I found a bunch of new, unfired .44 brass in my box so decided to do a test and sort brass. I shot 50 yd's and any that went high or low were put in different piles. I didn't realize the high hits were making two separate groups and put them in the same lot. Anyway I had four separate groups. A nice group high, one a little lower, one centered and another just a little low right.
I used my 330 gr WLNGC boolit with 21 gr's of 296, Fed. 150 primer.
The first five were in way less then 1/2" and the center group just got larger until 30 rounds were in 1-1/4".
The low right group was three touching to start and went to 7/8".
Now I have to cast more boolits and see if the brass that hit high, etc, continues to hit the same place.
The gun is a SBH with almost 58,000 rounds through it.
I will also reload the 30 rounds to see if they stay centered.
But 30 rounds through 1-1/4" at 50 yd's is super any way you look at it.
I will post after more work.

That would be an interesting find if they continued to hit high.

I had some fun today, I finally got a chance to get my chronograph set up and put some bullets over it.

It will be a while. I have to cast more and age harden the boolits. I ran out!

Pay close attention to which charge hole shoots where. In a revolver it is much more likely that what you are seeing is a result of slight alignment differences hole to hole than the case itself causing the difference. It is very common to find one or two chambers that shoot out of the group fired from the remaining holes. If you were seeing this in a rifle, with a fixed relationship between the bore and chamber, it might have some significance, but not in a revolver.

Since I was testing for a difference in case tension with new brass, I shot every shot from the same chamber. I will keep doing that when I reload them.
Been too hot and humid to cast more boolits plus I am trying to find a way to catch the lead. I put cut up tires in my steel backstop and stacked tires in front. Most of the boolits went through and smashed to dust on the 45* back plate.

I would think that wet newpaper would be the best for recovery but with the groups you are shooting it would be just one big lead blob. That is the most impressive 50 yd handgun target I have ever seen. Great shooting!

I did a test one time along those lines. I loaded up some 44 mag new brass with 250 gr bullets and a full load of 296. Then I picked out a random bunch of brass with different headstamps ( Ive been loading 44 mag since 1972) and unknown ages, times fired etc. and loaded them with the same load. There was no difference that I could see between the lots. Same accuracy, point of impact etc. I still use new brass or once fired for heavy loads but dont worry about sorting for the lighter practice loads.

Ironhead, you need to define accuracy! :confused: I get kind of twisted when my groups go over 1" at 50 yd's. :D Some of my revolvers have gone under 1" at 100 yd's on occasion. My 45-70 BFR put 5 shots in 7/16" at 50 yd's. My .475 has done 5/8".
Here is an idea of what I like. 45-70 BFR at 50 yd's with 3 different bullets.

I use standard handguns with iron sights. From the bench, 3 inch groups at 50 yards are OK. I have some loads that will do 2 inches. Thats all I need from a revolver. My old eyes are the limiting factor.