Anyone have any experience with one of these? I'm looking at buying what I think is one in nice condition. The gun weighs close to 10lbs so will be light for caliber.

I'm curious as to opinions on the round and any loading experience.

Thanks

Well not really... it's a black powder express so it should be very comfortable to shoot at 10 lbs.

470Evans,

I think that 'Marrakai' and 'Mickey1" who post on www.nitroexpress.com have experience loading for this caliber and they may be able to give you data. Also, "Shooting the British Double Rifle" by Graeme Wright has loading info.

470Evans:
You have my reply over on NE.com, but I'll add it here for the benefit of others.

Personally I reckon the .577 x 2 3/4 is a marvellous chambering for a double rifle, probably my favourite cartridge in the 'Light Nitro' loading. Those who know me will be sick of hearing it, but here's My Opinion of the cartridge!

Regarding loads:
if the barrels are 26 or 28 inch, I would recommend starting at ~90 gr Varget beneath the 650gr Woodleigh RNSN (Cat.No. 5 for BP Express), with a magnum primer, and just enough felt wadding or dacron to slightly compress the load. Use a chrono and work up to 1650 fps or thereabouts, looking for barrel regulation. That velocity should be achieved with less than ~8 tons of pressure, well below the 10 tons generated by the BP Express load with only a 570 gr lead bullet.

(all the usual warnings, start 10% below, no liability, etc, etc... )

If you want to shoot lead bullets, you need go no further than Sherman Bell's recommendations in the Spring 2005 DGJ. He brought a Greener hammerless double chambered for the 2 3/4 .577 Express out to Australia, and hunted buffalo with my mate Dave L_. He used 570 gr 'long flat nose' lead bullets from an LBT mold, loaded over 70 gr IMR4198 with 8 gr dacron wadding, and they produced 1700 fps MV and 3 1/4 inch groups at 100 yds (with express sights). Worked well on buffalo, too!

quote:

Originally posted by Marrakai:
470Evans:
You have my reply over on NE.com, but I'll add it here for the benefit of others.

Personally I reckon the .577 x 2 3/4 is a marvellous chambering for a double rifle, probably my favourite cartridge in the 'Light Nitro' loading. Those who know me will be sick of hearing it, but here's My Opinion of the cartridge!

Regarding loads:
if the barrels are 26 or 28 inch, I would recommend starting at ~90 gr Varget beneath the 650gr Woodleigh RNSN (Cat.No. 5 for BP Express), with a magnum primer, and just enough felt wadding or dacron to slightly compress the load. Use a chrono and work up to 1650 fps or thereabouts, looking for barrel regulation. That velocity should be achieved with less than ~8 tons of pressure, well below the 10 tons generated by the BP Express load with only a 570 gr lead bullet.

(all the usual warnings, start 10% below, no liability, etc, etc... )

If you want to shoot lead bullets, you need go no further than Sherman Bell's recommendations in the Spring 2005 DGJ. He brought a Greener hammerless double chambered for the 2 3/4 .577 Express out to Australia, and hunted buffalo with my mate Dave L_. He used 570 gr 'long flat nose' lead bullets from an LBT mold, loaded over 70 gr IMR4198 with 8 gr dacron wadding, and they produced 1700 fps MV and 3 1/4 inch groups at 100 yds (with express sights). Worked well on buffalo, too!

You forgot to post a picture of the Fat Lady! That's okay, because I am jealous enough without seeing it again.

470: I have a Greener Martini in .577 3-inch BPE that weighs about 10.5 pounds, if I recall correctly. It is being gunsmithed right now, and I only fired it once to make sure everything worked (only have two cases anyway). But with 160 grains FFg and a 550-grain bullet, it had very little recoil. I think you ought to buy that rifle pronto!

I have an A&N 577 bpe. The loading info is engraved on the action; 160 gr. #6 powder - 520 gr. bullet. The rifle was made in the 1890's and is in good shape.

I measured the bore and groove diameters. Interestingly I found 1 1/2 points of choke in both barrels. I next had Randy Brooks make a mould that would cast a bore diameter bullet weighing 520 grains in a 1/20 alloy. I did change the shape of the bullet from the original round nose to one with a large meplat. This bullet is to be paper patched up to groove dimeter.

I started with Seyfried's 40% formula, 64 gr. 4198, standard large rifle primer and a wad of dacron to fill the air space. The load shot about 8" high at 50 yards. About 1 in 4 would hang fire, a click bang lasting a fraction of a second. About 1 in 8 or 10 would light the primer but fail to light the powder. This would drive the bullet 6 inches or so into the barrel. The dacron would be compressed at the base of the bullet with a slug of powder behind the dacron.

My next move was to go to a magnum primer. Better, but the problem still exists. Changed the wad from dacron to foam. No change but easier to load.

My next move was to load 1 1/2 gr. of Unique next to the primer and cut the 4198 to 60 gr. Powder ignition became reliable. A taller front sight corrected the high shooting. This load allowed me to take a whitetail deer at about 120 yards with one shot last October.

My next plan was to take this rifle on a bison hunt. Now I'm thinking it's going to be cold when I make this hunt so I should try cold ammo. Last night I put some ammo in the freezer. Today I put them into an insulated container with a couple of frozen blocks. Off to the range. Load and fire, well not quite. The primer popped, but not the powder. Shoved to bullet about 6 inches into the barrel. Damn, looks like I'm not done yet.

The 577 bpe loaded with Seyfried's formula can be hard to ignite. This is most often solved by wadding the powder tightly against the primer. An oversized chamber, which I have, compounds the problem. Sometimes these old doubles take some work to get to shoot properly. If I wanted is easy I would have bought a Remington, but where's the fun in that, besides it's a push feed.

I gotta point out that Seyfried's formula has been accepted as safe. My duplex loading is off the charts and not to be relied on in any way.

Dave

NP2:
Wow man, I'm humbled. Duplex loading nitro powders! You got balls, my friend.

I've loaded and fired many hundreds of .577 'N-for-B' loads and never had a single problem, including initial load development in a 20/.577 where I started rediculously low, as it turned out! I take my Greener double against buffalo often and without a hint of trepidation.

Perhaps its the wadding. Seyfried uses a BIG wad of dacron, like cricket-ball size, and just jams it in there. Sherman Bell recommends weighing out 8 grains of dacron... I prefer saddle-felt or piano-felt wads, punched to size from a sheet 1/2-inch thick. I put 2 in the .577 x 2 3/4 over 77gr nitro powder (ADI AR2206) with the 650gr Woodleigh (magnum primers), never fails!

Hope you get it sorted, this chambering is the best!

np2,
you might want to give 5744 a try. it's not position sensitive so no filler is needed or recommended. i've had good results with it in large volume cases and so have others including Seyfried.

Marrakai

I was able to save the powder from the misfired case. I dumped it onto a sheet of paper and separated the Unique grain by grain. I weighed the Unique and determined that about 30% burned before the fire went out. Your comment on using a felt wad got me thinking. If I understand internal ballistics correctly, powder performance and ignition are enhanced by a rapid rise in pressure. I think the oversized chamber, soft wadding, no crimp and freebore are not allowing a quick enough pressure build up. My next move is to go back to a straight 4198 load and wad the hell out of it. I've purchased felt for the wads. If this isn't enough a neck sizing die might be in order. In 45 years of handloading, this rifle has been the most challenging yet. By the way, the remaining 7 frozen rounds fired perfectly when warmed up. Good group too. Dave

470Evans,
I think you're on the right track. I'm shooting a 577 3" N for B with excellent success using IMR 4198, magnum primers and dacron. I too was getting hang fires but switching to the mag primers and as much dacron as I could stuff in the case cured it. I'm currently using 17 gr of dacron, a wad about the size of a US softball. In your shorter case you may not be able to get that much in but I'd try to get in as much as possible. If that doesn't clear it up I'd defer to Marrakai's method.
Best.

OPPS! previous post should have been directed to NP2.