NEF 445 Super Mag - a success story reaches it peak

[MtJerry]

About a year ago a few fella's on a different forum came up with the idea to take a New England Arms Handi Rifle chambered in 44mag and group buy a reamer to take out to a 445 Super mag. Jeff223 (a regular member here and a GREAT guy ) honcho'd the deal and I was a part of it.

Let me start by saying the obvious ... the 445 Super Mag is a FANTASTIC round out of a rifle. At top end loads, it holds it own against the 444 Marlin, but still gives the shooter the added luxury of still shooting 44 special and 44 magnum in the same chamber. In some cases, lengthening the throat of the 44 mag to the 445 chamber improved accuracy for those wanting to keep shooting 44 mags in the barrel. I was one of those as well.

Most of us encountered a common problem with the NEF 44 mag barrel. They came from the factory overbored ... mine slugged out at .432 as did many others. A call to factory revealed that it was still "in specs" with NEF's bore standards. This caused lots of issues for us in that we had to stick to large dia. condom bullets (hornady, speer, etc) OR special order .432 cast bullets for those of us who did not cast their own.

I found a nice 270gr. cast bullet from an on-line dealer and made a nice 175 yard shot on a meat doe last year.

Now, this past summer, I came into a nice batch of moulds from a friend, one of which was the Lyman .429244 (255gr. SWC GC) that I was hoping and praying would drop from the mould at .432 or thereabouts so I could shoot it without sizing (or having to special order a Lee Push-thru sizer). I did purchase a Lee push thru sizer in .430 to shoot this bullet out of my Ruger SBH and it is shooting WONDERFULLY behind a healthy dose of 2400, but that's abother thread. These bullets, unfortunately drop from the mould at .434 and when loaded, will not chamber as they are too large for my bore

Well, today (last night actually) I decided I'd give the .430 sized boolits a try behind some AA 5744.

29.2gr. of that powder today have me a ragged hole at 50 yards

I went on up a bit to a full 30gr. and had no signs of over pressure, but the groups started falling apart at 29.5gr.

I am well pleased as you can imagine. I had to look long and hard for some place to start with the 5744 as there appears to be no commercial data avalible for it in this caliber. But since my 45-70 likes it soooooooo much with heavy slow boolits, I thought it should be a natural in the .445 super mag as well.

I did get some of the normal unburnt powder as is common with 5744, but there was less and less of it as with pressure and load increased.

I think I have found a nice, inexpensive (a big issue with me - I have two kids ) home-grown load for my favorite hunting rifle.

Lots of fellas are hunting BIG pigs in Oklahoma with thier NEF 445 SM, I have taken at least one big mule deer doe with it, and this year ... I will chase Elk with it. I'll let ya know how it turn out

Here are the particulars of the load:

445 SM Starline Brass
Lyman 429244 (255gr. SWC GC)
Alloy is 50/50 wheel weights and stick-on weights with a touch of tin added to help with mould fill-out
Lube is 50/50 alox and beeswax
CCI Large Pistol Mag primers
AA 5744 - 29.2 gr.
My crony says I was getting 1923fps. I am going to try this again another day as I don't think it was that fast. Just a gut feeling tho.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to someone else. Heaven knows I learned a LOT here from each of you to get to this point.

THANK YOU!

Jerry

[RugerFan]

Thanks for the report. I have thought about doing something similar with the .414 Supermag in a TC Encore.

[danski26]

thanks for the info. I have a 445 supermag project waiting to be started.

[lefty_red]

This sounds pretty good!

I was wanting to do something like this with my 357 NEF and making it a 357 MAX!

I've got to ask, cuss I'm a wuss, HOW WAS THE RECOIL? Are you using a scope or "ckecking it" with iron sights?

Jerry

[MtJerry]

This sounds pretty good!

I was wanting to do something like this with my 357 NEF and making it a 357 MAX!

I've got to ask, cuss I'm a wuss, HOW WAS THE RECOIL? Are you using a scope or "ckecking it" with iron sights?

Jerry

I have a .357 barrel that was made into a Max last year. It's a shooter too, but I'm still working with it. I got rented a reamer from leftoverdj (a member here), but it's done quite few barrels and he may have retired it.

As for the 445 SM, the recoid is about the same as my .270.

[HTRN]

Just out of curiosity, why did you do .445 instead of .444 Marlin?


HTRN

[357maximum]

Just out of curiosity, why did you do .445 instead of .444 Marlin?


HTRN

E-F-F-I-C-I-E-N-C-Y

[MtJerry]

Just out of curiosity, why did you do .445 instead of .444 Marlin?


HTRN

I like the idea of being able to shoot 44 spec/mag out of it along with the 445 sm cartrige. My two sons will learn on this one and my 357max one day. They will be able to start with the lighter loads and work up to the heavier loads.

And, with this chambering, I AM getting 444 Marlin performance.