Need 444 cast bullets

[seabreeze133]

I have a new to me Marlin 444s in about 99.9% condition and need advice on cast bullets in 300 to 350 grain range. Uses will be hunting whitetail and shooting at paper at LOOOONG range.

Would like to buy 50 to 100 of recommendations for testing so I would need a source. Gas checks are good but not required. Don't know what the twist is but it is a Micre-Groove.

Thanks

Don

[Newtire]

Hi Sea,
First time seeing you here so welcome and 2X welcome to the DBOTT-4 (Distinguished Brotherhood of The Triple-4). I have a .444 in micro-groove with the 1-38" twist but haven't shot anything over 300 gr. The 300 gr. Lee will stabilize out to at least 100 yds. but I'm not thinking the .444 with our twist rate is going to be able to hold things together like a say .45-70. Maybe some other shooters have had different experiences. I have a ball shooting light plinker loads at 50 yds. and occasionally one of our group-buy 277 gr. Ranch Dog boolits under a full head of steam from a max load of H-4198. I haven't found a boolit it won't shoot except for some of the commercial undersized ones. Try and find someone who will cast/size .431-432" range and you won't have leading. Otherwise, you're gonna be sorry. I have some loads I have worked up that I'd be glad to send you in a Word doc that you might like to try. If you are interested, send me your e-mail addy and I will ship a copy off to you.

[VTDW]

Here is a good 290 gr boolit from Beartooth Bullets. http://www.beartoothbullets.com/bulletselect/details.php?id=51

My .444S shoots them (.432) extremely well. I haven't ventured beyone 290 gr yet but might go up to 330 gr and add a bit of velocity to stabilize the boolit.

Dave

[seabreeze133]

Here is a good 290 gr boolit from Beartooth Bullets. My .444S shoots them (.432) extremely well. I haven't ventured beyone 290 gr yet but might go up to 330 gr and add a bit of velocity to stabilize the boolit.

Dave

I used to shoot a 10" Super Blackhawk in IHMSA and experimented w/a 320 gr SSK bullet in an NEI mold which worked well in the Ruger. Could not use it for the 40 rounds as there was a bit of recoil but I might have to buy one of those moulds if available and check it out.

DB

[Lloyd Smale]

before you start excepting heavy 44s you need to know that the nose lenght is real critical in that gun. So you either need to look for a bullet with two crimp groves or get a lee factory crimp die and experiment with crimp on the the nose of the bullet seating the bullets deap. Two bullets i can think of that would work are the 310 nei tn and the ballistic cast 340 lfn. If you pm me I could send you a few of each to try. Im not intersted in supply quantity though as its just getting to hard for me to find lynotype to alloy them for that gun.

[David R]

OK, so what about 240 grain 44 boolits? Its a new year and I am due for a new gun. I am thinking about a ruger #1 in 444.

David

[Bass Ackward]

OK, so what about 240 grain 44 boolits? Its a new year and I am due for a new gun. I am thinking about a ruger #1 in 444.

David

Nice choice if you can find one.

[Newtire]

OK, so what about 240 grain 44 boolits? Its a new year and I am due for a new gun. I am thinking about a ruger #1 in 444.

David

Hi David

As far as the 240 grainers go (at least in the Marlin I have-micro-groove, 1-38" twist), the Lyman 429244 is what I have tried so far together with one load for the Lee 240 gr. GC. In order to get the Lyman to feed in my Marlin, I had to crimp over the front driving band. The Lee gets crimped in the little crimp groove they have. Lee does OK with 17 gr. BlueDot. The Lyman is touching all boolits in a real tight group @50yds. with either 20.5 BlueDot or 23 gr. Alliant 2400. With the #1 Ruger, you would have a kind of a "Creedmore" rig.

[Ranch Dog]

I have a new to me Marlin 444s in about 99.9% condition and need advice on cast bullets in 300 to 350 grain range. Uses will be hunting whitetail and shooting at paper at LOOOONG range.

Would like to buy 50 to 100 of recommendations for testing so I would need a source. Gas checks are good but not required. Don't know what the twist is but it is a Micre-Groove.

Thanks

Don

Welcome Don, always great to see another cast boolit shooting 444 dude! I've shot a wide range of boolits out of my 444s, from 200 to 415-grains, and what appears to be optimum is 265 through 300-grains. Larger boolits rob the case of powder capacity because you are limited to what the action can cycle up from the magazine. With the loss of velocity, the weight gain of the heavier boolit will not keep up with the foot pounds of energy produced by the lighter boolit.

The 444 Marlin cartridge is a tapered case, boolits aren't. With the longer length needed for the weight, a very noticeable case bulge will appear as you seat to the maximum but fixed cartridge overall length. Somewhere in the neighborhood of your upper boolit weight interest, you will have to start turning the outside diameter of your case necks. They will not reliably chamber because of the bulge. The ONLY tool that I could find that would do a perfect job of turning the outside of the case is one I had custom built for me. A lot of work and $$$ for no gain.

The type of rifling, Ballard or Micro-Groove, doesn't mean a thing to me. That's what I've learned in sending these various boolits down the barrel of my Marlins. Rate of twist matters to some degree in that with the 1:38 of your rifle will require more attention be spent on the finer details of load development with the heavier boolits. Size, outside diameter, is everything. Simply put and without slugging the barrel of your rifle, I can say that you need a .432" boolit. With anything less you are spinning your wheels and wasting powder and alloy.

I've killed a bunch of whitetails with the 444, a light cast boolit will do just as well as a heavy cast boolit. I'm not real sure of what you mean by long range. I have a 300-yard rifle range at the house here and it is much easier to hit the bullseye on the far berm with a 265-grain boolit than it is with a 330 or 415-grain boolit. I guess the way I see it is Hornady spent an awful lot of time answering this question: We are only going to build ONE bullet for the 444, what is the ideal weight? Their answer, 265-grain, is also the answer I got from about 10,000 spent cases. I know cast guys seem to like heavy boolits but beyond 300-grains this fellow (the 444 Marlin) runs out of steam. For the performance range of your interest, gas checks are required.

A boolit of my design has been mentioned here, the TLC432-285-RF, and it has been available in a group buy here. I will be offering molds of similar design for sale soon, I'm just waiting on Lee to do the work for my inventory and the setup of an e-commerce site. I will have two boolit molds available for the 444 based on that original TLC432-285-RF but one dropping 265-grain boolits and the other a 300-grain boolit. That 300-grain boolit, the TLC432-300-RF should be a hard shooter as it will chamber at the limit of the 444's design but retain in the case the powder capacity of the 265-grain boolit design.

I don't have any boolits to share or sell. You are going to find most home casters are generous but they hate to part with their stash of alloy in the form of raw source or boolits for a 50 to 100 boolit sample. I will have samples for sale, eventually, but in that I won't be in the casting business they will be a sample and unfortunately expensive to cover my time. For most of us with this hobby or passion, the price of checking out a boolit is simply buying the mold. A good source of various boolit weights is Beartooth, I've shot everything Marshall offers. Also eBay. Use 444 Marlin in the search. A fellow named Magnum Pete in OR sells a lot of heavy boolits on eBay and they are all sized right.

[seabreeze133]

Gentlemen:

Thanks for all the input. Looks as if it would be well for me to reconsider the bullet weights down to the 265/300 range. And gas check.

BTW, I appreciate the thought, but was not looking for bullets from the hobby folks, just a recommendation for a commercial caster and boolit type as a source for starters.

DB

[Newtire]

Ok Sea,
I'm taking a risk here (and know first liar don't stand a chance). I was hunting with a young guy I promised to take on some prime pig land. We were walking along when the guy sees one & makes a nice shot with my .30-06. Just as we were getting set to go thru the gate to go collect it, up pops Mr. Porky on a dead run out of a little hollow he was hunkered down in. Felt kinda bad having to finish off his pig but dropped it on a dead run at 150 yds. with my .444 & one of those Hornady 265's. Turns out there were 2-pigs! Probably the best shot I ever made on a big critter and of course...there was no luck involved....

[MT Chambers]

Seabreeze..where are you? If by chance you are in Canada, MT Chambers supplies cast bullets in large calibers, heavy hard cast bruisers, tested on Canada's big critters, 325gr. WFN GC for the .444, or 290gr. Pb LFN, not for the timid!

[Ranch Dog]

BTW, I appreciate the thought, but was not looking for bullets from the hobby folks, just a recommendation for a commercial caster and boolit type as a source for starters.

In that last paragraph of my post above, I didn't mean to be rude (reads that way) about the boolits. What I had intended to do is just prep you for a lack of response concerning the boolit request. Sorry about that...

Here is what a 265-grain boolit can do. This is my load for 47.0-grains of H4198 out of my 444T (24" barrel). The boolit is the TLC432-285-RF that I cast with 1 to 1 WW and linotype and water quench. I use the linotype to get the weight down to 265-grains.

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/TLC432285RF/Images/RSIEBat2370.jpg

[seabreeze133]

In that last paragraph of my post above, I didn't mean to be rude (reads that way) about the boolits. What I had intended to do is just prep you for a lack of response concerning the boolit request. Sorry about that...

Here is what a 265-grain boolit can do. This is my load for 47.0-grains of H4198 out of my 444T (24" barrel). The boolit is the TLC432-285-RF that I cast with 1 to 1 WW and linotype and water quench. I use the linotype to get the weight down to 265-grains.

http://gunloads.com/fam/ranchdogmolds/TLC432285RF/Images/RSIEBat2370.jpg

No offense taken and it did not read rude to me. Just wanted to clear up my intentions as alloy is really hard to find and casting is work.

Thanks to all for the input.

DB

[Ranch Dog]

Here is a link to the "eBay" 444 Marlin boolits from Magnum Pete...

http://cgi.ebay.com/44-Cal-325-gr-WLN-GC-44-Magnum-444-Marlin-Bullets_W0QQitemZ120082293112QQihZ002QQcategoryZ71 113QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[trk]

I have an NEI mould that throws 300 and 325 (one of each). I use them in .430 JDJ and .444 in a Win 94.

The problems are two fold, as discussed allowable length is limiting.

The velocity limits the bullet to casting SOFT lead. Otherwise you get NO expansion.