Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters My Marlin 1894 44 Magnum isn't a 44 it is a 43

Since i shoot Hornady .430 XTP bullets , then my Marlin 44 is really a 43 , right

The bore will be .429, so .430s will work.

BS sells. (Sometimes the middle child needs to embellish things for attention; really not necessary though considering what this middle child does.)

Sure, the grooves in the bore are .429-430, but the lands are a different measure, and the case diameter still another. There are lots of reasons why things are named what they are. I'm not a 'Jason' with definite characteristics true of all 'Jason's. My name is Jason. Same with the cartridge. 44 is just a name, and a caliber. It is strange, but that's how it works. Longer 44 cal cases go up in numbere of designation from plain ole 44, rather than down to the actual bore measure. Examples: 444 Marlin, 445 Supermag.

A 38 Special has a .357 bore, etc. There are scores of examples of this sort of thing.

When loading the 44 mag ammo i got to thinking about the size marked on the Hornady XTP box compared to the bullet actual measurement .

It's the Russian's fault. When they ordered revolvers from Smith & Wesson back in the 1870's, they were interested in the .44 S&W American, but demanded that the cartridge be converted to use an inside lubricated bullet rather than the .44 caliber outside lubricated heeled bullet that was then standard.

So S&W kept the same diameter cartridge case but reduced the bullet diameter to .429 so that it would fit inside the case as an inside lubricated bullet. But they still called it a .44.

Thus was born the .44 Russian, grandfather of the .44 Special and .44 Magnums using .429/.430 bullets.

A stern letter to Vladimir Putin may be in order.

Yeah, maybe Vlad'll send you a picture of himself with his shirt off!

Better than sending one of Obama with his shirt off

If the Pres is going to act like an [bleep], I'd rather he was a man's man like Putin, Rather than a skinny dork. Saw a photo of Ohshit playing golf recently. He looked like his mom dressed him. For the record, I'm not a fan of anyone who has been Pres in my lifetime, but I can say I've at least agreed with some of the decisions each has made. It is getting very tough to do that. Very, very tough.

Politics aside, the Marlin in 44 is the Hammer of Putin. With 240's, it is a slayer of all things tasty, and with 300+ bullets, it is a slayer of all things. I put a 2-7 on mine, and filed back the cartridge stop so it will cycle longer rounds from the mag. It comes to shoulder and goes bang faster than the 20 gauge SS from my youth. 44,43 either one is a great cal for a carbine.

Forty-three don't rhyme with much of anything.

The 41 Magnum don't lie , it's a 41



Mike

"Heart breakers with your forty three".....nahhh, don't sound right.

Calling it a 44 is a feng shui thing. Better balance. A 43 magnum would be like a body-builder with one bicep 25% bigger than the other.

Yeah, it would sound kinda silly singing about Stagger Lee going to the bar room and pulling his forty three.

Can't hear Clint Eastwood say , Since this is a 43 magnum , most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, so ask yourself punk, do i feel lucky ?

If you're going to get upset that the name of the cartridge isn't the exact diameter of the bullet you'll go crazy.

Consider that the 218 Bee, the 219 Zipper, the 220 Swift, the 221 Fireball, the 222 Remington, the 223 Remington, the 224 Weatherby Mag and the 225 Winchester all use the same diameter (.224) bullets.

Best to just chill.

This is driving me sane...

You mean I don't need to lathe the bullets for my Bee down to .218" ?!? Son of a.... !

That explains why my 270 never shot worth a damn, too.

What an ungrateful sob...you should feel lucky you got that much.

Speaking of rhymes. In Tombstone, Arizona's, boot hill. There is a tombstone for Les Moore. It says,

Her lies Les Moore,
Four shots from a 44
No less, no more.

Well, anyway he was shot with a 44.

Then there's those .264's folks call 6.5's when they're actually 6.7's... and the so called 7mm's which are actually 7.2mm's

The REAL 6.5's are the .25's and the REAL 7mm's the .270's.

Nope, no alliteration either. .44 and .45 got it, .43 hasn't; it just don't sound right:

"Men were shot down for the sake of fun or to hear the noise of their forty-three guns."

"Went out last night to take a little round, I met Little Sadie and I blowed her down. I went right home and I went to bed with a forty-three smokeless under my head."

"I wore my forty-three so long I've made my shoulder sore."

"And I"m tellin' you son, it ain't no fun, lookin' straight down a forty-three."

You just need different rhymes.

How about this?
"Pushing up daisies under a tree;
He tried to eat a .43"

Pore ol Shorty
Got killed by a boolit from a thirty eight forty.
It weren't a thirty eight that killed Shorty , it wuz a forty.


Mike

All my AR magazines are stamped 458 SOCOM, so in CA they are not high capacity mags. Words don't substitute for knowledge. You own a 44 magnum.

There is no universal "rule" for naming cartridges. One of the more common themes is to name a caliber based on the bore diameter, which is the size of the hole drilled into the barrel prior to rifling. It fits the 270 Win, various "30 caliber" rounds, and most 7mm cartridges. Going by that theme, the 44 magnum is more like 42 caliber than 43 or 44.

One round I always wanted to try is the 7-30 Waters, but guns chambered for this round are not common. Maybe someday I'll find one, or have one made. Until then, I'll stumble along with my outdated 7x57s.

Elvis did a song about the .42 as I recall. Something like "Don't step on my For-Te-Two" or there abouts.

You can do anything you want...but uh-huh baby, don't step on my for-te-two.


...or...in Alice's Restaurant.

You may notice that in the song "Bad Man's Blunder" the perp sleeps with his pistol up under his head. A big twenty-two. It was never a wildly popular song.



Whatever.

Because .429 Magnum would have never sold.....

Don't measure the bore of your 38 special, you'll be truly disheartened.

"So I stood there in the shadows and I had my forty three, I could hear her mock in laughter, but she won't laugh anymore"

"John blew the dust from his old forty three, put two holes in Milton's head"

Grandpa's .44-40 was a .43 too, so at least it's consistent.

"He tried to hide behind a tree,
but I shot his ash with a forty-three."

I have .44mag and .44special revolvers, but i also have a marlin .44 lever. The handguns are .429, the groove on the rifle is .431.
I was trying to find a common bullet to use in both.
I did read this on another forum than kind of explains it. But then it marlin's you also are dealing with two different kinds of rifling.

"I asked this question of Marlin CS when I first got my 1894 CB as the first rounds thru the gun went sideways thru the target at 50 feet.

I measured the groove dia and it was .431 so I asked what happened to .429 which is what all of my previous Revolvers had been since day one.

The answer I got was .431+/- .002. is SAAMI spec for .44 magnum rifles. This is looser due to the higher pressures that a rifle barrel would generate as opposed to revolvers which are generally .429 but have that nice pressure relief valve between the cylinder and the barrel."

and where the interest lies, is if I size a lead bullet for the rifle at one thousandth's over at .432 for the rifle, i am then three over for the revolver.

RoninPhx, I run .432" bullets in both my rifle and revolvers without issue.

I have Ruger revolvers and a 77/44. I use the .432"s due to the throats in the revolvers being .431", and I use the same size in the rifle because I don't want two different sizes, though I am using two different styles. A Beartooth bullets WFN in the rifle and a LCMN DCG in the revolvers.

If the rifle could tolerate anything longer than 1.6", I would have simply used the same load. My revolvers can go 1.725" for the SuperBlackhawk, but the Redhawk can go to 1.775", though I simply use a common load in all three. (I have two SBHs).

I am assuming, and maybe erroneously, you are talking about cast bullets.

vic, i am using cast bullets.

Another reason why the 308 is the most bestest round ever . . . .
(its really a .308!).

BMT

... and its really the most bestest round ever.

I respectfully disagree.

.429 is closer to .430 than .420.

Almost splitting hairs!!

Not a problem...

A lot of folks run their cast bullets too small...I run cast bullets at least .002 over groove diameter as a practical minimum for accuracy and to prevent leading.

Check that all cylinder throats and forcing cone are consistent and larger than groove diameter for best accuracy. The consequences of this for accuracy should be obvious.

I don't run the same ammo in my rifles and revolvers anyway.

I'd size the cast bullets that fit snuggest to throat.....both wheelgun and rifle.

Sizing to groove with any kind of alloy that doesn't slug up to the throat will be a headache in a wheelgun and will shoot like crap in a rifle or auto if it isn't hitting lands.....