Your favorite 44 mold for a carbine?

[centershot]

Well, what say you, levergunners? Currently I have two that I am working with; Lyman #429667, a 250 gr. RNFP with a generous meplat and the Saeco #428 which is a truncated cone design of 240 gr. I'll probably hunt with the 429667 this year, simply 'cuz it has that big smashin' flat nose! How 'bout you fellows?

[winelover]

The Lyman RNFP is a good design, if it casts large enough, for your particular carbine. You neglected to say what brand your carbine is. My 1894 Marlin, like most, requires a fatter boolit, somewhere in the neighborhood of .432 diameter. For this reason, I'm using NOE's 265 RNFP that is dropping a .432 boolit with my alloy.

Winelover

[1johnlb]

I am shooting the Lee 200 RF from a six cav., simply because my Colt 44 and Winchester 94 Love'em. I have no need for another 44 mold and if I had 1 it would just collect dust.

[Outpost75]

You need to know the twist in your rifle. Older Marlins are 38" twist and do not perform well with bullets heavier than about 265-270 grains. I use an LBT .432-270 FN with meplat 0.7 of bullet diameter with driving bands .432" and bore-riding nose diameter of .425 ahead of crimp groove. This does not use a gascheck, but has aslight .030" bevel base to ease seating, has one grease groove and a crimp groove 0.3" from its base, so that long nose is seated out to increase powder capacity in my Ruger revolver and it can also be used in my Marlin 1894S .44-40. In the rifles I load a compressed caseful about 26 grs. of RL7. Very accurate in the Microgrooves if not over-driven. My alloy is 12 BHN. velocity 1350 in the rifle, which I find adequate, pleasant to shoot and.economical. Like a heavy-bullet .44-40 load.

In my Ruger revolver I load 17 grs. of #2400 with this bullet or 8 grs. of Bullseye. Not a full .44 Mag load, but like a stout .45 Colt load, which works for me, about 1050-1080 fps from 5-1/2" barrel, 1250+/- in rifle and accuracy OK, but not as good at 100 yards as the somewhat heavier RL7 rifle load. The RL7 is safe and "works" OK in the wheelgun, but leaves more unburned powder than I like in the handgun application. It works well in a 14" Contender, but causes rough operation of the wheelguns.

[W.R.Buchanan]

My favorite is Lyman 429244 in my Marlin Rifle It does need to drop at .432 or above for these guns and there is a Mihec group buy right now for that boolit in the larger size.

You would probably have to chamfer your chamber mouth to get it to feed right, and this is a good thing to do for any of the boolits.

Randy

[centershot]

Yeah, I have a Marlin with a .432" bore too! I really like the 429667 but it does run small, .429". I'm going to try beagling the mold blocks to see if I can sneak another .003-.004" out of them. It shoots really well in light loads, 6 gr. of Unique is running 944 fps and cuts a nice jagged 1" hole at 25 yds. I'm heading to the range tomorrow to see what happens with 10 grains at 50 yds. If this doesn't work out(beagling), I'll run the Saeco 428's for hunting season. It's a smaller meplat but it IS 44 caliber and accurate as all get-out! I've been looking at NOE's website (drooling is more like it!), when funds are available I'm going to pick one up!

[Shuz]

I have 3 favorite moulds for my Winnie Trapper. Lee 200RNFP, Lee 225RNFP(custom?), Lee 270M(I call it that because it is a 270g modified from a Lee 310g gas checked mould that has had the shank milled off resulting in 270g). The reason I like these boolits for my Winnie is that they feed so nice because there is no semi-wadcutter should lip to worry about. They also engage the rifling just a bit when seated.
Down thru the years I've played with the Lyman 429667, but I could never get good accuracy in my gun. I attributed this to the bevel base on this plain base design. My Trapper has a 1:20 twist and takes .431 diameter boolits. If your carbine is a Marlin, It prolly has a 1:38" twist and may not stabilize boolits heavier than about 235g.....and they need to be fat, as in .432-.433 diam. At least that was the experience I had with 2/ea Marlin's I no longer have.
Good luck in your quest, you'll find something that works!

[Bullshop]

Specifically for Marlin 94s my favorite is the Saeco 260gn RFGC. It feeds better than any other I have used which is quite a few different designs. For the 444 Marlin the same design but at 300 gn feeds equally well but is of a weight more suitable to the bigger case.

[Vulcan Bob]

My 1894 Marlin Limited CB in .44 Mag the Lyman #429421 are excellent with the .44 Special, feeds real smooth with good accuracy. Never tried them with the .44 Mag.

[Deep Six]

I like the Lee 200 RNFP in magnum brass over a medium charge of Blue Dot in my Rossi.

[seaboltm]

Lee 240 SWC TL over some Unique or Blue Dot.

[jjnpg317]

NOE 434-235 Plain Base. Sized 432 in 1894 44 Magnum Micro Groove.

[longbow]

I too have a Marlin with large groove diameter of 0.431"+. Maybe not large for a Marlin but large compared to most commercially available boolit moulds. I used to try to shoot Lyman 429421's but had the usual feeding problems along with lackluster accuracy and considerable leading.

Once I fattened up boolits accuracy improved dramatically and leading about disappeared.

I am now using moulds that cast no less than 0.433" diameter which are providing quite good accuracy and no leading: lightweight Accurate #43-165B, Mihec copy of the H&G #503 and a Mihec copy of the Lyman 429640. Both Mihec moulds cast 0.434". I had to do some work to get the H&G #503 to feed but it is the most accurate shooting. The 434640 feeds very well and is right behind the H&G #503 in accuracy.

If I were to choose one as a favourite the Mihec 434640 would be it. It gives a choice of HP's or solid at 270 grs.

Longbow

[runfiverun]

I'm good with the 4 cavity 429667 I got.
I got lot's of them kicking around, I get to shoot them, they are easy to reload, they shoot well.
I dunno about a 'big' meplat, certainly adequate.

[blackpowder man]

My Rossi .44 mag shoots everything I have loaded in it pretty good, but it sure doesn't feed everything like my marlin cowboy in .45. It does however feed and shoot the ranchdog 265 grain rnfp really well.

[saaman]

Lee 429-200 sized .429, tumbled in Johnson Paste wax, 7 gr Unique. Very accurate in my 1873 Uberti carbine.
118005

[Airborne Falcon]

Yeah, I have a Marlin with a .432" bore too! I really like the 429667 but it does run small, .429". I'm going to try beagling the mold blocks to see if I can sneak another .003-.004" out of them. It shoots really well in light loads, 6 gr. of Unique is running 944 fps and cuts a nice jagged 1" hole at 25 yds. I'm heading to the range tomorrow to see what happens with 10 grains at 50 yds. If this doesn't work out(beagling), I'll run the Saeco 428's for hunting season. It's a smaller meplat but it IS 44 caliber and accurate as all get-out! I've been looking at NOE's website (drooling is more like it!), when funds are available I'm going to pick one up!

Good luck with that. Looking forward to reading the results.

[rintinglen]

My Marlin Cowboy needs to get out more often, but prefers the MP 434-640. My Lyman molds run a hair too small, save for my 429-244, but I don't like to use gas checks at 4 cents a pop when a PB will do just as well.

[jlchucker]

doesn't anyone but me like the Lyman 429215 boolit? It was the first 44 mold that I ever bought--don't even know why I picked that one--but in a Winchester Trapper, and my Ruger New model Blackhawk 44 special, it's always shot very well for me. I rarely see much mention of this boolit.

[labradigger1]

My rossi 92 feeds everything but i usually use 429421 in a 4 gang mould and rcbs 44-255k in a dbl cavity.
HUGE meplate on the rcbs mould
Lab

[waco]

My Marlin feeds the Lyman 429421 just fine. My brothers Rossi on the other hand will not. I bought the Lee 200gr RNFP and it works like a dream in both rifles.

[Airman Basic]

This one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013PVR44/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
feeds through my Marlin like butter. Pretty accurate too. My favorite plinker. The 6 cavity keeps up with production.