HORNADY .444 Marlin brass; "Short" and "Regular"

An internet friend was good enough to pick up and mail some pulldown Hornady .444 Marlin brass for me to form for a new toy. Everything was fine until I started checking brass for trim length and about had a stroke when I realized that instead of the 2.25+ length that I should have been seeing, I was looking at the majority of them being 2.06 and shorter.


After doing a search for "short 444 brass", the answer is understandable, but still highly aggravating,,,,,,,


Hornady .444 brass and regular .444 ammunition is SAAMI spec. Length.

Leverevolution ammunition is loaded with shortened brass with the "Gummy tip" bullets so that COAL is unchanged so as to maintain load able number of rounds in tube magazines with their pointy bullets.

Im not especially enthused to be trying to attempt any kind of accuracy testing with brass that is supposed to be 2.25 max, but is actually 2.065 or less,,,,,,.

If you're buying pull down brass, ask.

YEP Hornady wants you to now buy their gummy tipped bullets to reload with. I have about 20 or do of these short cases sitting in a bag.

The .444 was designed to fit the 336 Marlin and use the short flat nose .44 mag bullets
What you got was a mutt of a design. The short case works better with longer bullets. It would work with long heavier bullets too but your chamber is already really long. Then there was the case of the original rifling being one turn in 38 inches. The designer did not have a good chance at a flexible design with the constraint of 336 length, short bullets and super slow rifling.

On the Marlin Owners forum they are sold as "short" brass. Those FTX bullets screw up a lot of brass. I buy the short 444 to convert to 356 Winchester.

I would swap you some RP 444 for the 444 short.

I am loading this "short brass" in 444Marlin and 45-70 is a pain but in the past it was the only brass I could get but I had to buy Hornady die's for both and set the boolit's to get my COAL and not in the grove, it has been working for me but I have since got R-P brass I will not buy Hornady brass if I can get any other brand. But I am loading some 20year old brass so I will be loading it for a while.

Do the short ones reform well length wise to the JDJ series of cartridges?

not to the 375 they dont , stating it has a short neck would be a understatement ... so if any of the other jdj's are the same trim to length they'd also have short necks , the 375's neck isnt that long to begin with

i snagged some off a feller from ABT and learned my lesson , i then sold all but that one with full disclosure albeit a wee bit cleaner [shrugz]

edit to add ..

last box of 444 hornady i bought was normal length

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Originally Posted by JSH

I would swap you some RP 444 for the 444 short.

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I'll take you up on that offer. I'll count up what I have and PM you in the morning.

I believe the hornady 444 marlin with 265 flat point bullets is the 2.25" length, at least I hope so cause I ordered 200 rounds at 30 dollars a box after not being able to find any brass less than 1 dollar per shell, not had time to check it out yet

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Originally Posted by farmbif

I believe the hornady 444 marlin with 265 flat point bullets is the 2.25" length, at least I hope so cause I ordered 200 rounds at 30 dollars a box after not being able to find any brass less than 1 dollar per shell, not had time to check it out yet

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Sign up to be notified when Starline does their next run. I paid $130ish for 250 pieces a while back. That's the best 45-70 brass money can buy and at much less than $1 each.

I have some 444 Marlin brass which is so short it is the same length as 445 Super Mag.
I have no use for either.

Short 444 Marlin brass which is only 2.06" OAL should work fine for my purposes. Please PM me if you want to sell some.

Apparently any of the factory loaded FTX stuff, the brass is short.

Guess w 444 its not a total loss it can be cut down to use as 45 colt shot shells. The black hawk cyl is considerably longer than standard, so those short shells work fine custom cut to fit.

I use the short brass to load Lyman's 429421 swc's. Lets me crimp in the right groove & be just under max oal. Works for the lee 310 also.

You can also use 444 brass in the 45/410 Contender for shotloads or to get the boolit that much closer to the rifling.

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Originally Posted by 3leggedturtle

You can also use 444 brass in the 45/410 Contender for shotloads or to get the boolit that much closer to the rifling.

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Guess that depends on the gun. I tried the 444mongo or whatever it may be called. The Rossi I had was not big enough in the 410 section of chamber to take a 45 cal bullet inside a brass case. I screwed with it and finally got some to chamber, but was still pretty bad, 444 is still a bit shorter than a 410.

I have a friend in Texas that reloads the 265 gr .444 Hornady FTX bullets. What sets these apart also is the crimp. Cases are to short to crimp with a standard RCBS die set. I ordered him a cheap Lee FCD die and trimmed it in the lathe to properly crimp the shorter cases. With the longer case cast loads he uses the RCBS seating die, no problem. With the shorter Hornady cases and the 265 gr. FTX he uses the trimmed Lee FCD die, problem solved. He only hunts with the FTX bullets now because of the huge difference in the bullet drop after 150 yards. Cast lead is for range use only and loaded mild but to almost the same zero @100 yards.
Chris

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Originally Posted by dragon813gt

On the Marlin Owners forum they are sold as "short" brass. Those FTX bullets screw up a lot of brass. I buy the short 444 to convert to 356 Winchester.

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Best use for them. One pass and they are 356 or 307 Win.

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Originally Posted by 3leggedturtle

You can also use 444 brass in the 45/410 Contender for shotloads or to get the boolit that much closer to the rifling.

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Yip. I have made some wood bee loads from these for my contender. Wow what a payload it delivers !

444 Marlin Short brass should work for .405 JES, too.