44 spl in marlin 1894

[nicodiesel]

does anyone have a good accurate 44spl. loads with cast bullets in malin 1894

[Cowboy_Dan]

Not trying to discourage you, but my dad's rifle does not like .44 specials. Unless you seat the bullet waaay out, a second case tries to jump onto the cartridge lifter and locks everything up. Feeds 310 gr. SWC in .44 mag just fine though.

[nicodiesel]

mine feeds anything from a short 44 spl to 44 maf with 310gr. i got about 500 brass of the 44 spl. i tried lee 200gr rnfp with no good accuracy. i ll try my lyman 240gr and maybe it will be better. sad part is all data availeble for 44 spl is for pistol

[Guesser]

I've owned 2 of the Marlin 1894 carbines in 44. The first one, 1978 worked as well with 44 Specials as it did with 44 magnums, accuracy was acceptable with both cartridge. My current 1894, a 1997 gun with cross bolt safety does not feed the 44 Special well, not worth the effort all tho accuracy was acceptable when single loaded. I found that 240-250 gr. bullets were the best in both cartridges.

[44man]

The problem will be the twist rate.

[wrench man]

My 1894 44Mag also refuses to feed 44 Special ammo!, double or triple clutching the lever is REQUIRED! simply MOT worth it for me.

[W.R.Buchanan]

If you load .44 Specials for the rifle you can use boolits like Lyman 429244 with a gas check quite effectively. and use the crimp groove in the boolits as your OAL stop. These will be shorter than .44 mags and will still feed just fine. OAL length of these rounds matters little as the lifter only allows one cartridge onto the lifter before it pops up and blocks the next one. .44 Russians will work too, just like Shorts Longs and Long Rifles work in a Marlin 39A which works exactly the same way as the bigger guns.

Any load for a Revolver will work just fine in the rifle except you will see from 200-400 fps increase in velocity due to the extra length of the barrel. I tend to use gas checked boolits and slower burning powders like H110 for my Rifle Loads. Also the SAMMI Spec for groove dia. on .44 Mag Rifle barrels is .431+/- .002,,, as opposed to .429 +/- .002 for Revolvers.. Most will be right there. but you still need boolits at least .432 to work right.

Part of the reason for the gas checks is to eliminate leading if your boolits are a little small which how most moulds are going to drop these boolits. You will be lucky to see .432 on any Lyman mould unless you use Linotype. I have a Mihec .429244 mould that drops them at .434 so I can size them down to fit perfectly, and have the gas checks as well.

I just got thru shooting my Marlin 1894 CB about an hour ago in a Short Range Silhouette Shoot at my club. Shot 18/40 and this was the first time I have shot this gun at this match. These 260 gr boolits knock the Krap out of the steel targets and the chickens at 50M literally go flying when hit solidly and the pigs literally slap the ground when they drop... Very satisfying indeed!

Part of getting these guns to run right involves holding the gun horizontal when operating the lever, just like you would do it levering it from the shoulder. If the gun is laying on its side the round will be out of position and not lay on the lifter properly and will not feed into the chamber without hanging up. I had to relearn this today as I was single loading.

When the lever is closed the Lifter is pushed all the way down letting the rim of the next cartridge onto the lifter. As the bolt is opened the tang on the lever allows the cartridge to move back on to the lifter, but while doing this it is also pinned up against the top of the mag tube and as the boolit goes past the front of the lifter it pops up and blocks the next round from entering the receiver. If it doesn't block the next round you have a problem and it is known as the "Marlin Jam." You must push the offending cartridge back into the mag tube as the gun is locked up until you do.

As the lever is closed the lifter is pushed up and pins the cartridge to the top of the receiver so that the bolt can push it forward into the chamber. As the bolt closes all the way the lifter is dropped back down and the rim of the next cartridge in the mag is allowed to pass onto the lifter. However the tang on the lever is preventing it from going further and only allows this when it is opened.

The cartridge lifter performs two basic functions. It blocks the magazine and at one point drops below the mag so as to let a cartridge onto the lifter, and it lifts the cartridge up so that the bolt may push it into the chamber.

The tang on the lever then allows the cartridge to move back until it hits the stop on the lifter. At that point the cartridge is completely on the lifter and the lever is all the way open. The overall length of the cartridge makes little difference as the lifter only allows the rim of the cartridge onto it and as the front of the boolit goes past the front of the lifter it pops up blocking the next round from entering.

It is a good idea to break the sharp edge on the back edge of the chamber so that it doesn't dig into the boolit as the cartridge is being shoved into the chamber. With about a .040-.050 chamfer or radius any boolit will feed without hanging up. Without this chamfer you are left having to use round nose boolits as these are the only style that will get past the sharp chamber mouth.

As far as loads for the .44 Special I would suggest buying a back Issue of Handloader Magazine #236 which has about 100 loads for the .44 Special from mild to wild. Any will work in your gun and you can literally shoot tin cans or large animals successfully with these loads.

If you need more then you can always load Magnum cases and be suitable for just about anything you'll see. I shot Magnum Cases today loaded with 260 gr 429244's and 22.0 gr of H110 and I assure you that they are plenty powerful enough for anything in the lower 48 and more than accurate enough as well.

Hope this helps you understand how these things work. All Marlin Leverguns regardless of caliber work exactly the same way.

Randy

[wrench man]

Or you can simply load ammo in the 44 Mag brass and not have any issues.

[runfiverun]

all the data don't matter it is held to a pressure ceiling regardless of revolver or rifle.
same as the 44 mag,357,308,223 or whatever.
if you decide to load to the gun your on your own and will have to decide how to proceed.

[nicodiesel]

thanks W.R. BUCHANAN for the info. i found myself a handloader 236 issue online. waiting for it

[Foto Joe]

I loaded 44 Special only for years for my '94 Marlin. The "Marlin Jam" can definitely be an issue if you get our OAL too short and the first time it happens will drive you nuts. Once you've got your minimum OAL figured out for your specific gun and cartridge then it'll become a thing of the past.

My two favorite loads are using a 215 grain SWC or RNFP cast boolits is 5.0 grains of Trailboss for a very mild 875 fps load or 7.0 grains of AutoComp that yields 1,085 fps and for my rifle is a tack driver at 100 yards.

I don't load a lot of 44 Specials anymore as somebody last year gifted me a bucket of 44 Mag brass and I couldn't resist working up a plain base boolit Magnum load. As has been stated above, boolit size is paramount and a standard .429 sized boolit likely won't impress anybody.

[Char-Gar]

I have an older Marlin levergun in 44 Magnum and like it quite well. I fiddled with loading just enough to find a great load and quit. Here is what I found;

1. It will feed 44 Special cases just fine, but I don't see any sense in that. There will be the issue of crud in the longer chamber ahead of the short case. This will build up until there is a problem.

2. I filed the lifter back a little to allow more flexability in loading length.

3. My rifle like big bullets of at least .431 and .432 is better.

4. The barrel twist is a very slow one taken from the 44-40 WCF and I have found my best groups with a 200 to 230 grain bullets over 10 grains of Unique. In other words, I load it like a 44-40.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Typically the guns function and shoot better with Magnum Length cases, however the OP has 500 Special cases he wants to use up.

Nicodiesel: I highly recommend that you look for a Ruger Blackhawk Bisley or plain Blackhawk in .44 Special, to shoot up your .44 Special Brass. It is the best possible usage for it.

The Marlin will run fine but you will have to deal with cleaning the chamber frequently and whereas it won't be that much of a problem shooting midrange loads, to get it clean,,, With heavy loads there will eventually be some erosion. This is called "ringing the chamber"

Best to leave the heavy loads loaded in Magnum Cases.

The best thing you can do to improve the feeding of these rifles is to chamfer the mouth of the chamber .040-.050. It is easy to do with a extended 5/8"countersink and only takes a few minutes to do.

My gun will feed any combination of boolits and case lengths interchangeably as fast as you can work the lever.

What this does for you is open up the world of Semi Wadcutter Boolits to use in the gun.. Pretty much everyone will agree that the .44's are best served using 240-260gr SWC boolits. They always hang up on the chamber mouth as the step on the boolit is gouged into by the sharp chamber mouth. This happens with Wide Flat Nosed Boolits like LBT Style Boolits as well. IE: boolits with wide Meplats.

Chamfering the chamber mouth fixes this problem for good. Also this is a common thing to do to revolvers used in competition to promote smooth entry of the cartridges in the cylinder. Works the same way on a rifle and for the life of me I don't understand why Marlin hasn't done this in the past. They could grind the chamber reamer so that it is done as a part of chambering the barrel. Almost a no brainer.

Randy