Hot loads for 44 winchester?

[klover]

There is a post in THR where a fellow made hot 357 loads for his Marlin lever action, and painted them red to warn himself from revolver use.

Sounds great to me for terrific ballistics. However, I would love to have a big bore lever without the weight of say a 444 or 45-70. I'm thinking bear defense in AK with the 629 as a side arm, and a light Winchester 94 with near over pressure (painted red) loads. The 94 in 44 is on sale for $300, and I am tempted to buy it for AK backpacking (not hunting).

Just a tube full for dire times, not daily shooting.

The mossberg 590 would of course be first choice, but I'm thinking for a fun backup.

 

[Preacherman]

The problem you'll have with the bear stompers like Garrett Hammerheads is that they're too long to reliably cycle through a lever-action rifle's feeding mechanism. I spoke with Randy Garrett about this, and his recommendation for a heavy .44 Magnum cartridge in a lever-action rifle was the Federal 300gr. CastCore load. Out of a rifle barrel, velocities, penetration and terminal performance are VERY impressive!

 

[Ben Shepherd]

In factory trim get some of the speer gold dot 270 flat points.

These are stompers up near garret or corbon. They chrono'ed out of my 9 1/2" SRH at 1650. They are very accurate out of my redhawk, super redhawk and my rifle. I haven't clocked them out of my 1894 winchester trapper yet, but with twice the barrel and no cylinder gap, I'm sure they move out in a hurry.