I quit on the Marlin 1894P .44

[44man]

It has been almost 2 years since I started playing with this thing. I have tried every load and powder and all boolits from 245 to 330 gr's. I was hoping to get something reliable for the running deer and standing deer shoot at 100 yd's.
I keep reading here and the levergun forum to use over size boolits but have no idea how. Even tried real soft boolits and every other alloy I could make.
I made molds for 3 boolits, .432", 433" and .434". Also lapped 3 Lee size dies. I find the largest boolit that will chamber is .4335 and the groove to groove size is .434". Even bump up will not work to make this *** shoot.
I have one 250 gr boolit that will shoot at 50 yd's, sometimes going into 1 ragged hole but only with 7 gr's of Unique. However 5" at 100 yd's is the best it will do. Every other boolit will range from a minimum of 5" to 8" or more at 100. Once in a great while something like a group appears but can not be duplicated.
I have also done extensive work on the rifle, no tight spots in the bore, it has no barrel band, forearm floats, magazine tube floats in the reciever, etc.
Anyway, here are the best I have done at 100 along with a decent 50 yd group.

[pdawg_shooter]

Do it the easy way. Paper patch !!!!

[softpoint]

I've had that same problem with 2 .44 Marlins, although I've seen a couple that shot pretty good. I couldn't get those two to shoot jacketed worth a hoot either.

[w30wcf]

44man,
Sorry to hear of your frustrating experiences with your .44 Marlin 1894P .
A friend of mine had trouble getting his .44 Marlin to shoot cast bullets.
He was using the Keith style bullet and groups were in the 3" range @ 50 yards.

He did not check his barrel dimensions, but I suggested he try using a .06" thick LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) wad under the bullet.

Viola! Groups shrank to the 1" range. Could have been that the bullet was smaller than the barrel dimension and the poly wad sealed things up.

w30wcf

[Junior1942]

44man, PM me your snailmail address and I'll send you some freebie 1/2" x 1/8" felt wads. You have to force 'em in a 44 case, but they'll go.

[DrJay1st]

Question: Does this caliber in this gun have a reputation for accuracy? I don't own a lever gun and would like to have one or several I'm lurking on this site and drifting toward casting...therefore, I'm interested in which guns are cast friendly and which are not. Is the Marlin 44 so finicky that everything must be perfect on the gun or they won't shoot cast? I'm beginning to suspect that these guns are inherently inaccurate. How about a survey...everyone that has experience with this gun share your experience...We would need the negative experiences as well as the positive to get a true picture. I wonder what the numbers really are?
There's a lot of information for a newbie to sort through...which guns, what kind of rifling, what twist, what bullet style, what mold, what alloy, what hardness, gas check or not? On and On! So, your thoughts and others on your gun/caliber are valuable information.
Jerry

[44man]

This is the only caliber I have had trouble with. We shoot my friends micro groove 30-30 at 200 yd's and had some cast loads around 1". His 45-70 is sweet. My old .35 Rem would hold 1/2" at 100 with jacketed.
The big problem is the reduction of lands and grooves without making them deeper combined with a 1 in 38 twist that can't stabilize anything past 50 yd's. Bore is oversize and grooves are only .003" deep.
JR, I have wads and will try them. But there are too many other problems for them to correct.
I am writing Marlin again to see what it would cost to have the .444 barrel twist rate put on it, along with more complaints.

[bobk]

44Man,
I have often wondered if I could size a bullet base-first, making a mini heel bullet. This would obviously be a wipe on or tumble lube setup, with a homemade die (.38 Special sizers abound at gun shows, and cut well on the lathe). I have a .44-40, and while I have never slugged the barrel, I suspect it is large, so that the boolit can squeeze past the fouling. Trouble is, without the blackpowder bump-up, the boolit doesn't fit well . So, fit the front band to the ball seat, and the body to the case so that it is small enough to chamber reliably. Elmer Keith probably did this a hundred years ago.
Bob K

[Denver]

44 Man,

Your results sound identical to mine when I had the same rifle as yours. I fixed mine by trading it off. Never found a CB load that would shoot worth a damn that was over about 1000 fps and then accuracy wasn't anything to brag about.

Very frustrating.

[Cloudpeak]

I had one of these rifles many years ago. What a well made, good looking gun. I went through many loads with cast and jacketed bullets and could not get that rifle to group. The groups pictured in this thread were better than I could come up with. I could shoot better groups with my Ruger Blackawk 44 magnum so traded the rifle. It was such a let down because this was such a good looking, handy rifle.

Cloudpeak

[Leftoverdj]

I see no mention of GCs. I'll agree with you if you are just talking about PB bullets. Mine won't shoot PB worth a whoop much past 1000 fps, neither. Lyman 429244 does very well cast of linotype, GCed and driven hard. Water quenched ww shoot acceptably, but not as well, probably because of the slight diameter difference.

I believe that a GC can make up for a very slightly undersized bullet. With your barrel as big as it is, that's your only hope.

Forget the running shots, though. After three consecutive inexplicable misses, I came home and did the math. Even a top load is going to take a fifth of a second to travel 100 yards. Assuming a broadside shot on a deer at a full run, that's about NINE FEET of lead and no telling how much up and down for the bounces. Even at 50 yards, you can hold under the chin and still completely miss behind the deer.

[dubber123]

I have never really tried cast in mine other than to chronograph some, as it won't feed a WFN profile and thats what I wanted to shoot. HOWEVER, with 240 XTP's, or now 270 gr. Speer Gold Dots, this gun will happily put 5 rounds in 3/4" or less at 50 yards. Mine shoots like I have come to expect of Marlins, and that is excellent. I have one question, have you tried a different scope? I have fixed many a friends rifle that "just wouldn't shoot", by ditching whatever *** scope they had on it. Just a thought.

[Lloyd Smale]

ill give you 250 bucks for that ***!!!

[dubber123]

ill give you 250 bucks for that ***!!!

I'll go 275$, Lloyd. (shipped of course).

[dubber123]

Another thought, have it re-crowned. I read an article recently, whre they took a brand new bolt gun, a Remington I think, and shot a series of groups as delivered, re-crowned it, and shot more. groups were about 1/4 as large after the muzzle was straightened out.

[Lloyd Smale]

my p isnt a tack driver but it does 3 inch at a 100 with 240 rcbs swcgc and 19 grains of 820 it is the only load that did that well in it though. It doesnt seem to like heavys.

[Lloyd Smale]

by the way dubber the price is now up to 300 shipped

[EDK]

Have you tried the RANCH DOG 432 265 mould? I got one a few weeks ago, but weather and other things have kept me from doing much with it. All the reports were good enough that I initially "subscribed to a 6 cavity" and then decided to get the 2 cavity that was in stock and get busy NOW.

IIRC the conventional wisdom is that you have to play with bearing length, alloy and velocity. "A fast, hard cast gas check design." BUT you seldom get specific data. Is that a discreet way of saying "I haven't found the answer either."

I've had the 1894 44 magnum MARLIN in either the 20 inch round barrel or 24 inch octagon since 1973. I never expected much of them in accuracy, but they work well for a saddle gun/short range woods gun/Cowboy Action Shooting. It shoots minute of coyote/feral dog that was chasing my herford calves; feeds pretty good with almost anything I shoot in my 44 pistols.

For now, its 429667 or 431244 or the Ranch Dog.

[BABore]

I doubt Marlin will budge on a barrel. They charge about $115 to rebarrel a levergun. They unscrew your *** bbl, and screw on a new one right off of the production line. No custom shop capability. They won't sub in a 1 in 18 or 20 twist (444) bbl for your 44 mag.

But, giving up already! After just two years! I thought old men were supposed to have patients.

Your options are;

1. Sell it off to Lloyd.

2. Use it for jacketed only.

3. Open up the chamber a couple thou. so you can shoot the proper sized bullet.

4. New Marlin installed bbl for $115 which consists of another roll of the dice.

5. New custom bbl. About $450 complete.

[dubber123]

by the way dubber the price is now up to 300 shipped

Allright moneybags, you got me!