Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

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earlmck
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Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by earlmck »

Friend of mine was looking through the "Henry" catalog and fell in love with the Henry Henry, which arrived a few days ago. He had already acquired dies and brass, I had given him some of my 215 grain casties that fall like rain from a 6-cavity Lee. Pushing my .431 sized bullet through showed he had a bore of .429 as I had told him to expect. And wanting to have a variety of things to play with before ordering his own mould he tried ordering commercial cast bullets.

So I get a distress call. There are NO .429 or .430 sized bullets made for the 44/40! And my .431 bullets cause tight chambering in his rifle.

So I squozed some of mine on down to .429 and we had a 44/40 shoot yesterday where the Lee at .429 shot very nicely for him, culminating (after load-testing and sight-adjusting) with Larry popping the little 3"X 8" gong at 100 yards with reasonable regularity.

So this morning I jumped on the usual suspects (Midway, Grafs, Natchez...) to see about Larry's bullet diameter complaint. Sure enough, if you search for 44/40 bullets you get .427 and .428 (with a .426" jacketed -- I'll bet that shoots like stuff in our new .429 barrels!). You can find plenty of nice 200 to 240 grain .429 and .430 bullets on these sites but you have to look under "44 cal pistol bullets". Since I had never tried buying bullets for my 44/40 I had no idea the commercial world was still producing everything sized for the guns of the 1800's. I know most barrels for at least the past 50 years have been made at least to .429 -- do we know when the transition began?

Pity the poor new 44/40 shooter! I'm guessing the soft bullets in commercial lead ammo bump on up to fit when fired and shoot OK?
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DaveInPA
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by DaveInPA »

You can get soft cast bullets for .44-40 sized to either .428 or .430 from Desperado Cowboy Bullets. http://www.cowboybullets.com. They come lubed with a black powder compatible lube, but not enough for use in a 24" barrel unless you also use a lube cookie or lubed wad.

I've run them sized to .429 through my Cimarron 1873 Sporting Rifle in .44-40 over Unique and they shoot well.
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Marvin S »

My Remington 14 1/2 has the smaller correct bore size. 1914 to 1931
pshort
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by pshort »

Howdy,
I have a Henry - Henry.. Nice rig..
I've been using SNS-Casting brand, .430, 200gr, RNFP bullets, box marked .44 magnum...
Starline brass, 8-1/2 gr Unique.. About 1250 or so FPS...
They fit perfectly, shoot well, leave no leading...
I use Redding dies, with a Lee FCD crimping die...
I only crunched one case, before I got the FCD crimper.. None since..
This recipe works well for me, YMMV....

Last word: This combo works fine in my rifle, (Henry-Henry) YMMV.....

Paul
Last edited by pshort on Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mrdix2
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Mrdix2 »

Try Missouri Bullets , rimrock bullets , Buffalo arms , Dardas cast bullets ,Acme Bullets ...all have .428 for 44-40 some have .427 also ...looks like there are plenty of options out there !
jnyork
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by jnyork »

I have been shooting cast bullets from Oregon Trail (Lasercast) in my 44-40 Uberti 1873. They come sized to .431 which is what my rifle likes, wont shoot anything smaller, but I dont see why you couldnt size them down. I shoot a LOT of silhouette, several thousand rounds of these bullets over the years and not a miss that I can blame on the bullet. :D
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Sixgun »

People who read too much don't have any business shooting anything....except "safe" stuff. :D
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by AJMD429 »

I've been using SNS-Casting brand, .430, 200gr, RNFP bullets, box marked .44 magnum...
...then if you want to shoot a Marlin or Rossi "44 Mag" you have to get huge bullets cuz they are overbored....I've seen some where 0.432" isn't snug enough.... :roll:
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earlmck
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by earlmck »

That's good info about your Rem 14 1/2 Marvin. That .427 would have been my guess but I didn't know for sure. I have one in 38/40 and it is a .399 bore, so Remington was keeping things tight back in those days.

Friend Larry was using 7 grains of Unique with the 215 gr. RNFP, and he also tried a 5744 load -- 16 grains I think-- that went a little faster and also shot well. I'll tell him about your 8 1/2 gr. load pshort -- I know he was thinking he'd like a little more velocity with his load and that 1250 fps would be just what he was aiming for.

Larry called up Lazercast to order some bullets and the lady he talked to said they had quit making anything but the .427 in that 200 gr. bullet. Hope you can still get the ones you need Jerry! If not, just pop on over next week; we are going to have a bullet casting/liver & onions party over at friend Butch's shop where I'll loan Larry my mould and he can produce a bushel of 44/40 bullets in a couple hours with that 6-cavity. And you could take another bushel of 'em home to Wyoming. A few miles of drive but it doesn't take long to get across Idaho -- I think 80 must be the minimum speed on I80.

Anyway, Spring has Sprung in Ory-gun and life is good. Us boys are back to doing some shooting on a fairly regular basis: gonna' be some tin cans with .43 diameter holes in 'em around these parts.
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Marvin S
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Marvin S »

I cast using a SAECO mold and size .428. Redding dies and LEE FC die. The 14 1/2 is on of my most accurate little rifles.
Bill in Oregon
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Earl, Larry couldn't possibly be in better hands getting his .44 WCF running.
Are you sure Spring has sprung in Oregon? Your 7-day looks crowded with rainy and snowy stuff. Looking for 77 here today, 83 tomorrow.

8)
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Stevie »

My experience with .44 bullets and .44-40 bore diameters is that nothing is as advertised!

I own two old Winchester M1892 rifles in .44WCF. These date to like 1904 for a carbine and 1907 for a sporting rifle. The rifle has a good bore and slugs at .430" while the carbine has a fairly rough bore that slugs .431"....I also have a 1970's/80's or so Rossi M92 in .44-40...the Rossi slugs to .427" bore size.

Bullets I've bought specifically for the .44-40 are some knurled lead 200 grain from Hornady...these supposedly designed for .44-40 but are not .427 as advertised...measuring .424"....so I buy a selection of .44 bullets that are all advertised as .429" size...well no! The closest to the advertised size are some Missouri Bullet Company lead 200gr cowboy bullets at .428"....a box of Hornady 180gr knurled lead that's supposedly .429" measure like .425/.426"....Speer 200gr jacketed hollowpoints advertised at .429" actually mike at .426"/.427".....so I measure some jacketed rifle bullets in .308" and .459" and these all measure as advertised at .308" and .459"

My guess is that .44 caliber bullet manufacturers stay to minimal specs in deference to old .44-40 chambered arms that might have about any size bore....The reloading manuals caution that .44-40 bores vary considerably and you should slug your bore.
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earlmck
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by earlmck »

Bill, we only get about 5% of the precip the forecasters call for so not much worry there. What keeps us shooters inside in March is cold, dry wind and this has been the least windy March I have seen in these parts (stiff winds only about 2 days out of 3).

And that's interesting about those old Winnys larger bore sizes Stevie. I am loading up some rounds for a friend who is bringing his mom's old m92 to our "44/40 shoot" we'll have sometime in the near future -- maybe I should try to see if I can get a size on that baby. Or probably he'll just have to take his chances with my .429's if I don't see him sooner. And I have two of the Rossi's -- a 44 mag from the 90's and an older 44/40 and both slug at an identical .429. In my very limited experience I have only seen .429 bores on the newer rifles and thought that was pretty much standard. My Redhawk revolvers are the bigger ones, going .431. I guess a 44 shooter of any persuasion has to keep on his toes.
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is he who heals the most gullies.
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jnyork
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by jnyork »

Thanks for the invitation, Earl. The Lasercast bullets I have been using are the 180 grainers.
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by 3leggedturtle »

So 44 WCF bore diameters have varied all along. I thought it was just the modern guns that used larger bores. Learnt sumthin new today. Todd3/leg
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres

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Stevie
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Re: Tough to be a new 44/40 shooter...

Post by Stevie »

John Kort had recommended me a load to use the small diameter Hornady knurled bullets when I griped about them on another forum. It appears Trail Boss at max published load for the bullet weight/cartridge will bump bullets up pretty nice! I use the same powder charge for the 200gr bullets in all my .44-40 loads now with perfect satisfaction. Even the jacketed bullets for my rough bored carbine seem to grab good and shoot decent enough.

As far as .44-40 bore diameters go...I was rather shocked at the large Winchester bore size myself. Then the Rossi M92 with a .427" bore size was really a shock! I had done some research on the Rossi carbines in .44 caliber and had been led to expect bore diameters of .430" or better...but no apparently Rossi at some point early on embraced published .44-40 specs.

I have a NOS Winchester M94 barrel in .44-40 I got to re-barrel my poor-bore M1892 carbine and have not attempted to use yet. I should slug that barrel one of these days just to see what Winchester's .44-40 bores slug to in more modern times.
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