I've got a '94 Marlin that I've had for years that has until now only been fed 44 Specials pushed by TrailBoss under 200gr SWC's or RF's sized to .429. A few weeks ago I ran into a guy out at the range who supplied me with some 44 Mag brass and I decided to start playing with them. My first attempts were sized to .429 and resulted in me digging around to find my ChoreBoy to clean out the barrel. After I got the lead cleaned out I did what I should have years ago and slugged the bore of the rifle only to find out that it's .430. My soft lubed low pressure undersized 44 Specials never bit me on leading but of course 44 Mag is a horse of a different color.
Since then I've run about a hundred .430's cast out of COWW's +2%sb at 12.5 BHN with 7.3gr 700X and 10.5gr AutoComp. The AutoComp loads chronographed out at 1,393fps with an SD of 7 with the 700X slightly slower and less consistent, both grouped reasonable at 50 yards with iron sights on a 16" barrel. Other lighter loads were tried but these were the two most consistent and accurate. Between each ten shot string I dry patched the barrel looking for little "sparkles" of lead and saw none. When I got home I pulled the bolt and patched out the barrel with Hoppes then had a look for leading. What I saw was a vast improvement over the .429's but I still had minor leading in the first 1/2" of the rifling, a few passes with some ChoreBoy and it came right out. Since "None" is better than "Some" when it comes to leading I'm still not happy with the results. Today I'm heading out to the range with some water dropped .429-200RF's (dropped from mold .431-.432 and sized to .430 lubed with Lyman Alox) that initially tested out at 18+ BHN using the above mentioned loads.
Now on to the question of the day:
For those of you who shoot '94 Marlins in 44SPC/44MAG are you sizing .430 or .431?
Any issues chambering the .431's?