Shiloh Rifle Forums

I was finally able to get in some late season hunting in Central Texas. My new Shiloh Hartford in 44-77 shot true and drew blood for the first time on a nice fat doe. The load is a 405 gr. GG 1:20 alloy bullet from BACO on top of a compressed 77 grs. of 1.5 KIK, Rem. 9 1/2 primer and BACO 348 brass made into a 44-77 case. I am not particularly happy with the load but it is good enough out to 100 yds. for hunting. I got the rifle a bit late to spend a lot of time developing a load but it worked just fine on this deer. The bullet went clean through both shoulders for a lung shot. She only ran about 30 yds and dropped. I knew right off she was hit hard.

The MVA B5 scope takes a bit of getting used to but it works just as advertised. Adjustment was easy and the way I have been carrying it around bouncing around in the truck, it holds true. I have not adjusted it since I zeroed it in.

Thanks Don McDowell for all the help and encouragement. I am not through yet with load development so may still be pestering you for information.

Jose,you're welcome, I'm just glad to of been of some help.
Congrats on getting everything to working and a successful hunt.

Nice work Jose!

I love my 44-77. Just missed out on the last Jamison brass run so I'll have to stick with the baco stuff for now.
Can't wait for the next hunting season.

Nice Deer with the .44-77.
The .44-77 is a great cartridge with great accuracy.
I settled for the original sharps profile for mine at .480 grains. Blows right through bone on both sides on the buff and kicks up a lot of sand on the other side.
I was in the TOC site looking for muzzle loader stuff and I see that maybe Jamison might be making a run on .44-77 brass soon, so keep watch so you have a chance to stock up. http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/139/5
Nice rifle and deer. Wish Illinois would wake up and let us use a black powder cartridge for deer.

Kurt

[quote="Kurt"]Nice Deer with the .44-77.
The .44-77 is a great cartridge with great accuracy.
I settled for the original sharps profile for mine at .480 grains. Blows right through bone on both sides on the buff and kicks up a lot of sand on the other side.
I was in the TOC site looking for muzzle loader stuff and I see that maybe Jamison might be making a run on .44-77 brass soon, so keep watch so you have a chance to stock up. http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/139/5
Nice rifle and deer. Wish Illinois would wake up and let us use a black powder cartridge for deer.

Kurt[/quote]

Kurt, my wife's brothers all live in Iowa and all hunters. There are deer all over the Turkey River valley where they live and they have to hunt with shotguns or archery. The season is only a few weeks and it is over. No black powder cartridge allowed or high power cartridge. As a wildlife biologist I find the Iowa hunting regulations archaic. Texas has one of the lowest hunting accident rates and we allow just about anything to take deer even on small acreage. Common sense dictates how to hunt on small places. By the way, we allow baiting for deer. If we were not liberal with the regulations we couldn't kill enough deer annually to keep the populations down. That being said, we still need to take more deer.

I plan to continue to work on a better load with maybe some softer lead and a tighter group this spring.