Jim Taylor
JD sent me his first .44 mold ...
Friday, December 19, 2025, 18:46

from my alloy it cast 320 grains. It had a very shallow rounded grease groove and proved to run out of lube easily. Leaded badly at over 1400 fps.

I told him what we ran into and he redesigned it with a larger squared grease groove. That was the 315 gr. mold I believe. My alloy cast less than that by about grains or so. From Linotype they were 285 grains.

MY friend had2 Redhawks, a 5 1/2 with open sights and a 7 1/2" with a scope. It was heavy and nice with heavy loads.

We pushed JD's bullets a bit over 1500 fps from the 7 1/2" Redhawk and from a 10 1/2" Super Blackhawk. Dropping back to 1400 fps made a difference in the feel. Off sandbags, scope-sight, the Redhawk would put 5 shots into 1 1/2" at 50 yards. I watched my friend who owned them shoot a palm size group at 150 yards.

For hunting I dropped the loads back to the mid 1300's. Even that was more than a person really needed. There wasn't much slowing down the big heavy bullet.

Sighted 2" high at 50 yards it was almost dead on at 150.