Dedicated 44 special.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Would love to see Henry make a 16" color case hardened side loader chambered for 44 Special. Just a different reamer and different markings on the barrel is all it would take. Lots of guys shooting 44 specials who don't shoot 44 mags.

[Winger Ed.]

Interesting.

Maybe they could offer it as a custom order.

[Mr_Flintstone]

I would think that 44 Special would be very close ballistically to the 44 Henry. At least as close as any modern cartridge.

[buckwheatpaul]

Not trying to hijack the thread. I used to love the .44 mag for years and carried one for years in the 1970's and early 1980's. I finally got to the age I dont like to be beat up and shoot a lot of 44 special.....love the round it is so versatile. I bought a 16" case colored in 357 and have to admit that if they did bring out a 44 special.....I would probably buy it......love the Henry's! Thanks for planting some seeds....now call Henry and see what they think....keep us informed.....Paul

[W.R.Buchanan]

Won't a Henry .44 Magnum feed .44 Specials? My Marlin does.

Randy

[buckwheatpaul]

Won't a Henry .44 Magnum feed .44 Specials? My Marlin does.

Randy

Randy, You are right.....but a rifle dedicated solely to 44 special would be a good move....no buildup in the chamber as in the case of .38 vs. 357....same problem with 44 special and 44 mag....that 1/8" can cause a problem.....IMHO

[megasupermagnum]

The fact is 44 special is one of least popular cartridges still commonly known. It is the 16 gauge of the handgun world. If you want a 44 special only rifle, presumably you only shoot 44 special ammo. In that case what difference does it make if the dirt makes it hard to chamber a 44 magnum, if you only have 44 special ammo? Business wise, a 44 special only rifle would be a terrible move. Besides, they already make one in the more popular 45 colt if you like big and slow. If they really wanted to be creative, I'd love to see one in 45 ACP. More popular, and cheaper ammo, and you could get more of them in the tube.

[elmacgyver0]

You can load a 44mag to 44spl, then you still have the option to use the higher power round if you think you need it.
Seems like a no brainer, but that is assuming you load your own.

[missionary5155]

Some years back I was looking for a lever rifle that would feed 44 Russian. So I emailed Mr. Antonio and he bought two boxes of Navy Arms 44 Russian ammo , pulled a rifle off the line and ran at least one box through that brass framed Big Boy 44 Mag.
So I see no reason it would not feed a slightly longer 44 Special.
And yes it is easy to download 44 Special or 44Russian down to the 44 Henry rim fire.

[ndnchf]

The .44 Russian would be closer to .44 Henry than .44 Special. The .44 Russian is simply the predecessor to the .44 Special. It's case is shorter - .970", vs 1.160" of the .44 Special. The .44 Henry is listed as .903 case length, but used a heel bullet. .44 Russian is easy to load and components are readily available, and it would be ballistically close to the e.44 Henry.

[richhodg66]

I shoot quite a bit of .44 Special in revolvers, but my .44 Mag hasn't seen the light of day in a while, but I'm a rarity. Loading down a .44 magnum is easy and chances are that anybody who shoots enough to worry about the crud ring causing problems is a handloader anyway.

Doesn't make much financial sense for them to do that, though I like the idea.

[northmn]

I do essentially what is mentioned in my 357 Rossi, While 3 specials are a lot of fun to shoot, to avoid chamber issues I just load 357 magnum brass lighter. Works for me. Another difference between the 44Russian and Special as to the Henry is that the Henry uses a 200 grain bullet which would require handloading for the special anyway. If you are handloading anyway then load down the magnum. There are some that load the 44 magnum down to 44-40 levels to experience shooting a 44-40.

DEP

[JoeJames]

I had a Henry Big Boy in 44 Special/44 Magnum. About the time I figured what boolits were accurate in it (.431 hard cast Oregon Trail) I also figured it weighed too much for woods carry - * 1/2 pounds. Traded it for A Rossi R92 44 Magnum weighing in at 5 pounds, but which does not feed 44 Specials at all. If it was up to me, Elmer never would have developed the 44 Magnum and stuck with the Special - ain't no Griz to speak of here in the Arkansas. But I load moderate 44 Magnum loads - 1100 fps and get by. I do wish Rossi would make one in 44 Special though - I dislike having to load both 44 Special and 44 Magnum. I shoot 44 Special in my wheelguns.

[MT Gianni]

For special performance in a magnum case you may need to add an extra 1/2 grain of powder. I see this as selling about 1/10 of the cost to tool up for as would Henry's staff.

[JoeJames]

For special performance in a magnum case you may need to add an extra 1/2 grain of powder. I see this as selling about 1/10 of the cost to tool up for as would Henry's staff.With the Oregon Trail .431 hard cast boolits I was using 6.5 grains of Unique in my revolvers and geting around 890 fps. In the Rossi with 44 Magnum cases, I loaded the same boolit over 7 grains of Unique and get about 1100 or so fps. It is a nice accurate load which does not thump me around even with a 5 pound lever gun.

[KCSO]

The 44 special case is ideal for loading to a 44 henry duplicate. 28 grains of FFg and a 200 to 220 grain bullet and you can duplicate Henry ballistics perfectly. I always thought 44 special would have been better then 44-40 for the replicas. I even went so far as to shorten and rechamber a N/A 1866 and it worked just fine with a little tweaking to the lifter.

[Ajohns]

Weren't one of the Italian Winchester copies chambered in 44 special? At one time or another? I thought I saw that some time ago.

[Good Cheer]

Maybe the Navy Arms '73 carbines that were otherwise 44-40?

[375supermag]

Hi...
I just bought a Marlin 1894 lever action in .44Magnum on Saturday.
Took it to the gun club on Sunday and it flawlessly fed both.44Magnum and .44Spl handloads with out a single hangup. Accuracy out to 25 yards was excellent with the loads I usually use in my revolvers. The magnum loads weren't very accurate at 100yds...we didn't shoot any Special loads at 100yds.

[Sixgunner john]

Uberti will occasionally make a handful of them in M73 and the M1866. Cimmeron usually one or the other in stock. I’ve got one of the M73s in 44 spl and its a beauty.


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[Cosmic_Charlie]

The 44 special case is ideal for loading to a 44 henry duplicate. 28 grains of FFg and a 200 to 220 grain bullet and you can duplicate Henry ballistics perfectly. I always thought 44 special would have been better then 44-40 for the replicas. I even went so far as to shorten and rechamber a N/A 1866 and it worked just fine with a little tweaking to the lifter.

Yes, you could take the barrel off and shorten the breech face and shoulder enough to have a short chambered .44 special and then finish ream it. It was always my understanding that in addition to cleaning the chamber, you lose some accuracy with the shorter cartridge. I'd bet a dedicated 44 special would sell more than the .327 Federal has.

[bedbugbilly]

I never got in to the 44s but I do have a Henry BB steel in 357. I haven't had the opportunity to shoot it as much as I would like but I figured I would feed it 38 special. Dummy rounds showed me that 357s fed much better/easier than 38s in it - after playing with COAL with RNFP boolits. Shooting a 38 in a 357 chamber was not an issue to me - heck, I shoot 38 Colt shorts and longs in my 357 Uberti Bisley all the time - that's why you clean your guns. Anyway, on my Henry BB, I figured the better way to go was just use 357 brass and load down to 38 special for the plinking/shooting that I do - and easy enough to use the same load in the Bisley if I have that along with me I would imagine that the same goes for 44spl/mag. One has to remember that every rifle is different and one may feed the shorter version better than the next rifle.

IIRC, Uberti made some '73 Winchesters chambered in 44 special. - possibly a special run?