Firearms enthusiast among you will no doubt remember Elmer Keith, the Idaho cowboy that changed the face of wheelgun shooting forever with, among other contributions, his experiments with heavy revolver loads that led to Remington and S&W jointly introducing the .44 magnum. Elmer's favorite load was his old 250 grain semi-wadcutter, Lyman mold # 429421, over 22 grains of Hercules #2400 (thus named because it could achieve 2400 fps with a 40 grain bullet in the old .22 Hornet, the cartridge for which it was intended).
Well, I have been shooting the .44 mag in various revolvers quite literally since I was a kid. I have never been impressed with the old Keith load. In old Elmer's defense, however, his design of the #429421 has not been available in my lifetime. Lyman saw fit to alter some key design features (the crimping and grease grooves) in the interest of producibility. The changes have been widely regarded as compromising the performance of this bullet. So, several years ago, RCBS re-introduced the original design. Being very happy with my "standard" load consisting of the LBT 300 grain LFN over 23 grains of W-W #296 for about 1,200 fps, I never really thought about trying the old Keith design again.
Until last month, when I ordered a mold from my old friend Dave Gullo at Buffalo Arms. I dutifully cast up a bunch and loaded them over 20 grains of Alliant (who bought out Hercules) #2400 (the "new" #2400 is slightly faster than the "old" #2400, so loading manuals now list 20 grains instead of 22 to match Elmer's old load). My new "old" load is on the left, with my 300 grain LBT load on the right:
So, I hit the range with this load and my old Virginian Dragoon this morning, just to fart around a bit and see what it would do. The gun is sighted for my 300 grain load, so I knew the 250 grain load would shoot low. The first cylinder full got my attention - all six went into about a 2" group, offhand at 25 yards. Quit low like I expected, though. With a center of bull hold, they are the six represented by the lowest three and then the three shot backwards "L" just above them, and below the ragged hole formed by the six shots.
I raised the sight two clicks and fired that one ragged hole six shot group. The next six were fired without adjustment, trying to see if I could keep that group going. Those are the four to the left and the two to the right, at the same elevation - I was getting lazy.
So, I took a break, raised the sight two more clicks, and fired the next two cylinders. Those are the nine visible holes from 9:00 to 3:00 across the center of the bull, with three "missing in action", lost in the myriad of other holes (it looks like at least one "double" in those nine, with the other two going low through some of those bigger holes).
Anyway, to say I'm happy would be an understatement. Recoil and blast are far less than my 300 grain load, and accuracy looks very, very promising. I'll get serious and shoot it from a sandbag rest at 50 and 100 yards in the next few weeks. If it continues to shoot like this, I may very well have a new "standard" .44 mag load. Maybe the old coot knew what he was doing after all... And big thanks to RCBS for realizing that, and bringing Elmer's original ideas back for us.