Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions 444s Help me tame this Beast please

I have a 1976 vintage 444 that I bought new and have killed tons of whitetail with it. At that time it was the only gun Marlin offered with a factory recoil pad. At that time about the only factory ammo was from Remington and it was a 240 SP bullet.
That is all I ever loaded for mine was 240 gr bullets, never saw the need for bigger.
Mine loves IMR4198 with Speer or Sierra 240 gr bullet. I have never seen but one deer take a single step when hit by one of these.
Recoil is not like a 243 but nothing like the 265 gr stuff that is out there.
Never saw a 240 bounce off anything out of my gun.

Rebarrel it to 356, and move up in life. LOL

Almost the same, but a 45-70 in a Guide Gun. A pleasure to shoot with 405 grain slugs and factory Rem ammo (like 1,230 fps). Decided to hop it up to around 1,760 fps with hand loads. Holy Moly! That was a mistake. Need to find someone to shoot up the last 85 rds for me.

Either lighter slugs or be happy with a little less velocity. Should still drop anything living in North America.

Shot some handloads my dad loaded with a 420gr cast bullet @ 1700fps in a lightweight Ruger #1.....my 375H&H is more comfortable.....

I own this beautiful rifle now. It loves 265 Superformance ammo. I put a nice Skinner peep and brass front post on it. I will do my best to take a nice buck with it this year.

T4