Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Shooting 44 special out of a 44 mag?

Have a ruger 77/44 that is brutal in the reecoil department is it ethical to shoot 44 special in it?

If you have the owners manual,it should say if you can. Or call Ruger and ask them.

Manual doesn't say anything about 44 Special.

http://www.ruger-firearms.com/service/productHistory.html

Bruce

This is what I found.

https://archive.org/stream/Ruger2012FirearmsCatalog#page/n89/mode/2up

.44 Specials are just fine in a 77/44, and .38 Specials work great in a 77/357. I own one of each. Just run a brush through the chamber once in awhile.

The manual addresses ethics?

My honest opinion is that 44 special in a 77/44 ruger rifle is perfectly ethical !

If the manual addresses ethics, it must be a Shooter's Bible.

^^^This^^^

How would 44 special perform on deer at say 50yds have a 10 yr old kind of recoil shy and noise sensitive I tried the 44 special load and to me it's less recoil than a 410 and noise is like a 22 mag

I've killed a ton of feral hogs at the Ranch with a 260 gr WFN LBT hard cast bullet loaded with 10 grains of Unique.
And you won't catch one of those bullets in a deer unless you shoot them length wise.

You can use the 44 Mag cases and use starter loads working up to the recoil level he finds acceptable. Using mag cases prevents feeding problems and any unwanted leading at the neck of the chamber from cast bullets shaving at that point. Also prevents any theoretical jacketed bullet misalignment with the bore from the jump. I do this for plinking and rabbit loads in my Rossi lever gun and 44 pistols. I always intended to take the Rossi 92 out for a deer stand nap or walk down the creek side "one of these days". 240 or 250 grain cast flat nose will kill a deer at 50 yards easy.
I followed up a wounded doe (a friend arrowed in the foreleg from a tree stand) at about 20 yards in the woods with a 205 grain cast pistol bullet at only 900 fps MV. Hit the left shoulder while it was looking at me. Sort of jerked at the hit like it had been punched, then dropped without running. Bullet went out the right side ribs.
44-40 with black powder and cast lead fed quite a few cowboys and farmers.

What he said.^^^

A loaded-down .44 rifle is pretty much a .44 handgun, and that has proven to be plenty for deer, and bigger stuff. Bullets like Hornady XTPs will expand at 800fps or so. Lighter ones from 180-225 will help with recoil too. Flat-nosed cast should work well too, but I'd shoot for bone with those, which might be asking a bit much of an excited kid.

Get him earplugs for the noise. Only takes a second to plug up, especially with one of those rigs with the plugs on a string or half-circle thingy.

Double up on the plugs and ear muffs.

Then to reduce recoil significantly drop bullet weight.

Grab some 180-185 grain projectiles and push them with some Unique.

As an example, I run 185 grain full wadcutters using 10 grains of Unique. They average 1372 FPS out of a 7.5" Redhawk.

Changing the bullet profile from the wadcutter to a typical JHP or SWC will allow it to feed in the rifle better, and with such a light bullet it will have very little recoil.

I was actually surprised when I chrono'ed the load, as it had such little recoil even in 4" M29s.

There is not a deer alive that is going to shrug off a good quality 185 grain JHP, like the Hornady XTP when properly placed, at 50 yards.

You can load some load some cast lead loads for inexpensive practice, and let them realize that the gun/load combo does not have much recoil/noise, then switch to the XTPs for the hunt.

I've shot a sheitload of 240gr cast bullets in front of 9.5grs of Unique in my lever (44mag cases) and I hardly know the thing has fired.

I had a Marlin 1894 rifle in 44 mag. It was ported and gave very good accuracy at 100 yds with full power 180 thru 240 gr bullets in factory ammo. I loaded 44 special +p loads into the 44mag brass. The 44 special ran about 5 inches lower at 100 yards.. Recoil was still sharp but not severe. Several younger shooters wanted to shoot the lever action Marlin. One shot was all they wanted. Even with ear muffs the blast from the short ported barrel made the kick seem extreme.
I also shot 44 special brass in the rifle and function was perfect. Just be sure to clean the chamber good since the bullets are farther away from the rifling with 44 special brass.
That was a fun gun but not practical for hunting open farm land.

I had a Winchester Trails End that I kept in the Squad. It' was load with Bazer 240 grain GoldDots. No problems.

Those are actually pretty good Factory Loads! And accurate in all of my .44's too. My new S&W Model 69 L-frame snubby with the 2.75" barrel in .44 is loaded with those as a home defense load.

And they also have a very mild recoil. They also make a 200 grain Goldot .44 special load that I shoot in my Charter Bulldog .44 special.

Yeah I think they where the 200 grainers. I know I shot a coyote at about 75 yards, DRT.

For a young shooter I would load a 200gr. XTP over 7.5gr. of Unique, as they become accustomed to shooting the magnum the load can be increased to 9.0gr. of Unique. I shoot both these loads in a handgun, in a rifle they should be a real pussycat.