a 300 grain bullet I do one of 2 things I either add bird shot to get to the weight or I swage the cores to get there but yea its a one at a time thing.

I know what you mean about having a lot of powder I have or had about 24lbs of sr4756 and started using in in everything you would be surprised at how fast it goes.

The DE pistols are tough but I would be very careful around those max charges. I used a lot of H110 and H4227 in my DE, as well as some Unique because it was cheap and I have some laying around.

My old 1st gen DE did not mind charges of Unique in the low teens, but I did not shoot a lot of them and not rapid fire. It was a fun Javelina load when I was hunting with both the SBH and the DE in southern Arizona.

I learned the importance of carefully marking wihch loads are for which which gun because I never intentionally loaded the low teen loads of Unique with a 310 gr SP bullet for the DE. They were loaded for the SBH with its 10" barrel.

I was still new to reloading and owning guns of my own in the late '80s and made some mistakes. I got the boxes of ammo mixed up and was not as cautious as I should have been. I was lucky that the DE is such a robust weapon and survived my stupidity.

The DE did shoot the ammo just fine and I did not notice any appreciable wear or damage from the half dozen or so rounds I shot (damn sneaky Javelina).

I still have a big ol' 8 lb can of Unique that I inherited long time ago and have been slowly using it up. I use a 8 gr charge of Unique to fireform .30 and .357 Herrett (although I prefer a 5 gr charge of Bullseye) with cheap bulk surplus 150 gr and 158 gr jacketed softpoint bullets.

I probably won't ever buy Unique on my own but I like to use powder I have rather than toss it in the wife's flower garden.