Does anyone have any experience reloading this caliber? Thoughts? Pros? Cons? Any help will be appreciated.

I've never loaded for this round but can tell you what Barnes has to say about it in "the book", "Cartridges of the World."
'Actually, this is the 2 1/4" Sharps bottle-necked case introduced about 1875 for the breech-loading spporting rifle, model of 1868. It was one of the calibers aviable in the Remington-Hepburn No. 3. It was a popular target round, used more for this purpose than for hunting. The design of the .44-77 is said to have been based on a combination of the .42 Russian and the .43 Spanish."
He goes on to give only one load for the round, 28gr of 4198 powder under a 365 gr bullet giving 1480fps MV. This load is stated to be 20fps faster than the factory loading with the same bullet weight.
Hope this helps.
Shoot straight, shoot safe and shoot a lot.
Best regards,

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'Trapper'

Stillavol: If it is a historic, black-powder cartridge well proven on game that you are looking for, the .44-77 would be tough to beat. Some sources suggest it is one of the very earliest American centerfire sporting cartridges, and Barnes is wrong on the indtroduction date. Remington developed the cartridge in the late 1860s for its rolling block sporting rifles, possibly as a result of work developing the .43 Spanish (and possibly that Russian cartridge) for foreign contracts. As Venturino and Garbe say in their SPG Primer, the .44-77 was THE MOST POPULAR chambering for Sharps rifles until the .45-70 was introduced in 1873. It was heavily used on the early buffalo ranges, and when archaeologists excavated the site of the famous second battle of Adobe Walls, they found .44-77, .50-70 and .50-90 cases. I think the reasons it is not more popular today have to do with the familiarity of the .45 caliber cartridges, the fact that it is a bottlenecked round, and the fact that there are far fewer quality .446 barrels and bullet moulds out there than there are moulds and barrels for the .40s and .45s. As to performance, with a 414-grain .446 cast slug over 75 grains of FFg in reformed Bell .43 Spanish brass (you just run an expander into the neck; the cases are virtually identical), Venturino and Garbe show 1344 fps out of an original Sharps with 30-inch barrel. This is close to the 1350 or so I used to get from an Argentine rolling block in .43 Spanish with Bertram brass and a 370-grain bullet. The .44-77's bigger cousin, the .44-90, was popular on the 1,000-yard ranges, and it was the cartridge our lads used in the great Creedmoor match of 1874 to defeat the world champion Irish team, who were using Rigby's muzzleloaders. Someday I mean to have a .44-77 myself.

Stillavol, an addendum: Just had a minute to check my copy of Frank Sellers' "Sharps Firearms." On p.339, he notes in reference to the .44-77 or .44 2 1/4-inch bottleneck: "This was the first metallic cartridge to appear in a Sporting rifle in April of 1869. Originally, it was a Remington cartridge; but it became, next to the .45/70 in a much later period, the most popular Sharps cartridge for the Sporting rifles. Until 1876, it outsold all other cartridges." Sellers notes that Sharps loaded this cartridge with 70 grains of powder and a 380-grain slug until 1876, when they changed the load to .44/75/405; Remington and UMC loaded 77 grains of powder, hence the name.
Now you are getting me juiced up on this number, and I see that Buffalo Arms lists a Badger barrel in .446, with 1:18 twist. Hmmmmm...

Thanks Gents! I already have a shiloh sharps .45-70; however, it's a saddle ring carbine. Was looking to buy a possible silhouette, long range, hunting rifle with black powder. Sounds good so far. Thanks for the help.

Stillavol
Nevada