Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns How to turn a 44 Mag into a 45 ACP!

I hear that a lot. However in decades of shooting revolvers I have never had issues when shooting .38s in .357s, and the Russians have been no different. I also tend to load/shoot a little more than the average bear. I haven't stopped to count, but I think I loaded about 50K rounds last month of various cartridges. Bearing in mind most of that was not personal use, but for other purposes, but I still tend to shoot a little since I am in the biz.




I know I went through a number of these 5 pound jugs in January..






Anyways, the point is that the whole "that's is going to badly foul and build up pressure" is more internet legend than based in actual fact.

I scrub out my cylinders when the gun gets dirty. Usually the tight barrel to cylinder gaps binding are an issue along with the gun just being plain dirty from excessive shooting more so than anything else.

I am a huge .44 Mag fan and the point of shooting Russians is not necessarily to have any advantage. That said, with the Magnum, when you have excessive room in the cartridge case that is not occupied by powder, due to lighter charges, you get positional issues. The lighter charges result in inconsistent velocities. That is why I rarely go lighter than 8.5 grains of Unique, and even then I have found that a slightly heavier charge is a little more accurate in spite of it having a bit more recoil. It is a trade off though,

Aside from the shorter cartridge case for more consistent powder burn for target shooting, the other advantage is if you need to do any sort of quick reloads. The shorter Russians, with their stubby cartridge cases fall free from the cylinder very easily, whereas the Magnums often tend to hang up. That is one of the reasons .45 Colt shooters like the .45 Cowboy cartridge, which is a .45 Colt cartridge cut to .45 ACP. Pretty close to the same concept.

Frankly it really is about fun more than anything else. The are practical, low recoil and they are fun.