Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer Ruger .44 Carbine

Cannot understand why someone else has not come in and made a clone of this handy rifle. It’s got to be off patent by now. Can you tell me why no one would make a clone of this?

Most younger hunters view themselves as shooters rather than hunters. If there was enough market demand somebody would want to fill that void. Savage sold a lot of 99s, but chose to drop them in favor of the 110 series bolt guns that probably have a higher profit margin.

260 made good points, but the biggie is that whitetail hunting changed during the 1960s, as deer populations started rising after a major low point during the 1930s, when subsistence hunting during the Depression and widespread drought reduced populations.

The .44 Ruger carbine was designed primarily for traditional New England "woods" hunters who sneaked through thick woods, because deer weren't abundant. They shot at close ranges, often at moving deer, where a short, light quick-repeating rifle worked well.

But as whitetails became far more abundant, a more successful method was to sit and wait for deer to wander by--whether the hunter waited on the ground or in a tree.

This is also part of the reason Savage dropped the 99. Millions of 99s already existed--enough that anybody who really wants one can find a good used rifle. If Savage decided to make more 99s, they'd be "competing" against their already existing rifles. (This is also exactly why Leupold doesn't offer nearly as many fixed-power scopes anymore: There are already hundreds of thousands out there.)

Apparently there are still enough Ruger .44 Magnum carbines around to satisfy today's demand. Why would some manufacturer risk making a clone--which would require making considerable new and expensive tooling--when there isn't enough demand to make it profitable?

Also, no one hunts gorillas much anymore. (The older guys know what I mean.)

I love my Ruger .44 carbine, would never sell it. Keep telling myself I’m going to take it hunting again.

My first new centerfire rifle sometime about 1971. Replaced a cut down M91 Argentine when 7.65 commercial soft point ammo became impossible to find. ?Cherry stock with the finger groove fore end . Shot my first buck with it using 240 gr Federal blue box ammo IIRC.

When I learned that the .44 mag was running out of steam at 100yds and that the Ruger, with me pulling the trigger, would not group factory loads better than 3-4 inches at that range I traded it in on a jon boat for waterfowling. No regrets until 1) I realized virtually all Michigan deer are shot at ranges under 60 yds and 2) Michigan rules allowed rifles chambered for straight wall pistol cartridges for southern zone hunting. Older and wiser now.

When the rules changed I acquired a Ruger 77/44 which handles similarly to the original .44 carbine. Took my last (hopefully not THE last) buck at 100yds with it. 240 gr Federal blue box again. Rib cage hit with no exit hole. Not much of a blood trail but I saw his tail go left when he doubled back after a sharp right so a short tracking job.

If Ruger picks it up again or someone builds a clone let's hope they use a sturdier alloy for the bottom metal. Ruger hammer forged barrels might let it shoot better.

And Ruger is already filling that 44 Mag carbine void with their Marlin 1894 carbines chambered in 44 Mag and 357 Mag, both of which are far less function sensitive to powder burn rates and gas expansion ratios than semi-autos.

One of the semi-auto rifles that I use when still hunting in tight creek bottom cover where the shots that present can be at close range on moving deer is a 1960s vintage 44 International.

Yes, if someone simply wants “a .44 magnum carbine” the Marlin will fill the bill. However, nothing can compare with the original Ruger carbine for ergonomics. That, to me, has always been the strong point. The only thing that comes close for ease of handling and for coming quickly and instinctively on target and for gentle, straight back recoil (making follow-up shots fast and accurate) is the M1 carbine. Two of my most memorable bucks, both taken on the jump in the woods, are a credit to the Ruger carbine’s handling qualities.

Mine has always functioned just fine with 240
grain JHP’s (XTP’s for many years now) over the same 23.3 grains of H110 that works well in my revolvers.

Accuracy was never the carbine’s strong point. I suspect it was not so much a matter of Ruger barrel quality as bedding. Two things going on there: the stock wood shrinks and, if one doesn’t keep track of it, the buttstock through bolt no longer pulls the receiver back tightly enough. Also, the only place the barrel is “bedded” is the gas
block. Keeping the through bolt tight and glas bedding the gas block took mine from a 5 or 6 inch gun to a 1 1/2” rifle.

Some might recall their attempt at a comeback with the Deerfield Carbine, the 99/44. That one disappeared fast, as did the 96/44. Not sure why, never saw one, and have only seen one of the 96/44s.

I like the M96 lever action in 44, and have always watched for one to show up at a price I could justify. So far no luck.
I have no true need for a 44 carbine because I have several rifles that would do the same job and probably do it better. But I just like the 96 lever action.

Perceptions of both use and "need" are the largest part of a successful market. Most hunters use what they believe they need and what most use does indeed work very well for the uses they ask of the tools they buy. But having been hunting with all manor of arms for over 60 years I have learned that how well you can hunt is far more important than what you hunt with.

I live in Wyoming and I hunt antelope every years which is the game that many Americans perceive of as the best example of "open country hunting/ long range shooting". Yet if I counted all of them I have killed in my life (a number large enough I lost count several years ago) over 1/2 of them I have killed using arms with iron sights only, including a few with flintlock muzzleloaders and about 15-16 with standard revolvers with stock sights. I have found that using a 25-06 or 270 with a scope is indeed easier to make kills with, but not as much easier than most others hunters seem to believe.

So as Mule Deer said, the idea of how to best hunt game has driven the market and determined what is most popular, but my opinion is that a lot of the perceived "needs" are not as well based in fact as they are in consensus. Most others hunters who have used a highly accurate bolt action with a large scope for 40 years will be of an opinion that what they use is "best". And they could be correct. My point is that by far, most of those hunters have not used older style rifles and given themselves the same number of chances to harvest game with "what great grandpa used" and so "best" is not realistic if for no other reason than that they can't say they have used guns on the other end of the spectrum so they can't actually say they know. They think they know, but until you have used both types of rifles a few dozen time each you are really only guessing.

If I ever do find a M96 you can bet I will use it to kill antelope and deer. If it only shoots a 3 inch groups at 100 yards I will just have to hunt well. As I have for years, using many other guns that shoot about that well when all I have irons sights. So far I would guess that number of antelope killed with guns using irons only is around 50-60. About 15-16 with revolvers. 5 with flintlocks. 25-30 or so with rifles with irons only (30-30, two 300 Savages, a 35 Remington, a 9.3X57, 6.5X54 M/S, a 270 and a 30-06 both with irons only, an AK47, and two 45-70s)

I never bough a Ruger M96 because they were pricey enough that I could not justify one at those times they were available. I always had other priorities for the money at those times. Now they are discontinued and it's unlikely I'll get a chance to buy one at a price point I can justify anytime in my future. So I have to think of them as "one that got away". But it won't really greave me to not have one.

I never bought one ------------ but not for the reason most people didn't want one. (that beings it's "lack or usefulness")

I do NOT see a 44 mag carbine as "useless" for open country hunting or even for elk. I have killed 7 elk with 44 magnums , and all of them were fired from revolvers with iron sights. So I do not see a 44 carbine as being so limited in it's use as most other hunters seem to preceive it to be.

I agree with the scoped rifle use on deer now. However, I would imagine that an awful lot of people would buy one with the explosion in hogs. That's what a lot of the locals here use them for.

The quick-repeating rifles for hogs at my camp are AR style.

Agree. I never had, never wished for a .44 carbine, although they do look like neat guns.

To me the AR format is a more desirable and versatile option with a number of rounds to choose from.

I'm thinking the market determines which guns are being made.

DF

I have a two. I have a first year production 1961 four digit. It says deer slayer on it, Mossberg suit Ruger and they had to take the name off of the firearm. I think they produced 1500 if I’m correct maybe somebody can confirm that. My other one is a 64 which I shoot occasionally. I love those little carbines.

Steve,

All good points.

However, will note that most of today's hunters don't hunt nearly as much as you do, partly because it's become far more difficult and expensive in much of the U.S., especially in the northeastern U.S.--which is far more urban that it was when the Ruger .44 was developed. Many if not most hunters have to travel farther to hunt--or just get to a shooting range.

This is also becoming more the norm than the exception even in the southeastern U.S., one reason that leasing private hunting ground has become common just about anywhere east of the Mississippi. And that added expense puts even more pressure on being "successful."

Like you, I get to hunt a lot more than those folks due to living in Montana. I also use a wide variety of rifles, and to most hunters some would seem to be too "risky" for success. Have even done an all iron-sight African safari, which many Eastern deer hunters would consider too expensive to use anything but scoped rifles. But turned out well, because I so some iron-sight hunt at least something every year, even if only varmints. Also took one of the rifles (a Ruger No. 1 .375 H&H, with an NCG aperture sight) prairie dog shooting considerably before the safari--and killed PDs regularly out to around 150 yards. Taking deer-sized antelope in Botswana was relatively easy. (I also clearly remember the PH showing the .375 to his trackers, and explaining in their native Tswana language that the rifle not only didn't have a scope, but only held one cartridge. They started giggling, even though their grandfathers had hunted with spears.)

Everything's relative....

John

I saw a 96/44 in a small gunshop 6 or 7 years back, tagged at $750, too much for my blood (and wallet). Some years prior to that, I had spent money I didn’t have for a NIB Browning Low Wall Traditional Hunter .44 which has barrel sights and a tang peep, and very nice walnut typical of those Brownings, but not so common on the current Winchester-marked ones. That Browning and its .22 Hornet sibling are my true forever guns, never to be sold, only handed down. I’ve carried both afield a few times but only the Hornet has taken game. The .44 will get another crack next season, probably during the early doe seasons that don’t draw much participation on the local WMA.

I did pop a doe with one of the 77/44s maybe 20 years ago. I find them to be miserably balanced, though very attractive and handy, and sold it with little regret. Other, lighter and better balanced rifles with much better triggers live here now, and they get most of the serious work. A few months back I ran into a guy at the range with a 77/44 with an integral suppressor. Now that one was very cool, and it was shooting very well. The potential downside is that at some point he’ll have to send it back to the place that built it for cleaning.

Overall I like the .44 mag in a rifle/carbine a good bit, and if I didn’t have the LW, I’d probably buy one of the Henry single-shots, which generally have nice wood and good fit and finish, as well as decent triggers, for about $500.

Totally agree with your assessment of the whitetail population. I'm 80 years old, when I was a teenager here in SW Virginia we had to go to the mountains to find deer. Now they are in my yard. Yesterday my wife saw a large buck in our yard, IN VELVET. It was something she hadn't seen before & questioned me about it. Last summer we had a Doe raise her 2 fawns basically in our yard. Last summer we had a BEAR (we now see them too often) kill & partially eat a fawn next door!!

John, I know you’ve hunted in WV, not sure where though. There’s still a lot of good public land here, and in neighboring VA, probably a couple million acres. A lot of it does take a bit of effort to hunt, and some of it near population centers gets considerable pressure at times, but the seasons are long, and bag limits very generous. The little patch I hunt only totals about 1300 acres, but it’s 15 minutes away, and I often have the whole shebang all to myself on weekdays after the first couple days of the regular firearms season, and nearly so during the doe days. The long seasons allow me to futz around with various instruments of death and still usually make meat, and also pick days to hunt with good weather, instead of having to slog through whatever Nature throws at me as was the case when I still worked.

I never had one of the autoloader carbines, but I popped my first few MN deer with a 96/44. It was a slick little gun to carry. You can run the lever without taking your hand off the stock wrist with that super short throw, but it was one of the most woefully inaccurate rifles I have ever owned.

Calling it a minute of pie plate rifle is probably being generous... it also kicked like a coked up mule vs any other 44M rifle I've ever shot. I traded it off on a 7600 after a couple seasons with absolutely zero regrets.