.44 mag in a Rifle

[Old Grumpy]

I have a close friend who has purchased a Henry Big Boy in .44 mag. He is wanting to reload for it. I do not have a .44 mag rifle experience but I do reload for my .44 mag Ruger Redhawk. Can anyone offer advice or reload information?

He would like to load some mild target loads using Unique and the 240gr LSWC. He also is thinking about using .44 spl brass.

Are the loads the same for the rifle as they are for the pistol? If he is to buy new brass (Starline) would he be better off buying .44 magnum in place of .44 special? Other than length, are the cases different (mag thicker)?

Will any .44 spl pistol load work in a rifle?

 

[Walkalong]

I used to run .44 Spl brass/loads in my .44 Mag rifle. Be sure to clean the chamber well after firing a lot of them and before firing .44 Mag loads. Unique will work quite well for medium loads in .44 Mag brass. .44 Mag loads are the same for pistol and rifle, the rifle can just take better advantage of the slower powders. Do not load .44 mag loads in .44 Spl brass. You do not want to take a chance they end up in a .44 Spl.

 

[rcmodel]

240 Keith LSWC + 7.5 Unique has been the standard load in .44 Spl for many years.
It is called the "Skeeter Load" after Skeeter Skelton, who did much to promote the .44 Spl and "The Skeeter Load" in the 1960's & 70's.

Far as I know, no one has done anything to improve on it since then.

rc

 

[flipajig]

What I found in mine was a feeding isue. With the desine of the LSWC desine is they dont like to feed.. I found a mold that cycles through my M94 Winchester like melted butter.. It casts out at 254 grn and sized to my rifle shoots verry well.
Im running it at 1660fps im also loading it with a gas check, My tender and SBH like them also.. PM me if you are interested in them..
You can also load Special loads in a Mag case.. ive been doing it for several years. I dont load special brass in ANY of my 44's.
FLIP..

 

[Salmoneye]

No idea about the Henry's, but the Marlin 1894's want a minimum of .430", and some slug out a couple-three thousandths larger...

 

[Salmoneye]

Forgot this part:

Are the loads the same for the rifle as they are for the pistol?

From looking at data over the years, I have seen a few manuals that list different loads for handgun and rifle, with the rifle loads usually being slightly lighter (a grain or two)...Hornady manuals come to mind...

 

[gamestalker]

What ever can be fired from the Ruger can certainly be fed to the Henry. I've never loaded with lead though, so follow the advice of those with that experience.

My rilfe loads were my usual jacketed H110/296 stuff, which is a full house load regardless of how low of published charge one uses. if a person likes knock down dirty magnum performance from a revolver, wait till you run them through a rifle.
GS

 

[blarby]

My speer manual lists for 44 magl/rifle , but not 44 spl.

The 44 mag loadings are virtually identical, with the exception of allowing for additional pressure in the hot 300gr category.

The 44 mag rifle section of hodgdons goes something like this for 240g LSWC :

225 GR. SPR JHP Hodgdon H110 .429" 1.575" 23.0 1778 25,600 CUP 25.0 1924 36,300 CUP
240 GR. LSWC CAST Hodgdon Universal .430" 1.620" 6.5 927 11,700 CUP 10.2 1374 37,500 CUP
240 GR. LSWC CAST Hodgdon HP-38 .430" 1.620" 5.5 907 12,000 CUP 11.0 1437 38,100 CUP
240 GR. LSWC CAST Hodgdon Titegroup .430" 1.620" 4.7 908 11,100 CUP 10.0 1423 38,400 CUP
240 GR. LSWC CAST Hodgdon Clays .430" 1.620" 4.3 839 14,000 CUP 6.2 1062 21,800 CUP


Courtesy of :

http://www.hodgdon.com rifle-44 mag

I cannot recommend strongly enough to buy the starline 44mag instead of 44 spc. You can always load 44 mag down.... loading 44 spc up is much more difficult !

 

[Old Grumpy]

I'm trying my best to talk him into buying .44mag brass in place of the .44spl. I've loaded a lot of "in-between" loads using .44mag cases. These loads fall in-between maximum .44spl loads and starting .44mag loads. I've found several that are extremely accurate out of my Ruger and the recoil is very managable.

I'm going to keep after him and strongly suggest he buy .44mag cases. As blarby said, "You can always load .44 mag down."

 

[straight-shooter]

My Marlin .44 mag doesn't like the SWC design. Feeding is a bit on the difficult side working the lever. I switched over to casting the RNFP design and it feeds like butter.

Also the word on the internet is the SWC design isn't recommended in the tube fed rifles because of a possibility of the nose of the bullet striking the primer on the round ahead of it during recoil. Take it for what it's worth because I've never had this happen.

 

[buck460XVR]

Are the loads the same for the rifle as they are for the pistol? If he is to buy new brass (Starline) would he be better off buying .44 magnum in place of .44 special? Other than length, are the cases different (mag thicker)?

Will any .44 spl pistol load work in a rifle?

I use the same loads in my levers(.357 and .44) and in my 77/44 as I do in my 629s and 686s. Those that are most accurate outta the revolvers are also generally the most accurate outta the carbines. I too would advise he stick with magnum cases. They just seem to feed better in my lever carbines(Marlin and Rossi) as opposed to special cases. He also will have what he needs if he wants to load hunting rounds or just use standard magnum rounds. Be advised that when loading max loads for use in lever carbines that you use virgin or once fired brass only. I was always advised to stay above loads that produce 750fps in a revolver when using them in a carbine to avoid a stuck bullet.