Fat 444 Marlin rounds

[Shuz]

Those of you that have .444 Marlins, what is the diameter of your loaded rounds at the case mouth if loading boolits in the .432-.433 diameter? SAAMI drawings show .453", and some of my loaded rounds exceed that, but still chamber in the new XLR. What say ye?--Shuz

[bdicki]

.451 with a .432 boolit and Remington once fired brass.

[BK7saum]

If your boolits will fit into a fired, but unsized case, I'd say you are good to go. That SAAMI spec is for loaded ammo to function in all SAAMI spec chambers. Most chambers are cut larger than that spec to allow loading of all ammo. Again, if there is little to no resistance of a boolit in an unsized case, just go with it.

Brad

[beagle]

Unfortunately, the .444 Marlin is one of those cartridges that is long and slim. Die manufacturers take that as a license to steal when making sizing dies and take them down overly much "just in case". The "snake that swallowed the egg" look won't hurt anything as long as they chamber freely.

To minimize it, I use a set of TC .44 Mag dies with the decapping rod removed and a small brass rod as a depth guide going up through the hole and resize only the seating depth portion of the neck. This necessitates an extra step to decap but somewhat eliminates (but not totally) the "egg" shape.

Another possibility is to internally neck ream the cases for the depth of the bullet seating depth.

Neither of these practices will elimininate it completely. Face it, with large diameter cast bullets, it's the nature of the beast and although unsightly, don't hurt anything./beagle

[Shuz]

Thanks for the replies. I used a Lee FCD for the .44 magnum and adjusted it in my old Dillon 450 in station 4 to reduce the neck swelling to a .453 dimension. Today we'll see how they shoot in this new to me rifle.

[Shuz]

All the formerly "fat" rounds fired yesterday with no incidents and decent groups.

[Beerd]

Shuz, Any load data to share?
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[Shuz]

Beerd--Go to post number 7 under "Marlin lever protrusion" in this forum, for the load that shot two fantastic groups yesterday. One 3 shot group was .540"@ 50 meters and the other was a classic triangular shaped 3 shot group of .830" @100 yds. These groups were using a 4X Redfield scope! Just goes to show that once in a while, even a blind sow can find an acorn!

[Beerd]

Nice shooting!

I just began using Re-7 with a 300 grain Ranch Dog clone last week. Previously I had good results with IMR 4198 and H322 but I think Re-7 is a keeper.
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[Irascible]

I had a 444 Contender years ago. A Lyman die set came with it and REALLY sized the case. Way to small. I sent 3 bullets and 3 fired cases to RCBS and they made a sizing die which worked perfectly. That idea using a 44 mag sizer to just cover the bullet depth seems like a great idea also.