For those of you that shoot 444s, and if you handload...
I'll just pass on what I found out in mine...
I reduced recoil quite a bit...loading it down..
I use 300 grain XTPs... but what I found is that those big flat nosed bullets
are so lacking ANY aerodynamic traits... that when loaded down to 1750 fps
instead of say 2250 fps to 2400 fps depending on your bullet weight...
that I lose approximately 10 to 15 yds at most of point blank range....
and using XTPs that are pistol bullets... they are designed to open up at lower
speeds anyway...
So pumping it up gives me a point blank range of 175 yds it seems...which is plenty
for the situations one would use it in...
running it in the 1750 fps range, drops the point blank range to say 160 yds instead.
this is just running a 4 power scope with no fancy adjustments for distance.
that is running powder charges of 30 grain or so of SR 4759, or 4198....
another thing I found out, when having a Marlin in 44 Rem Mag for a while...
If you load 44 Rem Mag data in a 444 case, it will pretty much give you 44 Mag velocity...
and much better accuracy than that 44 Mag gave me... so I traded it off for a 260 Rem.
With some of my Boy Scouts, I use to take some of them out and let them shoot the 444...
but so it didn't hurt any of them, I was using 200 gr XTPs, loaded to about 1000 fps...
Recoil was close to nil... yet the boys loved being able to cut saplings out in the woods in half
with a couple of shots...just using 44 Mag reload data, or data out of cast bullet manuals from Lyman..
a 444 can be a lot of fun and doesn't need to be pumped up to max velocity to do so...
kinda do this with the surplus 8 x 57s I have picked up for mega cheap over the years also..
