Is the throat of the Marlin 1894 44 Mag capable of handling a .432 or .431 gas checked cast bullets? The rifle is a 2007 model and has Ballard rifling.

With the larger case capacity, due to length of a cast bullet, I've heard starting with 24gr of H110 as a minimum. Any thoughts?

I'm leaning towards a Beartooth 250gr WFN cast solid as bullet of choice, will I need a special die to accommodate the .432 or.431 diameter?

Will the 1:38" twist stabilize the 250gr WFN cast solid? I hear they're fairly short.

Lastly, I have an 2005 Super Blackhawk, 44 Mag and would like to use the same bullet. I hear Ruger is the last to remain true to Elmer's .432 throat.

Any help would be appreciated.

M

Good luck with the .44! I have one and made molds all the way to .434", plus .432" RD molds and every boolit weight and diameter you can think of.
I can't get it to shoot anything past 50 yards for crap.
Marlin screwed the pooch with the 1 in 38" twist.
The best I can figure is that it would make a good round ball gun.
They changed the .444 to a 1 in 20" because of complaints. So if a boolit can't be shot fast enough from a .444 with a 1 in 38" twist to stabilize, how do they expect a .44 to do it?
They explained how they arrived at the twist rate, some pencil pusher at a desk used the Greenhill formula.
You might make it work with 180 gr bullets.

By the way, the Ballard rifling is a joke.
The micro groove has rifling .003" deep, check your rifling and you will find the Ballard is also only .003" deep. This means the micro groove actually has a better grip on a cast boolit because there are more lands and grooves.
On top of that, Marlin has a short warranty so if your gun does not work, you pay for repairs if the warranty runs out. Unlike other gun makers that take care of you for life.

I'm with bfrshooter on the twist. It sounds pritty slow but unless someone here has some expieriance with one of these Marlins you'll just have to try some different loads and see just how heavy of a bullet this rifle will let you use.

Your Blackhawk will shoot a heavy bullet. It would be ashamed to have to limit what bullet your revolver will shoot because the same bullet won't shoot in the rifle. I understand that it's nice to standardize your load and thats a value judgement you'll have to make. I shoot a 330 gr. WFN in my .44 Blackhawks and they shoot great.

I have found that the Rugers I have do indeed have good cylinder throats right out of the box. They all measured .431 That is two superblackhawks and one redhawk.

After looking at your post a second time I realized the first question about the bullet dia. Again without expieriance with the marlin and especially your particular rifle I don't know but You may indeed have a problem chambering a .431 or .432 bullet.

The larger bullet diameter in a rifle is not necessary for accuracy because you don't have the cylender jump or the forceing cone. It is a differant technolagy all together.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
By the way, the Ballard rifling is a joke.
The micro groove has rifling .003" deep, check your rifling and you will find the Ballard is also only .003" deep. This means the micro groove actually has a better grip on a cast boolit because there are more lands and grooves.
On top of that, Marlin has a short warranty so if your gun does not work, you pay for repairs if the warranty runs out. Unlike other gun makers that take care of you for life.

Marlin has assured me repeatedly, and demonstrated too that they warrant their goods forever. No questions asked.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Good luck with the .44! I have one and made molds all the way to .434", plus .432" RD molds and every boolit weight and diameter you can think of.
I can't get it to shoot anything past 50 yards for crap.
Marlin screwed the pooch with the 1 in 38" twist.
The best I can figure is that it would make a good round ball gun.
They changed the .444 to a 1 in 20" because of complaints. So if a boolit can't be shot fast enough from a .444 with a 1 in 38" twist to stabilize, how do they expect a .44 to do it?
They explained how they arrived at the twist rate, some pencil pusher at a desk used the Greenhill formula.
You might make it work with 180 gr bullets.

I have the near same conclusion regards the .44 marlin 1894.

The only thing that has ever been accurate in my micro grove 1894, enought to call it that, was loadings of Clays 4.3 to 6.2 grains behind 240 grain lyman Keith type SWC. Never put them to the cronograph, however. I think the 4.3 loading was best for accuracy and probably real slow.

I have had 3 44 Mag Rifles. The first an original Ruger Deerstalker, the second a Marlin.

Both of these I had when 240gr was the heaviest bullets avialable. Both shot great to 75 yards, at 100 groups opened up.

I now have a Winchester 44 Mag Trapper,

Strangely it shoots best at 100 yards with Speer 270gr GD Sp and 300gr Federal Cast Core.

All of them had the 1 in 38 Micro Groove rifling.

For broken parts maybe but not if the gun will not shoot. I asked them and the first question was "Is it still under warranty." I wanted a 1 in 20 twist and I know they have .444 barrels. They sent me a bunch of paper work explaining how they chose the twist so I gave up and am going to sell the gun. I want the 45-70 GG in stainless.
Most of their rifles are fine. The .44 is the abortion.

Moonshot, Standard 44 mag dies handle .431 cast from beartooth, MTB and leadheads just fine. DRC is tuning my Marlin 44 as we speak. He tells me that the Marlin "should" handle the 280g cast as the upper wt. limit w/ the 1/38 barrel. My Ruger SBH shoots them well and I'm hoping/planning to shoot the same loads in both the pistol and rifle.

I was working out twist rates this morning and with the most accurate load in my Ruger at 1335 fps, the boolit needs to be driven 2550 fps from the Marlin to match it.
An RPM range of 48,060.
Hmmm, how much Bullseye would that be?

quote:

Originally posted by aliveincc:
Moonshot, Standard 44 mag dies handle .431 cast from beartooth, MTB and leadheads just fine. DRC is tuning my Marlin 44 as we speak. He tells me that the Marlin "should" handle the 280g cast as the upper wt. limit w/ the 1/38 barrel. My Ruger SBH shoots them well and I'm hoping/planning to shoot the same loads in both the pistol and rifle.

Thanks on that. I am leaning not only towards the 250gr WFN Bearthooth casts but a 225gr Barnes XPB. Hopefully one of this two will work. Been busy getting ready for deer season so this project is on a short term hold.

Let me add that I have killed deer to 125 yards with the Ruger 44 Mag.

speaking of drc-how does one get in touch with him? last time i checked his website was down and i did not write down his contact info.

You have to have the secret code! I used it to talk to him several weeks ago. Evidently, the Opromises recession has not affected the DRC shop. He's very busy and apparently does not need the web to get work!
Try 817-783-6099