444 Marlin and .43 Spanish bullets...?

[S.R.Custom]

Picked up a real treasure at the gunshow today-- A Winchester Big Bore '94 in .444 Marlin. And this particular specimen has the 1:20 twist barrel.

That said, I am looking for the heaviest possible bullet to use in this twist barrel, and this particular bullet jumped off the page at me...

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=653925

My question is, does anyone know how long this bullet is?

[Glen]

No I don't, but I have shot 375 grain spitzers out of my .444 Marlin Contender barrel that also has a 1 in 20" twist and they shot just fine. So did the classic 370 grain RN cast bullets for the .43 Spanish (after being sized down to .432"). For the levergun, I would be worried about the overall length of the nose and whether or not the loaded round would cycle. Talk to Dan at Mountain Molds, he has a design that he's made for a customer that was around 340 grains and had the crimp groove placed so the OAL would cycle in the leverguns.

[S.R.Custom]

That's the beauty of a cartridge that headspaces on the rim (if you can call that 'beauty'), I can trim the cases to yield the correct COAL...

But you are right, I am concerned with the bullet length for reasons of calculating the necessary twist...

[dnepr]

You may have to look at neck reaming depending on how far these bullets sit into the case. I have a 1in 38 twist marlin and it does great with 300GR bullets so I think you will be fin as far as twisr rate goes.

[Buckshot]

................Ya mean like this:

http://www.fototime.com/C9730B459E8C514/standard.jpg

For this in .444. Has a 16" twist.

http://www.fototime.com/E06B4CC9C561BA0/standard.jpg

The loading sequence above was with the RCBS .43 Spanish slug, which is the one on the right, below:

http://www.fototime.com/CFE4FB6484BDAE6/standard.jpg

The Lyman is on the left, and of course that's a .43 Spanish case and not a .444 Improved :-)

................Buckshot

[S.R.Custom]

So the RCBS bullet on the right, that's the 370 grain unit? And am I right at figuring it at about 1.08" long?

[Marlin Junky]

Three problems come to mind here when adapting that 370 grain boolit to your Winchester. If your Winchester has .430" grooves, that's a lot of sizing; and, a boolit that long is going to rob case capacity; and, you may have to turn the brass because you might create a bulge in the case at the location of the boolit's heal when the boolit is seated to function through the action. I'd stick to boolits that were designed for the .444. Actually, I've got a nice brass mold made by Dan at Mountain Molds that casts a 320 grain plain base boolit that I'd be willing to sell. PM me if interested and I'll send pics.

MJ

[S.R.Custom]

The sizing of the bullets doesn't concern me; previously, I've sized 215gr 41 magnum bullets to shoot in my Springfield Omega 10mm back before 200+ gr .401 bullets were readily available. They proved to be more accurate than anything else I've been able to find since. The trick is to incrementally size them--.004" at a time or so--using honed out Lee push-thru sizing dies.

And I won't be sizing them that much--the barrel on this gun is typical late-model Winchester crap with a groove diameter of .432"... And I'm not too concerned about bulged cases from deep seating bullets, as the .444 is a tapered case. Having sectioned a few cases, it doesn't appear that the brass gets any thicker until farther down the case...

I've always thought that Marlin handicapped the .444 by making it with a 1:38 twist. Seems to me that you could have a "45/70 Junior" on your hands if you utilized the high pressure capability of the cartridge and the 1:20 twist of the Winny, and cast a bullet accordingly. Dan at MM seems to agree-- he's encouraging me to do a mould in the 375-400 gr. range...

As for the 320 gr. mould you have for sale, that would be an interesting bullet in my .445 SM... I'll have to think about it...

[Marlin Junky]

I've always thought that Marlin handicapped the .444 by making it with a 1:38 twist. Seems to me that you could have a "45/70 Junior" on your hands if you utilized the high pressure capability of the cartridge and the 1:20 twist of the Winny, and cast a bullet accordingly. Dan at MM seems to agree-- he's encouraging me to do a mould in the 375-400 gr. range

It can be done and you'll probably approach if not exceed 1800 fps from your 20" Winchester with Re7 and a 400 grain boolit but you'll do it with a lot more pressure than a 45-70. I played around with a few 400 grain boolits from Bearthooth in my 336 and I seem to recall having a slight chambering problem though. Let us know how it works out. BTW, Marlin hasn't used the 38" twist for the .444 in about 7 years.

MJ

[beagle]

I have used a heavier bullet in the .444 Marlin.

Back when I was playing with various sizers and swaging stuff up and down I took a batch of Lyman 439186 bullets and using sizers, swaged a GC shank on the base and installed .44 GCs.

These bullets were then downsized in several stages to .429" using a nose first sizer and a slight flat bumped on the nose. This gave me a bullet that weighed 390.8 grains checked and loaded.

These were loaded over 32.5 grains of Reloader 7 and a Winchester LR primer.

Overall length was 2.5".

I chronographed these at 1549 FPS with and SD of 13.9.

Accuracy was around 2" at 100 yards. This was with a scoped Marlin M1895 (the new cut rifling).

Later batches were tried at 35.0 grains of Reloader 7 at 1642 FPS but these were with the PB version of the bullet. With these accuracy was 3" at 100 yards and I got leading.

Not a real solution to the heavy bullet .444 delima but I wanted to see if I could and would it work. It does but is very work intensive.

Since I have a similar .45/70 and a wide variety of moulds, I haven't invested in a heavy .44 mould. I figure Dan or NEI could knock out a nice 400 grainer with no problems at all if the need arises.

Just my experiences fellows.../beagle

[S.R.Custom]

BTW, Marlin hasn't used the 38" twist for the .444 in about 7 years.


Does that coincide with the adoption of the ballard style rifling?

[lar45]

What about the 360gn Oldfeller Long? I belive it is the Lee 44 310 with a long gas check shank. Has anyone tried this bullet in a rifle? I loaded some in a 44 mag for a friend. They went bang and hit the target, but I didn't really do much more that that. They are 1.13" with the gas check in place.

[Marlin Junky]

Does that coincide with the adoption of the ballard style rifling?

Yes, in the .444 it does. In 1999 Marlin introduced the 444P with an 18.5" ported barrel and Ballard rifling just about a year after the Guide Gun came out in 45-70. In '99 the .444S still had the 38" twist MicroGrooved barrels but in 2000, the 22" barreled .444S incorporated the 20" twist and Ballard rifling. The Guide Gun in '98 had the Ballard rifling but I can't remember when MicroGrooved barrels were phased out of the new model 1895's but it probably didn't happen until the late 90's. Eventually even the 1894 in .44Magnum was manufactured with Ballard rifling but to this day it retains the 38" twist. Marlin still uses MicroGroove rifling in their basic 336 line; i.e., the 336A, C, W and SS. Supposedly all the XLR's will have Ballard rifling but it looks like the .35 XLR will have Ballard rifling with a 12" twist instead of the traditional 16" twist.

MJ

[floodgate]

Actually, there is nothing new about Marlin's "Ballard Style Rifling", as they took over manufacture of the original Civil War era Ballard in 1878 or so, and developed it into a really accurate rifle. They used the term in ads I have seen from back around 1900, in bragging up their lever actions.

floodgate

[Marlin Junky]

Actually, there is nothing new about Marlin's "Ballard Style Rifling", as they took over manufacture of the original Civil War era Ballard in 1878 or so, and developed it into a really accurate rifle. They used the term in ads I have seen from back around 1900, in bragging up their lever actions.

Actually, Marlin started to manufacture rifles under C.H. Ballard's patent (patent date: 11-5-1861) in 1875 and, yes the MicroGroove is a new-fangled thing that was phased in during the mid 1950's. I believe it was the recent demand by CAS that Marlin go back to the cast boolit friendly "Ballard style" rifling.

MJ

[S.R.Custom]

Now if only we could talk them into putting a decent twist rate into the 44M model 1894... 1:20 would be nice there, too.

[Buckshot]

...............Those heavy boolits I tried in the .444 were not only reduced in diameter to .427" they were then paper patched, sprayed with moly and re-sized finally to .431". Like most any other straight case, the boolit is ALWAYS intruding into the powder area :-). Most any cartridge has it's best bullet weight (jacketed) lying somewhere beteen the heaviest and lightest. If I'm not grossly mistaken, the 30-'06's is supposed to be a 168gr. On paper it works out.

I've heard it said that the 444 Marlin's optimum weight (again on paper) is supposed to be 260 grs give or take. Supposedly the reason Hornady came out with that weight.

What I found using these very heavy booits was that if you were wanting lots of penetration at a short to medium range for the cartridge the heavy slug is fine. Kinda like a 250 gr boollit in the 35 Remington. Both are comparatively short range cartridges anyway and their long range is most any bottlenecked cases medium range, speaking broadly.

For me, the 370gr and 412gr slugs really didn't have any utility compared to the available heavy 44 cal moulds available. Since I had no real way to check pressures I did it comparatively. I was well versed in the appearance of WLR primers, so I took R-P factory ammo and unloaded 10 rounds, replacing their primer with the WLR and reloading them.

When the WLR primers began showing higher pressures I loaded five of these loads and subbed in 5 of the 10 saved R-P primers and fired them. They were then compared to the fired primers of the original R-P factory rounds to get a feel for how the 2 primers looked.

With the extra heavy boolits I couldn't reach what I felt to be usefull velocities for the type of hunting I'd do with the .444 Martini. In a single shot, you do have the option of throating it out so you can clear some more powder space. Not too feasible in a repeater, or a lever action at any rate. I did have them loaded to the point that you knew the primer had for sure functioned 8-)

..................Buckshot

[beagle]

Supermay...IMO, 1 to 20 is too fast. I made up a M1894 with a 1-18 twist and it won't handle the lighter stuff.

I finally went with a Winchester M94 and it has a 1 to 26 twist and seems to handle all weights from 215 grains to 320 grainers with accuracy. The 429421HP feeds well and shoots well in it.

Based on these experiences, I haven't messed with a good thing as I don't beleive in fixing something if it's not broke./beagle


Now if only we could talk them into putting a decent twist rate into the 44M model 1894... 1:20 would be nice there, too.

[S.R.Custom]

Supermay...IMO, 1 to 20 is too fast. I made up a M1894 with a 1-18 twist and it won't handle the lighter stuff.

Indeed, the more I get into this exercise, the more I realize that the Greenhill formula doesn't hold as true with these big bore, heavy weight slugs; it seems to err on the side of a slower twist.


Based on these experiences, I haven't messed with a good thing as I don't beleive in fixing something if it's not broke./beagle

I'm not quite so endowed with good sense. (It's no accident that all my girlfriends' names have been Pandora.) :mrgreen:

All that said, I measured the throat and mocked up a number of rounds and fed them through the Winny. The end result of my speculation is this bullet (http://www.salmonriverdesign.com/STUFF/444bullet2.JPG), with the whole story here. (http://www.mountainmolds.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=492) That is, of course, if you enjoy reading the hysterical screeds of mentally deranged persons, lol.

As to the utility of such a chunk, well, we'll just have to wait and see. Given the weight of this chunk and the degree to which it intrudes on the powder space, a little experimentation with (relatively) slower and denser powders like AA2230 and H335 may be in order... we'll see.

Ain't life grand? :mrgreen:

[Dutch4122]

SuperMag-

Just thought I'd give you a heads up on a couple of .444 designs that will be run as group buys in the future. 45 2.1 has designed a 330 grn WFNGC boolit for Boomer Mikey and also a 355 grn WFNGC boolit for me. We plan on running these in the group buy section for others to get in on.

Not sure if these designs are heavy enough for you; but I thought you might like to know about them.

[dnepr]

.
With the extra heavy boolits I couldn't reach what I felt to be usefull velocities for the type of hunting I'd do with the .444 Martini. In a single shot, you do have the option of throating it out so you can clear some more powder space. Not too feasible in a repeater, or a lever action at any rate.

I was talking with a guy at Canaidiangunnutz.com who had throuted out a .444 marlin lever so he could seat the bullets out another 0.070 .I don't know if this is as far as you could go or not but If my memory serves me right ( questionable) he was getting 2300 fps with .330 gr cast boolits . I thought about doing mine but it has enough thump for anything I hunt already and that is something probably best left to a gunsmith, so I would have to come up with the cash.

[S.R.Custom]

Part of the SAAMI strangeness that is the .444 Marlin is the combination of a .050" long throat (not bad in and of itself) in combination with a maximum nose length of .345" (Ack!) That's not necessarily a deal killer in terms of designing your own bullet, but if you deviate from the SAAMI spec for the nose, you WILL be trimming cases shorter than standard; the Marlin rifle has a little leeway in it--IIRC--but the bloody Winchester will NOT feed anything even a whisker longer than the SAAMI maximum OAL.

So why all this playing around with heavy bullets and the .444, when arguably, there are better cartridges to devote time to? Heh, let's face it, a big bore, heavy bullet lever rifle weighing in at only 6 pounds and change is... cool. At least until I get around to re-barrelling that Winchester model 71 in 50/110. :mrgreen:

Dutch: Thanks for the heads-up on the .444 group buy moulds. I'll be very interested to see what you guys came up with.