My dad has some sort of old lever action 44 mag rifle. He bought a box of ammo and I guess the load was a little much for the gun cause he said something about the recoil or blast trying to open the action. He wants me to load some reduced loads for him. I was going to try to find some Unique powder, but all the stores I go to are out of everything including bullets and primers. A friend, whom I'm not in contact with anymore, gave me a bag of some 44 bullets a couple of years ago. They are lead, have a gas check (I think that's what that blue ring is), and weigh 245 grains. They look like a Lyman bullet that is in one of my reloading books, but I'm not sure the exact bullet. I have quite a few primed cases. CCI large pistol magnum primed. I also have Red dot powder and 296 powder. I've always loaded full power rounds using the 296 powder, but I'm wondering if there is a reduced load using the primed cases I have and Red Dot powder. Thanks for any info.

I'm not a cast expert, but it sounds to me like the blue ring is lube. A gas check is a copper disk crimped onto the base.

I have used blue dot and bullseye for reduced 44 magnum loads with cast lead bullets.

Lube, not gas check. Ok that makes sense. Shows you how much I know.

Just load them using 44 Special data. Don't know about the Red Dot or 296 for the Special or the Mag. Lyman's cast bullet manual doesn't show either one for either round.

WW296 is a max load kind of powder. It is prudent NOT to reduce max loads by more than ~3%. Almost any other powder would be better for reduced loads than 296.

If your description of

quote:

the recoil or blast trying to open the action

is accurate, it also might be prudent to have a gunsmith look it over. Especially with the chance of the bolt torpedo-ing you between the eyes when the lever flings open...reduced load or not, be very careful. It's better to play it safe than be sorry for a bad decision.

The 44 magnum is a powerful handgun cartridge and some replicas of 1880's lever guns are so chambered; even though they have a 'rifle' action, some are relatively weak. And any action's parts can wear out or break.

My own opinion is if I was in your shoes, I would not load up any ammo for a malfunctioning gun.

Starting load with Red Dot and lead bullets in the 44 Mag, 6gr for @800fps.

Work up slowly, max should be around 9 grains for @1200fps.

quote:

Originally posted by onefunzr2:
WW296 is a max load kind of powder. It is prudent NOT to reduce max loads by more than ~3%. Almost any other powder would be better for reduced loads than 296.

If your description of

quote:

the recoil or blast trying to open the action

is accurate, it also might be prudent to have a gunsmith look it over. Especially with the chance of the bolt torpedo-ing you between the eyes when the lever flings open...reduced load or not, be very careful. It's better to play it safe than be sorry for a bad decision.

The 44 magnum is a powerful handgun cartridge and some replicas of 1880's lever guns are so chambered; even though they have a 'rifle' action, some are relatively weak. And any action's parts can wear out or break.

My own opinion is if I was in your shoes, I would not load up any ammo for a malfunctioning gun.

I agree 100%. Both H110 and 296 are not designed for reduced loads.

I've used loads of HP38, Unique, Universal for some reduced loads in my 44 Mag. Starting somewhere around 6 grains and up to 8 grains of the above powders should be a mild load.

The other thing to do would be to look on some cowboy action shooting sites for some of the load recommendations that they have for a 44 mag. I would guess that the targeted velocity is around 700-800 fps.

I've loaded up loads that were too stiff in my Marlin 1985 cowboy 45-70 and had the lever open on shooting. Bad sign!!! Need to back off some powder!!!!

There are AA#9 loads for 44mag and 44 special. You can load anywhere in between for wimpy 44 mag loads.

I have done that spectrum for a wimpy shooter. He then picked the load that had the right recoil for him.

Are you/he sure it's a 44mag? There are no "old" lever guns in 44mag. Any of the current 44mag lever guns made will handle the full factory range of ammo. Make sure he is NOT shooting a 44-40, very close in size & you can put a 44mag in a sloppy 44-40, but should NEVER FIRE one.
If it is a 44mag, 8gr of Unique under a 240gr bullet is pretty soft shooting.

My Smith shot best with Unique and a cast bullet for a reduced load. My standard Unique load was 10 grs with a 240 cast bullet and I believe the velocity was somewhere around 1000 fps or more. You can reduce that load more if you prefer. I like Unique because for one reason it fills the case up more then some of the other powders. The new stuff is a lot cleaner burning then the previous powder. For a reduce load you really don't need a gas check, although it's been pretty much determined your bullets don't have them. After they get old gas checks take on that dark copper color like an old penny. Only when the are new and freshing put on are the bright shiney. If the lube is blue it sounds like the hard lube that most commercial casters use because it's less messy to handle the bullets for shipping and such and it too isn't needed for low speed revolver bullet as some of the less expensive softer lubes will do. Albeit the softer lubes leave your revolver dirtier, but they work fine. I don't mean remove the blue lube and put another on, just saying if you're going to get into casting your own it's something you might look into.

My brother has a Marlin 1894 in 44Mag and he wanted to use 44spl ammo in it, you can't quite get an additional round
into the mag tube and using the shorter brass dirtied up the chamber.

what I got him to do was to load lead bullets into 44mag cases at 44spl level.

I use either Unique or Herco (depending on availability)

And it's EASY to tell the load level because I convinced him to use ONLY the commercially cast bullets in the "spl" loads, and either Jacketed or home cast in "Mag" level loads.

I do the same thing with ammo loaded for my DanWesson
it's ALL in 357 cases, lead bullet loads are 38spl+P loads, jacketed bullets are always "full power" (And some largish quantity of H110 or 2400)

If it's actually loaded in a 38spl case it's for my old Colt Official Police.

Doing this it's easy to tell "plinking" ammo from Hunting/self-Defence ammo.

BTW, "hunting ammo" probably sounds less nasty in court if during a civil suit if you ever have the misfortune to shoot someone and they are lucky enough to survive and find an ambulance chaser to represent them.

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There is no reason not to use H4227 or similar (large pistol) powders in a reduced 44 mag rifle load. The load doesn't even have to be reduced that much to bring the pressure down real low and will still give quite respectable velocity. The long barrel should burn all the powder. You could use large rifle primers to ensure good ignition but I'm not sure that it makes any difference. I did a very similar thing for a 357 mag carbine with a damaged chamber (deep gouges due to someone trying to get a separated case out of the already rough chamber). I used lighter loads of a H4227 class powder (large pistol) and plain lead base bullets and accuracy was very good (sub-MOA) and more importantly, the cases did not bulge into the gouges. Factory loads would jam into the gouges, although the extractor did pull them out with considerable force. (I had removed the burrs for the guy). I found that large pistol powder would give the same velocity as small pistol powder but would do so using plain cast bullets while small pistol powder required a gas check. I have never experienced any leading using large pistol powder and plain base cast bullets.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
Are you/he sure it's a 44mag? There are no "old" lever guns in 44mag. Any of the current 44mag lever guns made will handle the full factory range of ammo. Make sure he is NOT shooting a 44-40, very close in size & you can put a 44mag in a sloppy 44-40, but should NEVER FIRE one.
If it is a 44mag, 8gr of Unique under a 240gr bullet is pretty soft shooting.

Good point!

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
Are you/he sure it's a 44mag? There are no "old" lever guns in 44mag. Any of the current 44mag lever guns made will handle the full factory range of ammo. Make sure he is NOT shooting a 44-40, very close in size & you can put a 44mag in a sloppy 44-40, but should NEVER FIRE one.
If it is a 44mag, 8gr of Unique under a 240gr bullet is pretty soft shooting.

Good point!

I just talked to my dad to ask him if he was sure it is a 44 mag and not a 44-40. He said it is a winchester 1892 that was origainally a 44-40, but was rebarrelled to 44 mag.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Starting load with Red Dot and lead bullets in the 44 Mag, 6gr for @800fps.

Work up slowly, max should be around 9 grains for @1200fps.

So, 6 grains of Red Dot would be a good starting point. I read, last night, about a 240 grain bullet with Red dot powder starting at 6 grains and having a max of 6.5 grains. Not much of a range there. The load was using a CCI large pistol primer. I wonder if the cases that I already have primed with CCI large pistol magnum primers would be acceptable. Thanks for all the info. I see a lot of info regarding Unique powder, but unfortunately I can't seem to find any powder anywhere.

Ckemp

With a soft swaged lead bullet 6,5gr would be listed as max because of the leading of the soft bullet.

With a harder cast bullet you can load a little more powder.

Start at 6gr and work up.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Ckemp

With a soft swaged lead bullet 6,5gr would be listed as max because of the leading of the soft bullet.

With a harder cast bullet you can load a little more powder.

Start at 6gr and work up.

Thanks N E. Shouldn't be a problem with the magnum primer?

If you want low recoil loads with any cartridge, try using Trail Boss...

I use it in 45 Long Colt...

it is very bulky... you can't overload a case with it.. pistol or rifle...

pretty darn accurate also...

I've loaded it in a 444 Marlin also, with XTP bullets... low recoil but still has power to put a big hole in something...

quote:

Originally posted by Ckemp:

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
Are you/he sure it's a 44mag? There are no "old" lever guns in 44mag. Any of the current 44mag lever guns made will handle the full factory range of ammo. Make sure he is NOT shooting a 44-40, very close in size & you can put a 44mag in a sloppy 44-40, but should NEVER FIRE one.
If it is a 44mag, 8gr of Unique under a 240gr bullet is pretty soft shooting.

Good point!

I just talked to my dad to ask him if he was sure it is a 44 mag and not a 44-40. He said it is a winchester 1892 that was origainally a 44-40, but was rebarrelled to 44 mag.

Ahh, that explains "old lever gun". If it's an original 92, you definitely do NOT want to shoot full house 44mags in it. The steel is in the locking lugs is going to be softer than heat treated steel used today. Take any of the max loads in a manual for the 44sp. In a 44mag case, pressures will be even less. Careful w/ RedDot, it occupies little of the case & a dbl. charge will likely ruin the rifle. Trailboss woul dbe a good choice. Is he Cowboy shooting? Lots of guys are using TB w/ lead bullets.

My inclination would be to use Unique or Herco, mostly because it fills more of the case.



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