Win M94 ae 44 mag bore

[Poppaclutch]

Reading recently, about bore diameter, fat boolits, rifling, micro groove marlin made win. bbls etc. Would like the straight skinny, just the facts, as it pertains to the Winchester M94 ae Trapper 44 mag. History on rifling, etc. What others are finding. Been shooting .430s (at moderate velocities), with no leading. Decided to slug the bbl. after what I read last night and here's what I got. My bbl. has 12 grooves.
133929133930133931133932133933

[Keyston44]

I've never slugged a Winchester barrel, only my Marlin. It was just as SAAMI says, .431. Why SAAMI has 44 mag rifles at .431 and handguns at .429 I have no idea.
I size my Ranch Dog 265gr cast bullets to .433.

Key

[Shuz]

I have a Winnie Trapper in .44 mag and have never tried to slug the bbl, but have found that from trials of .429 to .432 boolits, .431 works the best as far as groups go and with little or very minor leading. Load is 8.3g of Green Dot and a custom Lee 44-225g RNFP that looks like a smallish Lyman 429667, but with completely flat plain bases. Velocity is 1222fps with an SD of 12.

I shot another fine group on 3/20/15 with 8.3g of Green Dot. This time the .431, Bhn 11, boolit was a 268g modified from a Lee 310 mould that had the gas check shank scalped off. Group size of 5 shots was 1.289", velocity was 1138 and SD of 9. Primer was WLP and OAL was 1.688. Distance was 50 meters(approx 55 yds).

[andrew375]

Mine is .4290". Really well made barrel (hammer forged) and outstandingly accurate. Easily holding 2 moa when I do my part.

[Pb4me]

I have one and it shoots very well, crooked sights and all. The sights are ever so slightly to the right of center. My bore is very large, slugging out to 431.5 to 432 depending on if you push the slug all the way through or not. For comparison, one of my M-29's from the 1970's still slugs out to .429.

I honed out my sizing die to 432 because of this large bore. I know most shooters say even this wouldn't be sized large enough but the proof is in the shooting. In other calibers I size 2 thousands over bore size. I use the 432 sized Keith bullet for all the revolvers along with this Winchester and they all shoot fine with a max load of 2400 and the Keith Lyman bullet. The Winchester, using this load will shoot a nice little triangle, the last one being .850" across at 50 yards. The best I ever did at a hundred is 1 and 1/16 inch group. If the chronograph is right, this load shoots over 1600 FPS out of this 16 inch barrel.

I also polish the heck out of a barrel before shooting it, especially a multi groove barrel like this one and when using a straight diet of cast bullets. I normally use Remington bore cleaner , which is nothing more than polishing compound in my opinion, and follow the directions. I'm convinced that no matter which bore polish you use, it makes the barrel less prone to leading and easier to clean for the life of the barrel.

Good luck with it.

[Poppaclutch]

Thanks for all the info.

[bhn22]

.433 to .434 is much more common than you think. Older S&W 29's and 629's often had big throats. I still have a .434 Star die around here from my last early 44 S&W.

[Shuz]

Added to post #3 and should have probably wrote new post to
"revive" the thread. Sorry.

[Pb4me]

Shuz:
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