Fire in the hole! or 444 Marline Contender

[seagiant]

Hi,
I happened to sail with a guy this time that had a Contender barrel from the 80's in 444 Marlin that was reamed by a gunshop in Baltimore and decided to get it. Had it checked out by my local gunsmith and when given the go ahead bought some factory ammo and went to the range. Well the old 44 mag is never going to seem the same. After the 20 round box I had to stop and was sort of proud that I had run out of ammo my hand was numb but I had a smile on my face and I can't wait to load my own poison. Do any of you gentlemen shoot one of these and do you have any pointers? I have the NEI built SSK type 340 gr.gas check bullet to try when I get some dies!

[MtGun44]

Wow! I'm impressed you could deal with the recoil! [smilie=1: I get really
tired of full house .44 mags in my S&W 329 after about 2 cylinders,
and have finally made it a rule - 'one cylinder full of full power
loads per range session' in the 329.

How's the accuracy of that bad boy? Definitely meets the header
of the area -- "Handcannon" class! :-D

Bill

[seagiant]

Hi MtGun,
To be honest I was just trying to figure out the best way to light that thing off and admittedly had to learn not to develope a flinch! So I wasn't really trying to shoot a group. For me this set up will take some getting used to but I like it!

[Glen]

The .444 Marlin is fine Contender round. I've been shooting one for over 10 years and am quite fond of it. The 1 in 20" twist that TC used for the .44 Mag does very well with heavyweight cast bullets.

One hint -- do NOT load this cartridge looking for sticky extraction to determine max loads. Shoot some factory ammo (which is VERY accurate in the Contender, by the way) and measure case expansion, and then work up to similar levels of case expansion for your heavyweight cast loads. For bullets over 300 grains, my favorite powders are H322 and AA 2520. Yes, the SSK 340 grain is a fine bullet in the .444, both rifle and Contender. You don't say what barrel length you have, but I have been able to push that bullet to 1650 fps from a 14" muzzle-braked barrel. For some of the details, check out:

http://www.leverguns.com/articles/fryxell/444marlin.htm

I have a couple of other articles that I wrote a long time ago on loading the .444 for the Contender, specifically with heavyweight bullets. I'll see if I can't dig some of that data out for you.

[seagiant]

Hi Glenn,
I am very happy to meet you, I have enjoyed you're articles very much and try to turn people on to the hard won wisdom they contain every chance I get! Actually it was you're article on the 444 Marlin that got me to try it.

The barrel I'm using is a TC Super 14" with the iron sights,I think I'm going to keep that configuration for now and just shoot the pistol and get used to it some. Any more info you could pass on would be greatly appreciated by all I'm sure! Thanks!