Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers finally worked up a load for my marlin 444p

I picked up a used marlin 444p in good shape used from cabeles maybe 3 years ago. Its the outfitter model with ported barrel. Ive shot a non porter ss guide gun 45/70 for a while but my standard load in it kicks a bit. The 45/70 load is 350g hornady flat point at about 2100fps over benchmark powder.

I got some starline brass for the 444. I noticed I had several cans of RL10x that I hadn't found a use for so I started with it. I also have a lot of speer 270g gold dots that I use in my 44s so I went with those. I ended up with 50g rl10x, 270g gold dot, cci250 and they clock 2200fps from the 18.5" barrel.

Recoil seems light compared to my guide gun and barrel lift is much less. I had to adjust the overall length and seating depth to get the feeding and function good but once dialed in it feeds and cycles very smooth. Looks like it'll work for something.

Bb

The 444 seems like it wants to be an easy to please cartridge. Mine loves 322 and RL7 with just about any bullet I have put through it so far. I think I am using RL7 and 270 Speers at the moment. It shoots so well with most bullets I don't need to tweak the zero much either. It is just enough less recoil than full on 45-70 loads to be comfortable.

It is hard to beat Re-7 for straight wall cartridges like 444, 45-70, or 450 Marlin

I always liked the 270gn Speer Gold Dots in my 444 Marlin as well. In my Marlins 22" bbl, 45gns of H4198 produced a 17 shot average of 2149 fps. The same powder charge with 265gn Hornady produced a 10 shot average of 2157 fps. Recoil off the bench was always tough, especially since those big bore Marlins have no recoil pad to speak of.