Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Need info on a Ruger Vaquero 44-40

I've found a nice Ruger Vaquero in .44-40 that looks really good to me. It's got an after market hammer that easier to catch, an action job and the sights are regulated for a 25 yd. zero with factory loads. So tell me, can I reload for it using .429 dia. bullets such as the 200 gr. stuff for the .44 Special ? How does the Starline brass hold up to reloading ? I understand the WW brass is pretty thin, and doesn't last long.
My alternative is a .44 Special in a Ruger Blackhawk. It would have adjustable sights, etc. which are nice to have. Thoughts, ideas welcomed. E

The Vaquero is a gun made to look like a Colt SAA and the sights are far inferior to the Blackhawk's adjustable ones. If you're not wedded to a gun that looks fairly historically accurate and/or the 44-40 cartridge, I'd go with the Blackhawk or even a Super Blackhawk in 44 Mag. Either the Special or Magnum will be much easier to work with than the 44-40. ALL 44-40 brass is thin at the neck. I can't say Starline is better or worse than Winchester. That said, there shouldn't be any problems with Magnum diameter bullets because from what I understand, all the 44-40 Vaqueros were built to utilize that diameter bullet instead of the .427ish of the old 44-40's.

If you want to magnumize the 44-40, one of the Super Blackhawk's that Buckeye came out with back in the 90's (IIRC) is the way to go. They are convertibles and should have a cylinder in 44 Mag. too. I owned one of the first Vaquero's in 44-40 as well as two of the Buckeye's and a fairly rare Colt New Frontier in the same cartridge.

.44/40 is somewhat less than fun to work with from a reloading standpoint. You'll have to use steel dies and lubricate cases, and ALL cases are pretty thin. I have also noticed something rather peculiar about the .44/40, there seems to be a great deal of difference in dimensions from case maker to case maker. I had a Colt with a very tight chamber that wouldn’t chamber Remington brass at all (rim was too thick), Starline brass had to be fully sized, and Winchester worked about 90% of the time…that was annoying. With a Ruger I have never had this problem.

Performance wise, I didn’t find the .44/40 lacking for most reasonable jobs. I bought up a Saeco 200gr FP bullet mold for the .44/40 because it had a very wide meplat, and it actually turned into my favorite bullet mold for .44 special and light magnum loads.

I generally tell people to reserve the .44/40 for those who want historical accuracy. For the guy who just wants to shoot, stick to .44 special/magnum, or .45 Colt. Much easier cartridges to work with.

GunGeek Quote {I generally tell people to reserve the .44/40 for those who want historical accuracy. For the guy who just wants to shoot, stick to .44 special/magnum, or .45 Colt. Much easier cartridges to work with.}

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I agree with the others that the .44 Magnum or Special is the PRACTICAL way to go. It just makes more sense dollar-wise, and as a practical matter.

I had a .44 Magnum Rossi 92, when I wanted to play cowboy I loaded it on my Dillon 550 with carbide dies and loaded the 200gr. WFN bullets to 1200fps, just like the .44/40 factory loads. We called them 'popcorn' loads because the recoil was about like a mouse fart, and they were fun to shoot without the calories.
According to Waters' Pet Loads, that's what the factory .44WCF loads did, and did well.
Carbide dies are a wonderful thing, and it behooves us to make use of them whenever possible.

Thanks everybody for your input. E

The .44/40 is a cantankerous beast but can be fun to mess with. I had a Colt SAA and an Uberti Henry, both in .44/40, for awhile. The Colt would not chamber rounds with .429" bullets but the Uberti would. In the Uberti, reloads with both W-W .427" 200 gr. JSP .44/40 bullets and the classic Lyman cast bullet (427098) would pop down into the cases when under spring pressure in the magazine, despite the use of a Lee FCD. There's a reason that .44/40 factory ammo has a crimp both above and beneath the bullet. The only way I could prevent this was to either use a casefull of blackpowder or a polymer filler over the smokeless charge.

Cartridge cases are fragile but I was careful and only lost 2 or 3.

There are much better cast bullets now that incorporate a proper crimp groove and would prevent this, but they were not available 25 years ago when I was messing with the .44/40.

But I am a gun crank and sort of enjoyed the challenge.

I don't remember the exact year but Rugers catalog told stories about different things that had happened to Ruger Revolvers. (It was in a Yellow Cover) In it were two brothers who were camping in Arizona and a black bear came in the tent and attacked both guys, one more serious than the other. So you have a dark tent with a dark bear going crazy with these guys and one was able to find his 44-40 Vaquero and killed the black bear. Problem with a Vaquero or any of them that does both 44 Mag and 44-40 and the barrel has to be bigger for the larger .429 bullet.
I like the idea of a 44-40 because of my age and the number of old westerns I've watched but for real life purposes I'll stick with a 44 mag with 44 mag ammunition or 44 Special ammunition. I like them both.

On my vaquero, while the bore was set up for .429 bullets, the chambers were not. .429 bullet in 44-40 case would not chamber, had to open the chamber neck in order to use .429 bullets. After that it shoots quite well. Reloading the 44-40 case, I have WW brass, was not much different than any other bottleneck cartridge.

Stratton, you've done what needs to be done to get the best performance out of the gun. Nothing much you can do otherwise.

But you might as well have a 44 magnum because the only thing you've got left is the brass which is necked up. That's the case that was made earlier by a few different people.

Yes, for that vaquero the brass is necked up. Haven't checked to see if that brass will chamber in my marlin, I will have to remember to check that.

I would be curious myself.