444 and 300gr saeco

Greetings A 300 grainer at 1600 should topple any critter plowed through the heart/ lungs. No corn cruncher I have seen will ever need more than that.

When Tina and I were living in logging camps on the islands in South East Alaska whenever we left camp we each carried a Marlin 44 mag. Tina's was shortened to 16" while mine was stock. We carried these slung over the shoulder across chest for a hands free carry for fishing and such. The rifles were slung muzzle down because of the near constant rain in S.E. Alaska.
I had great confidence in the Marlin 44 mag with both fire power for carrying 10 rounds of ammo in the mag as well as the power of the ammo I was loading.
In developing Marlin specific loads in 44 mag my working load ended up at 1700 fps with the 310gn Lee bullet. In developing this load I slowly worked up to an absolute max of 1800 fps with this bullet. At the 1800 fps load case extraction in the Marlin was 50% meaning that half the time when the lever was dropped and the breach retracted the extractor popped over the 44 mag rim leaving the case in the chamber.
The Marlin extractor is a very light fairly weak link in the Marlin firing system that will not tolerate much drag on the case in the chamber when being extracted. The system works fine with loads within SAAMI standard pressures but is a positive indicator of pressures exceeding standard. At this point listen to the gun as it is telling you its had enough!

Maxing out at the 1800 fps with 50% extraction then backing down to 1700 fps and 100% extraction indicated to me that the 1700 fps load would be an absolute maximum working load so that is where I settled. At 1700 fps with a 310 I had all the power needed and was nicely accurate taboot.

This same load in a Ruger Redhawk 7.5" revolver produced 1300 fps and according to published data was in the realm of accepted safe load performance. When I said earlier that Harry Callahan's baby couldn't come close to your performance with a 300gn bullet at 1600 fps this is what I was talking about and I was speaking from experience not hearsay or study.
So you gotta ask yourself, do I feel lucky, well do ya ?

Tod
I just made a discovery!!! Recently Jr. got himself a Ruger Red Hawk in 44 mag so he has become interested in heavy 44 cal bullet since he is back in Alaska. His inquiry into what we have available prompted a search that was revealing. He wanted to duplicate the Buffalo Bore 44 mag load with 350gn bullet. In looking through the pile of molds given to us by Michael from Ranch Dog bullets I found a new unused mold for the Ranch Dog 350gn 44 call bullet design I assume was for the 444 Marlin.
I didn't even know there ever was such a thing from RD. Tina went to his site and couldn't find the 44-350 listed only the 300 which we also have.
Not that it matters one way or another but since your the 44 guy here thought you might find it interesting, I did.

Oh no !!! What shall we do ?

Tod Tod take a deep breath!!! Everything will be OK. We might have an opening for a testing staff member.
OK that said I remember reading a couple articles in The Handloader magazine when it provided useful information for advanced reloaders before they lowered their own bar to appeal to a wider audience. One was specifically on loading the 50 AK and the use of the Powley slide rule computer to determine optimum powder burn rate. The Powley computer is an indicator of time frame of the articles. Anyhoo the Powley computer pegged 4198 as optimum powder burn rate for the 50 AK at allowable pressures in the model 71 Winchester with bullet weight in the middle of 50 caliber weight range, 500gn
Another about mid to large caliber straight wall cases with mid weight for caliber bullets at pressures up to the 40,000 psi range being well suited to 4198 powder by either maker IMR or Hodgdons.
I might add that in my experience for such straight wall cases when pressures exceed 40,000 psi by very much that 4895 may then be the better choice of powder especially with bullet weight on the heavier end for the caliber.

i just got this from last nite from the original Ranch Dog....

 
In that this design uses the same nose as the 300-grain offering, the additional weight must be in the body of the bullet. That means, within the confines of the 444 Marlin's chamber, it is occupying available case capacity. In real terms, a 444 Marlin case has an H20 capacity of about 68-grains. This bullet, aft of the crimp groove is going to reduce that to 55 grains of water. Within any cartridge, many assume the extra weight slows a bullet down, but in reality, more weight means less space for the powder that will push it and that is why there is a velocity loss. The good news is that as long as you stick with a non-compressed charge, a charge at or less than 100% of the useful case capacity, you won't get in trouble with pressures.

I've only worked with Hodgdon's powders, and at 100% of the useful case capacity, H335 is the hands down best performance choice with this bullet. 46-grains of it will deliver approximately 1820 FPS with the 18½ barrel up to 1940 FPS with the 24" barrel. This load generates 39.5K PSI.

The Next two considerations would be either H322 (41-grains) or Benchmark (41.5-grains), from experience, I would favor the latter. These, with the 24" barrel will produce about 1725 FPS with pressures not exceeding 34.0K PSI.

As far as performance goes, H4895 is just not an appropriate powder for the bullet, but it would probably meet your performance needs. 40.5-grains would be considered a max uncompressed charge (100%), that would deliver 1580 FPS at 25K PSI.

With all these load notes, remember that their use is at your own risk and to start 10% below the max given and work up in small increments, stopping if necessary to avoid pressure problems.
Michael

Good evening
While we were up north the past summer had the opportunity to shoot a 340grain GC NOE .412 in our 405 JES on a 336 rebored by JES. I do not remember the twist rate of that barrel but it was not a slow one. Maybe 1-12 but I am not 100%.
Anyway the 405 JES is a 444 Marlin shortened a smidge and tapered to receive a .412 slug. In a caliber 41 that 340 is a might longer than a 350 would be in a caliber 43 but not a real big bunch. So what I found was 4198 gave me the best accuracy. I did not load these to Max velocity in our rifle but they were kicking up the dust. At about 75 yards they started to keyhole. At 60 yards they seemed OK. So I pretty well decided with the load I was using 50 yards would be my max distance. Slugs were cast from air cooled WW.
I can possible gain enough more FPS to get them stable out to 75 yards as I never had any cases sticking and the extractor never slipped. Nor did the lever ever start to unlock. Primers were flat but had not filled the pocket. This is with a 20" barrel.
I would have no problem thwapping any critter with that slug in that loading. At 50 yards the impact on a 1/2" thick 8 inch plate was awesome.

A little history on the origin of the 444 Marlin cartridge. Without looking it up I am not sure of the date of introduction of the 444 Marlin but I think it was sometime around 1965. At the time immediately before introduction of the 444 there had for some time been a wildcat cartridge known as the 44/06. The 44/06 was a wildcat cartridge as you would expect based on the 30-06 case necked up to 44 caliber.
The 44/06 or 430/06 as it was also known had been gaining a respectable following among wildcatters. It was being produced by gunsmiths on some of the South American small ring Mausers coming into the US as obsolete surplus at very affordable prices. When the 444 was still an infant I had encountered some of these rifles but never had the opportunity to work with one.
The 44/06 was a straight taper case that headspaced on the case mouth as does the 45 acp that basically is a super shortened 30-06 case too. Since these rifles were being produced on controlled round actions the heavy Mauser claw extractor acted as a headspace backup to the perhaps less than ample case mouth system. These custom rifles none the less gained enough of a following as big bore hunting rifles the the industry took notice.
It was this wildcat cartridge that Marlin based the 444 cartridge on. Close inspection of the 444 Marlin case will reveal it to be little more than a rimed 44-06 case as they are both internally and externally very similar other than one being rimed and one rimless.
Marlin of course intended their baby to be a lever action big bore hunting round that would fit their model 336 receiver. The addition of the rim to the case made it more suitable to lever actions giving it a very positive headspacing system using the rime thickness to regulate headspace rather than the case head to mouth length.
True that Marlin did adapt the rimless 35 Remington cartridge to lever actions but the 35 is a bottle neck case that uses the head to shoulder length as a positive headspace system.
Anyway as has often been the case the wildcatters interest in such a cartridge focused attention of corporate interest and the commercial production of a rimed version of the old 44/06 wildcat. And as Paul Harvey would say " and now you know the rest of the story"

Good morning and thank you Dan !
I did not know about the 44-06 but should not be surprised as that old case has been "upped and downed" in all sorts of configurations.
I think a search of the reamer makers / renters and CH Dies is in order.

My journey into caliber .41 rifles started with a Marlin CCL 41 mag. Then the addition of a 414 Supermag Dan Wesson got me thinking about a lever rifle. Happily at that time JES started reboring to .412 groove. So off went a rusty bore 336 in 30 WCF. Remember when these were out there for $50. I should have bought 10 more.
So had that 336 chambered in 414 Supermag. What an eye opener. 300-350 fps gain over the 8" Dan Wesson revolver. Very similar to 41 mag gains in a 20" barrel.

Then a couple years later JES announced his 405 JES... off went another 336... and no regrets. 444 mag carbine ballistics in a caliber .41 !
But the 405 Winchester is a honey ! President Theodore well described that one.  Found one NOS a feller wanted gone for $750.  He decided he was not going to ever shoot it.  

Have considered having a set of barrels made for a Winchester Model 24 in .405. Have a receiver sitting in long term storage that has not seen light for near 15 years. That would be a great bear rifle !

What would be your advice of getting two barrel blanks in .412 groove and have them fitted into model 24 20 gauge barrels ?

Thank you my Brother
I do understand the need for two sights. We have a 12 gauge Fox B that I did a lot of RB shooting with so made a rear sight that used a bolt hole on the rib near the chambers. Happily both barrels shot within 5 inches at 50 yards so I settled for the center of both groups as my aiming spot. Figured any critter that needs shot with a .735 round ball would not be to upset if the grouping was off a bit at 50 yards. What is interesting is that the groups "cross over" about 35 yards away. So at 35 yards they rip a nice group and then slowly get wider apart.

We have a Browning Supperposed that some one blew the lower barrel apart about a foot from the muzzle. The lower barrel was cut off and a caliber .45 barrel blank was turned to insert in the original 12 bore. Then where the lower tube was cut off it was machined to match the original diameter out to the original 28 inches. Makes for a nice up close "masher" with a .735 RB up top and that caliber .45 (usually a 450 grainer) slug underneath. Have rib mounted sights on it regulated to the caliber .45 bore. Have never really got to pop anything with it though as East ILLinois Dino and Bison population was long time past eliminated. But would be a fine pig gun. Have not thought about a 3 ball .45 load ! That and 00 buck would be make a deadly up close gun.

You can in a pinch use 303 Britt or 30-40 Krag to form 405 Win. Yes they do come up short for length but it is a way to keep shooting. Maybe a modern smokeless 40/60 Maynard which is the 30-40 case blown out straight or perhaps I should say the 30-40 case is a necked down 40/60 Maynard since the Maynard came out first. Just another case of reverse engineering. We do it all the time here and is why I try to discourage reading of head stamps on ammo found in my shop.

Yea ! reading head stamps at my shop can, does become confusing.