.44 Russian -why not

Should work just fine. Like shooting 38 Short Colt in you 357 Magnum.

Hodgdon online reloading database even has a small amount of reloading data for 44 Russian to give you a good starting point for load development.

https://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/pistol

Sounds like a fun experiment! Do let us know the results. Might be a future need for this round.

44 Russian and 44 Special were originally loaded to the same specs. 246 grain bullet at 735 fps. No problems.

The .44 Special was loaded 'down' so as not to over stress revolvers chambered for .44 Russian that might (and did) allow .44 Special to be chambered. Which seems a loss for the .44 Special round.

However, to the question: Unless you load without regard to good sense, you are not going to hurt yourself or any decently made .44 Magnum revolver. I load my old .44 Special Hand Ejector (with 44 Spl cases) with 250 grain bullets and just under .45 ACP hardball velocities. Makes sense to me.

I shoot Fiocci 44 Russian in my Charter Arms Boomer. Shoots well, was cheaper than 44SP when I got it.

Archie said:

The .44 Special was loaded 'down' so as not to over stress revolvers chambered for .44 Russian that might (and did) allow .44 Special to be chambered. Which seems a loss for the .44 Special round.

However, to the question: Unless you load without regard to good sense, you are not going to hurt yourself or any decently made .44 Magnum revolver. I load my old .44 Special Hand Ejector (with 44 Spl cases) with 250 grain bullets and just under .45 ACP hardball velocities. Makes sense to me.

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Are you sure it’s not just one way interchangeable like 38 and 357.
What guns chambered for .44 Russian can shoot 44 special with its longer case?

If your goal is to load it closer to max power .44 Special, you can and should load .44 Russian hotter than published data, so long as you're shooting it from a .44 Mag. The long jumps in revolver cylinders allow gas to blow by and while it's not for a very long travel, it's there. This is an issue I'm running into with .45 ACP in my Redhawk, I'll load a few tenths of a grain over max data that Hodgdon says should get almost 900 fps from a 5" barrel and I'm getting over 100 fps less. Yeah, part of that is it's a 4.2" barrel and a revolver w/ a cylinder gap, but the other part of that is the longer jump.

FortuneCookie45LC did videos a few years ago on Youtube where he trimmed some .45 Cowboy brass to fit in a .45 ACP cylinder of a 7.5" Blackhawk and he loaded them hot and got 1200 fps w/ a 200 grain bullet. Gun didn't blow up, imagine that.

Now, I can't speak to the longevity of the brass, I know that Starline stands by their .45 Colt brass is built to handle .44 Mag pressures, so their .45 Cowboy Special (trimmed .45 Colt with a different headstamp) is also capable, but IDK if their .44 Russian can handle 35k PSI levels, but I doubt you're looking to load them that hot.

Barbaroja said:

Are you sure it’s not just one way interchangeable like 38 and 357.
What guns chambered for .44 Russian can shoot 44 special with its longer case?

Click to expand...

Initially, that was the plan. To 'invent' a longer case (that alone started a trend) so the .44 Special, obviously seen as an improvement and upgrade in ballistics; that's my conclusion based on how minds of humans work.
However, the revolvers chambered for .44 Russian had 'sloppy' cylinder tolerances. The prior .44 cartridges (.44 S&W Center Fire No. 3 Revolver and .44 American) were outside lubricated, and like the current .22 long rifle, had the same diameter bullet as case. A plurality of those guns were top break, and the allowed pressures were less than .44 Special (odd as that seems today). But any number of users operated on the concept, 'If it fits, it shoots'. (Too many still do.)