Modern cartridge equivelent of a .44 Remington?

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probably more in the realm of a .44 spcl. you can load some pretty stout Triple Seven loads, and you can shoot concals as well as round ball.
 
This is a difficult question to answer because the construction of the projectile plays a huge role. For a .44Spl load launching a 250gr hardcast SWC at 900fps will penetrate any deer that walks end to end and there's no way to get that out of a roundball.
 
I cast 220 Lee conicals for my Remmy/ROA and even my Navy. RB is more accurate, in the Navy and Remmy, but the ROA is deadly accurate with about any load. I get around 1300 fps from that 220 over a full charge of 777 packed tight. THAT is more in the realm of hot Keith .44 Specials. A full charge of Pyrodex pushes that 220 over 900 fps. That's pretty close to a normal .44 Special load. I need screens on my Chrony so I haven't shot my new Remmy over the chrony and it's a 5.5" gun vs a 7.5" ROA, but it holds about as much powder, so should perform pretty close.

I shoot mostly 25 grains of 777 behind a RB in my Remmy, it's most accurate load, but that don't mean I can't load it UP if need be. :D It shoots pretty well with hot 220 conicals, but puts 'em a bit above POA where my RB shoots to POA. Not enough to matter at defense ranges 25 yards and in and 15 and in I'm point shooting, anyway. :D
 
What is the modern cartridge equivelent of the .44/.454rb load.
>38spl??

Time to drag out my old (Feb'98) issue of HANDGUNS again....

A .44 round ball with 35 gr. 3Fg and eight-inch barrel achieved 935 fps muzzle velocity.

It penetrated 19.8 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.48 inches diameter, and produced a temporary stretch cavity of 38.8 cubic inches.

The closest wound cavity I can find among modern cartridges would be the .357 Mag Remington 158 gr SJHP - penetrated 19.0 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.50 inches diameter, stretch cavity 35.2 cubic inches.
 
I suppose 40gr of black and a 220gr conical would be within the neighborhood of .44-40.?

I'm no ballistic/cartridge expert, but I'm pretty sure the .44-40 was just a .44 bullet on top of 40 grns of black powder... so yeah, what you said would be equivalent to the .44-40
 
I like .457 RBs... And Swiss pure black powder... Full load gives 1285fps in my 8" remmy ... And 523ft/lbs...
I reach 703ft/lbs with a 18" remmy with the same load (1488fps)... Size matters.
Those 58rems are like modern .44/.45 (not magnums) except for the fouling related to black powder.
 
Zombiphobia wrote:
I'm no ballistic/cartridge expert, but I'm pretty sure the .44-40 was just a .44 bullet on top of 40 grns of black powder... so yeah, what you said would be equivalent to the .44-40.
I can't quantify it further, but I can't get anywhere near 40 grains of BP in a modern .44 WCF case, as, the solid case heads of today don't provide the internal volume. I have been able to get as much as 34 grains of Goex 3f in a case, 35 grains if I use a drop tube, and Win, RP or Starline brass, seating a 200 grain RNFP bullet at the maximum cartridge length that my Pedersoli '73 will cycle reliably. Even when reduced by limited powder capacity the BP .44 WCF in my Ruger Vaqueros is a bit to handle compared to a '58 Remington with a round ball. The same BP load coming out of my Pedersoli '73 with it's long 30" barrel is enough "buck and snort" for me. The RB load also loses power quickly due to the poor ballistic coefficient of a sphere, compared to any elongated projectile. If there was still a manufacturer who still produced .44 Henry RF, I think we'd find it a pretty good match for the .44 Remington. But, like many good cartridges of it's time, the .44 Henry RF managed to win a Darwin Award. ;)
 
Muzzle loader season begins in the morning. I will carry my beloved T/C Hawken .54 and my 5 1/2" '58 Remington (just in case the Miami or the Shawnee go on the warpath.....hasn't happened in years, but you can't be too careful).
 
If you use the Taylor KO scale the "58" rates a 10 which is what many .357 loads rate on the Taylor scale. A 200gr Lee conical over 25 grains of Pyrodex P clocks over 700fps and 248ft/lbs pressure. Thats .38 special +P territory but it is a much bigger and heavier projectile so it is probably going to have a bigger terminal effect. Bottom line, cap and ball revolvers are potent weapons.

Don
 
Time to drag out my old (Feb'98) issue of HANDGUNS again....

A .44 round ball with 35 gr. 3Fg and eight-inch barrel achieved 935 fps muzzle velocity.

It penetrated 19.8 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.48 inches diameter, and produced a temporary stretch cavity of 38.8 cubic inches.

The closest wound cavity I can find among modern cartridges would be the .357 Mag Remington 158 gr SJHP - penetrated 19.0 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.50 inches diameter, stretch cavity 35.2 cubic inches.
I'm going to have to do some looking around, I'd like to have a copy of that article.
 
If you use the Taylor KO scale the "58" rates a 10 which is what many .357 loads rate on the Taylor scale. A 200gr Lee conical over 25 grains of Pyrodex P clocks over 700fps and 248ft/lbs pressure. Thats .38 special +P territory but it is a much bigger and heavier projectile so it is probably going to have a bigger terminal effect. Bottom line, cap and ball revolvers are potent weapons.

Don

Absolutely, people (and thankfully the government) often regard them as "toys" because the technology is so old and they are slow to load without a pre loaded cylinder. But they are very powerful with the right load, you could kill a deer easily with a cap and ball revolver and a well placed shot. For self defense they are totally fine as long as you know how to hit with it, and know how to make it reliable. I keep my 58' Remington loaded by my bedside, I haven't had any misfires with #10 caps that I use for it. Bottom line is they are deadly in the hands of someone who know what they are doing.
 
What would you say is the modern equivalent to those "tiny" .31 caliber pocket revolvers?
.32 S&W? .32 S&W-L? .25 acp?
 
Muzzle loader season begins in the morning. I will carry my beloved T/C Hawken .54 and my 5 1/2" '58 Remington (just in case the Miami or the Shawnee go on the warpath.....hasn't happened in years, but you can't be too careful).

Well, hell, ya know, that's about as good a reason as any to justify carrying it. And, ya know, the AR guys all justify their ARs and a bazillion rounds of 5.56 as just in case they're attacked by zombies. I figure a Native American uprising is a little more probable than a zombie attack.
Originally Posted by Donny View Post
If you use the Taylor KO scale the "58" rates a 10 which is what many .357 loads rate on the Taylor scale. A 200gr Lee conical over 25 grains of Pyrodex P clocks over 700fps and 248ft/lbs pressure. Thats .38 special +P territory but it is a much bigger and heavier projectile so it is probably going to have a bigger terminal effect. Bottom line, cap and ball revolvers are potent weapons.

Don

The Taylor factor was created...dreamed up out of thin air is a more apt description .... to give a rule of reference for elephant hunters in the 19th century. It has absolutely NO relevance to modern magnum revolver cartridges.

Originally Posted by ofitg View Post
Time to drag out my old (Feb'98) issue of HANDGUNS again....

A .44 round ball with 35 gr. 3Fg and eight-inch barrel achieved 935 fps muzzle velocity.

It penetrated 19.8 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.48 inches diameter, and produced a temporary stretch cavity of 38.8 cubic inches.

The closest wound cavity I can find among modern cartridges would be the .357 Mag Remington 158 gr SJHP - penetrated 19.0 inches of gelatin, expanded to 0.50 inches diameter, stretch cavity 35.2 cubic inches.

Well, seems jello isn't real good at caliber comparisons, either. :D

Everyone including myself is bringing up conicals, but the OP states a RB load. Let's just put it this way, I usually carry less for self defense. I'll put the 9x19 +P loads up againts a .44 RB load from the Remmy, but not my 9x18 mak or my +P .38 FBI loads from my 2" snubby. In no way would I wanna be shot with a .44 Remington RB load, put it THAT way. I wouldn't wanna be shot with my pellet rifle, but the odds are much less for me with the .44. A RB load is as effective as the shot placement is and it has MORE than enough penetration to reach whatever in the human body from whatever angle it's fired. That much I glean from the jello article. And, well, it may be as effective on a human as a typically underloaded 158 SWC or flat point .357. I carry 140s in that caliber for defense, though, and I light a fire under 'em.
 
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MCgunner, how does the "jello" data look for the 9x19 +P loads you mentioned? My old Marshall/Sanow book lists "jello" data for four different brands of 9x19 +P, penetration ranged from 7.9 to 13.2 inches, while stretch cavities ranged from 37.2 to 44.8 cubic inches. Quite different from the '58 Remmie performance.
The best match I can find in 9x19 is the Fed 147 gr JHP - penetration 18.0, diameter 0.55, stretch cavity 38.9

Every different load (ie, caliber, bullet weight, bullet construction, velocity) is unique. Same story with the .357 load I cited above; there is no "characteristic" .357 wound channel, but the Rem 158 SJHP's wound channel seems to be the best "equivalent" to the '58 Remmie RB load..... and I believe that is what the OP was asking about.
 
A 44-40 is a 44 case neck down. The neck of the 40 is10.740 bullet 10.17----the 44-40 neck is 11.25 bullet 10.846---- 44 neck 11.58 bullet 429 or 430
 
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You can look it up and see that there is a small different size in all three. I looked it up in my Accurate load book number 1
 
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