Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Ruger 44 mag carbine

Hey all, I just bought a ruger 44 carbine today. I'm super excited to have this light handy rifle.

I have a question about suitable loads for this semiautomatic rifle. I have not heard anything pertaining to this, but should I stick with the regular 44 mag loads?
I would like to buy some double tap or buffalo bore heavier than normal 44 mag loads. But if they are too much for the rifle then I will stick with the plain factory ammo.

I’d stick with the plain ammo because it will kill s.hit.

It took a lot of load work in mine to find 300gr loads that would get close to matching 240gr AE factory loads accuracy wise. I was specifically working on Subsonic loads, so there's probably a bit more challenge there, but you'll be doing pretty good to find a load that's 2-4 moa. My not so great loads were 6-9 moa, and the POI and group size are pretty sensitive to action screw torque.

Those SPECIALTY LOADS are made for a pistol. They will shoot but they have nothing to offer over factory 240gr jacketed soft points. I have three of these carbines and they are death on deer and hogs...

Thank you guys, I'll stick with common factory fodder! Seems like it would be good to go easy on the rifle with the lack of replacement parts.
Since this rifle was introduced when the normal load was a 240 gainer at 1400-1500 fps do you think that would be an okay load?

I’m have some 300s I wanted to load for my 44 carbine.
But full house load. Do you have any info on that?
Thanks

Ruger made 2 different 44 carbines. The older version has a tubular magazine. Twist rate was 1:38 and most likely 270 grain bullets are the longest bullet to be stabilized. The newer Deerfield has a detachable box magazine. The twist rate is 1:20 and 300 grain bullets might be ok. I believe the Ruger manual says not to use lead bullets because it might restrict the gas port in the barrel with lead.

My grandfather killed many a whitetails stalk hunting with that rifle. He was 6'7 and liked that he could carry it like a baton. He shot hand poured hollow points, 250 grain. Since my father inherited it (he's a ballistics enthusiast) he's become a fan of shooting the hornady leverevolution rounds out of it.

Those original 44 carbines (and I’m sure the newer ones as well) were some deer killing sum’ bitc.hes in the Eastern US For about 150 yards and under . We had a Bushnell fixed 4x on one our finger groove model . You just aimed at the top of the back for 150 yard shots.

One of my all time favorite rifles! the one I have has a 1 x 4 Leupold on it.
Has been used a lot over the years with factory loads.
Where we hunt in MN if you can see more than a 100 yards your out on the lake.

The 240 grn white box Winchester shoots so well in my Deerfield I've never felt the need to load for it or buy anything else. Actually I have felt the need to load for it when I look at the prices for 44 mag factory.

I have one. I had it all rigged up ready to hunt with it in Big timber in wayne national forest. Unfortunately I ended up in hospital and missed that hunt. But I am hoping to give it a shot next season. We call 75 yards a hail mary there. My kicks a little more than I would expect but nothing your clothing doesnt absorb. I bought mine for $50 from a guy at work who was retiring and bought a sailboat to sail the world.

I got one just the other day that was almost new in box, only had 13 rounds thru it and still has the factory box. This is about the 3rd one of these I have owned but I think I may keep this one around for awhile.

Love hearing people talking about this rifle. Mine is the older one with the 4 round tube magazine. Never planned on buying it but, I have never been more excited about a rifle after bringing it home. Drilling steel targets at 60 yards, and to me the recoil feels equal to or less than a 410.

I'll probably just use the factory sights but I think a ghost ring or red dot would be shweet on this thing. I'm sure it will take over as my stalking rifle here in northern michigan.

Paid 600 bucks for it and after looking around I feel pretty good about that price, it's in great condition with most of the wear on the loading gate.

Nope, all my load work was with reduced loads ~ 900 fps - 1,040 fps for suppressed use. Also mine is a 1:20 twist 77/44 which is what comes to mind for me when folks mention Ruger 44 carbines, sounds like some folks are referring to the old Deerstalker and Deerfield (99/44) semi-auto carbines though.

I've used the 240 factory loads, but "the best" factory load in 2 (one new box magazine and the last one the older tube magazine) was the winchester that loaded the 250 Nosler. 1 1/2 even with the old hard trigger pull! I was trying them out on my 13yr old Godson, but when it got really cold, that hard trigger and his little cold fingers opened up the groups to about 6 inches! I had him switch to an older Mod 700 .270 with a 2 3/4-3# pull. He shot very well with that set up. This was here in Utah and Colorado. Growing up in East, Tx I swooned over the pictures and reading about the little Ruger. never saw one in any store back then. By 1975, I wanted to try the .44, and I had traded for a new Marlin 1894, and with iron sights, it was the fastest woods rifle I ever used. I found it as good as any Mod 94 30-30, but made a much bigger exit hole, great blood trail!. I did see one guest hunter on our lease bring the Ruger auto, he had a 2x7 scope on it and he shot a 6 ptr I put up pretty close to his stand. It ran about 60 yds, but a bucket of blood was easy trailing, ha.

You don't need any fancy ammo nor heavy loaded handloads to kill deer within the Ruger carbine's effective range. My BIL has taken 30 + whitetails with nothing fancier than Winchester white box ammo straight from Walmart. I've take one whitetail using his rifle and ammo, it was a bang flop.

My father has one, he's had nothing but FTF problems with it. Fun gun when it works though.

Wanna sell it?

The 1960s advertisement Ruger ran with a hunter posing in front of a great ape that he killed with a Ruger .44 Carbine would make today's turd-lickin Millenials and Gen Ys seek a safe space.