H335 for the .44 Remington Magnum in a rifle?

[DrNick]

Howdy folks!

I've been experimenting with a swage die I got from BT Sniper to make .429 bullets from .40 S&W brass. Thus far I am very pleased with the performance. So much so that I will be using it in a Marlin 1894 in .44 Magnum to hunt whitetails with in a couple of weeks.

I also have shot quite a few of them from my Marlin in .444.....which leads me to my question:

My pet load for the .444 is 55 grains of H335 under a 240 to 250 grain bullet. Since the barrel length is effectively the same and the bullet is identical, wouldn't a case full of H335 work for the .44 mag in a rifle too? The construction of both barrels seems to be very similar and I imagine the slower burning H335 could only do good things in the velocity department.

What say you all?

Doc

[btroj]

Not going to work. You can't get enough in the shorter case to allow a proper powder burn. Could get poor ignition, might even stick a bullet in the barrel.

Stick with proper powders for handgun cartridges, you will be much happier.

[wiljen]

Btroj has the right answer. H335 likes pressure to burn cleanly and even at 110% of the available case capacity in a 44mag case, you are only developing about 20,000 PSI or 2/3 the operatiing pressure expected and roughly half of that developed by the 444 load (38k PSI).

Sounds like a load that will produce a lot of soot, smoke, garbage, huge ES and SD and probably fail to perform even passably well.

[1Shirt]

Just my rule of thumb, but: good 44Mag loads at near max vols work quite well for plikning loads in 444. 335 in a 44-----nope!
1Shirt!:coffee::coffee:

[excess650]

You'll be better served with the likes of H110, WW296, or 2400. H335 more than likely will ignite with a magnum primer and compressed load, but might be like putting 50BMG powder in a 30-30.