back in 1966 my uncle bought one of those 444 marlins, he still has it and loves it, but hes in his late 80s now
one of my elk hunting camp friends bought a marlin 444 to camp one year (about 1967), it was one of the early models with the longer barrel and cheek piece stock,
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btw the load we found worked the best on elk in those marlin 444 rifles a few years later when hornady came out with them, was the hornady 265 grain bullet over 45 grains of imr 4198 and a 215 fed primer

I think they were only available that way for a couple years before the barrels were shortened and the stock was changed, he loaded it with 240 grain pistol bullets and a stiff load of RL7 powder and it shot 1.3" groups at 100 yards consistently.
the first ELK he hit was a average 4 point bull at about 120 yards
the bullet destroyed the lungs and dropped the bull in under 10 yards.
the second bull he killed was 3 years later at about 230 yards,the bull started to turn as he fired, the bull gave zero indication it was hit, as it spun and ran, we went over to look for sign and found a weak blood trail, but about 60 yards away the bull was down, the problem was the shot placement was a bit far back in the liver,and angled up taking out one lung
the 444 certainly will kill elk effectively but at least with the bullets he had used penetration was less than impressive, but expansion and resulting internal damage is very impressive.I think a great many guys who stick their nose up at the idea of using what they perceive as older lower velocity cartridges like a hot loaded 45/70 or 450 marlin have that opinion because they have little or no experience in the field with someone using one.
at the risk of proving Im an old geezer,Ill tell you this.
as an example,
back in the late 1969 season here in Florida I was hunting with a guy, who had just purchased a 444 marlin, JACK, had sighted it in 3" high at 100 yards the previous weekend and had a weaver 4x scope on the rifle,he had loaded it with speer 3/4 jacket hollow points.
JACK, was using the rifle he had purchased for an up coming elk hunt after reading the advertizement posted below.
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we were walking across a large field when we saw two bucks stand up at about 150 yard out and stand staring at us, in those days the daily bag limit was two deer a day. before I could even say a thing JACK, fired that rifle twice in very rapid succession and to my amazed young eyes both deer dropped on the spot. I,d never seen deer drop instantly when hit and I sure as hell never saw two deer shot and dropped almost instantly within feet of each other.
right then I knew I needed to buy a similar rifle, which I did as soon as funds allowed and it worked great for several decades.