M1894 Marlin with Keith 250 gr in 44 Mag

[ironhead7544]

Came into a bunch of 421429 Keith bullets in Lyman #2. Want to use them in my 1894 with a bore of .431. The bullets are marked .429 but my caliper says .430. These bullets at 1.710 feed slick in my rifle. Has anyone had any success using a stiff load on the plain base bullet to "bump up" the slightly undersized bullet? I have IMR4227 and WW296 available. I know the Marlin can be sensitive to cast diameter. This rifle has the Ballard rifling and 1 in 38 twist.

I havent loaded any yet. Dont have a revolver but will get one, soon I hope.

[Shuz]

You might try 7g of Trail Boss and your undersized for your rifle 429421's. Your velocity will prolly only be around 1050 fps, but you may find accuracy and minimal leading due to the bulky nature of this powder. I use this powder a lot ever since I discovered it for my .44 mags about 6 months ago. I'm getting good accuracy with this boolit in the hollow point version with 7g of Trail Boss, but my boolits are sized .431 for my 2 Winchester AE's.

[wv109323]

This may or may not help.
I have the 1894 in .44 Mag. with the Micro-groove barrel.
The gun would not shoot my cast boolits sized to .429. I have a 240 gn. and and 200 gn. Lee mold. The boolits were not stable. I plan on Beagling the molds but have not got to it.
A commercial cast 240 gn. SWC sized at .429 does shoot very well. The load is 9.0 gns. of Unique. These cast boolits were much harder than my cast. At fifty yards a 5 shot group was 1 1/2". Four of the five were within 1/2".
Also no problem with Hornady 240 XTP HP j-word sized at .430". I would give it a shot.

[ironhead7544]

Guys: Thanks for the replies. I will try the Unique load. Looking for some Trail Boss but it is hard to get. Worked fine in my Rossi 44 Mags I had some time ago. Their bores were .430 and with a .430 cast commercial RNFP 200 gr I got 1100 fps with a Max TB load in a 20 inch barrel. No leading.

[longbow]

I started out with just such a combination many years ago and had very poor results.

I got poor feeding/jamming, leading and consistent 4" groups at 50 yards.

I had bought a Lyman 429421 mould which cast right on 0.429" using wheelweights and after having chronic leading problems I slugged the bore and found groove diameter to be 0.432" which explained the leading and poor accuracy.

I also found that unless I operated the lever "briskly" I got frequent jams. A little reading revealed that the 429421 is over the max. OAL for .44 mag. Apparently some guns are okay and some guns are not... mine was not. So I started seating deeper and crimping over the front driving band which helped.

I was a little slow learning these things as I had never run into these sorts of problems before.

Fast forward a few years after learning far more about Marlins and cast boolits, my gun now feeds and shoots quite well after lapping the barrel to remove tight spots, working on the carrier to allow feeding of SWC's and filing the cartridge stop to allow longer OAL.

As for powder, my go to powder has always been IMR4227 though Unique is okay for moderate performance loads and cheaper on powder. I think Unique is too fast for the longer barrel to get max velocity but if that doesn't bother you it is a good powder.

I have used Blue Dot and H110 as well. Blue Dot like Unique seemed a bit too fast for the longer barrel and didn't seem to perform as well as H110 or IMR4227. H110 worked well but I just liked IMR4227 better as it is more versatile and useful for my other guns.

Short story ~ check for feeding issues due to both OAL and meplat/front driving band hanging up on the chamber mouth and watch for leading. A PB gas check or even a polyethylene disk may solve leading issues with somewhat undersize boolits.

I'll say no to boolit bump up. Certainly didn't work with any boolit or any alloy with any powder I tried. I got leading until I cast boolits over 0.432". My moulds all now cast 0.434" to 0.434". Oh, I shoot PB boolits at max. loads with no problems now and good accuracy.

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Longbow

[Gibbs44]

Depending on the definition of a bunch and how bad they lead, it might be time to get into powder coating though I don't know much about it, so I'm not sure how much you could expand the size of the diameter. Or, you could melt them down and pour your own to fit. Also, +1 on the plain base gas checks, that might work to.

[longbow]

Powder coating might take up the slack if he gets leading. I first went with paper patching then simply to larger diameter boolits to solve it. But then Powder coating wasn't a "thing" 20 years ago like it is now. I still haven't tried it but should.

Longbow

[Shuz]

Within the past several months I've been doing a lot of experimenting with Trail Boss powder in my .44 mag 1:26" Winchester rifles, and my Smith&Wesson and Ruger .44 mag handguns. Without fail, all boolits I've tried have given absolutely no leading in any of these guns! I attribute it to the largely casefull (7g) of this bulky powder which may act as a buffer or gas check. Only drawback I've encountered is the minimal velocity obtained. Rifles run around 1050fps and the handguns around 950fps.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
If the lead is soft it may bump but do not count on much. You could load them with 3F if they are soft... that will bump them up.
I do not think I would load more than 5 though with the Unique just to find out. Have a 44 WCF 1892 that has a fat groove. I did not get anything better than patterns with Unique under my cast of my own range scrap so mostly lead about 20-1 until my cast was groove diameter. Plus .001 did better. But 3F will group far better with the same bullets that are .002 under groove.
Mike in Peru

[Larry Gibson]

Try 20 - 23 gr of the 4227.

Larry Gibson

[fecmech]

You might give max loads of 296/H110 a try. I had a Winchester 94 in .357 with about a 1/2" long throat that would lead pretty easily. It shot max loads of 296 with the 358429 with excellent accuracy and these loads would clean any previous throat lead out! Bullets recovered from snow showed deep dimples in the bullet bases from the powder. My guess is that the slow burning 296 was also acting somewhat like a filler/GC to prevent the leading. A friends .357 revolver leaded the barrel just past the forcing cone with mag loads of 2400. After a couple shots with 296 loads the barrel was clean. Try both powders and see what happens. Worst thing that could happen is some lead in the barrel,no big thing.

[ironhead7544]

Guys: again thanks for the replies. Loaded some of the Keith bullets with 23.0 gr IMR4227. Chronoed at 1585 fps. No leading at all after 50 rounds fired. Accuracy was 3 inches at 25 yards. Too small, I guess. Will try the WW296 load and Unique next time.

[10mmShooter]

My Henry .44 revolted when I tried to feed it 429421 Keith's, it would cycle with a lever giggle. But to your question, I ran .430 sized K-SWC when it was new and got moderate leading in the first 1-2 inches in front of the chamber, ultimately I had to go with a custom mold to get .432 sized bullets, zero leading with warm loads of Accurate Arms 7 or 9 right up to 1500 fps. Alloy was only BHN 13-14(my standard alloy). Also to seat and crimp such a fat .44 I use the RCBS Cowboy dies.

[twc1964]

Powder coating will generally give you between one and three thousandths increase. You can apply two coats and easily get what you need. If they are lubed, you will need to wash em in acetone well to get all of the lube off em. I have had molds drop undersized and pc really plumped em up and they shot great. Give it a try, i did and now i dont lube any of my boolits.

[Vulcan Bob]

Not germain to the .44 Mag but the only #429421's I've fired out of my 1894 was in .44 Special, function is very smooth. As for loads I use the 250gr #429421 at .430", COWW alloy with SPG lube with 8.0gr of Power Pistol, standard LP primer with excellent results.