.44 Special in .44 Magnum

[The Real Hawkeye]

Recently, I purchased a super lightweight S&W .44 Magnum, made of scandium/titanium. Though it's manageable for a few rounds of shooting, it's not exactly something you want to do a lot of shooting with using full house loads. As an alternative, I was either thinking of loading down some .44 Magnums so as to drive a 250 grain bullet to around 1000 fps, or to load some hot .44 Special rounds, producing the same ballistics. Any preference? Why? I figure that whichever I choose, I will stick with, not switching back and forth on brass lengths for different purposes. I don't see the need to shoot such a lightweight gun with full house .44 Magnum loads. For that, I have a standard weight Model 29. I could, of course, get a second cylinder fitted for it.

 

[Old Fuff]

I think that this model has a Titanium cylinder. If so, you aren’t supposed to use a regular cleaning brush in the chambers. For that reason I would use downloaded .44 Magnum loads rather then the shorter .44 Special. In addition I would make sure these loads had a strong crimp to insure the bullet(s) didn’t jump. Look on the side of the barrel and see if there aren’t weight restrictions as well. In short, read the factory’s manual very carefully.

I think this revolver might have interested me – if it was chambered in .44 Special with a steel cylinder. As it was, I passed.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

I think this revolver might have interested me – if it was chambered in .44 Special with a steel cylinder. As it was, I passed.

I wonder if S&W has any .44 Special steel cylinders that could be fitted for it. I agree with you. That would be just about an ideal big bore revolver.

 

[SouthpawShootr]

.44 special cylinders would be too short. You'd have to use the .44 magnum length cylinder and put a shelf on the inside of the cylinder if you wanted to limit the gun to .44 special. A permanent conversion could, of course, be done but you'd have to have the barrel set back otherwise you'd have a barrel-cylinder gap you could almost put a finger in.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

What would be wrong with just deciding that it is a .44 Special, and never giving magnum length brass another thought? Will it necessarily be less accurate or powder-efficient using the shorter brass?

 

[Pappy John]

I'm assuming you roll your own ammo. If so, I'd download some magnum cases. That's what I do for my 29 Mountain Gun for 95% of what goes through it's barrel. My own favorite paper puncher is 6.8 gr of Universal Clays under a 250 gr Keith with a standard primer. Fast enough to hit the same POA at 25 and 50 yards and easy on the gun and the wrist.

 

[redbone]

I also have a 329. I have shot .44 specials in it, and had trouble ejecting .44 mags later in the same session. I've experienced this before with .38/.357s, but not to the extent that I did with the .44s. Actually had to drive the empty .44 mags out with a dowel rod.

Since then, I've shot only .44 mag cowboy loads when I want lighter loads. No more specials for me!

RBH

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Yeah, I guess that makes better sense, doesn't it. Ok, so I will just down load some .44 Mag brass for it, and maybe try those Cowboy Magnum loads too. I also have the new blued Mountain Gun in .44 Magnum, and find that full power loads are much more manageable in that one, especially with the rubber grips. I think the scandium gun should have been made in .44 Special, not Magnum (though I can see one good use for it, and that would be if you were backpacking in grizzly country, and you wanted to have the lightest possible bear defense package you could get). These are two nice recent offerings from Smith and Wesson. Couldn't resist getting them both.

 

[Old Fuff]

In theory, a .41 Magnum cylinder could be rechambered to .44 Special, but I wouldn't recommend it. Considering the cost, using down-loaded .44 Magnums is a much better idea.

Be that as it may, if I was in "mean bear" country I carry something with a lot more punch then an airweight snubby in .44 Magnum. Two reasons - that short barrel wouldn't give me the performance I'd want, and it would be very difficult to recover from the recoil to make more ACCURATE shots. Under the best of circumstances, shot placement would be critical.

 

[JNewell]

What would be wrong with just deciding that it is a .44 Special, and never giving magnum length brass another thought?

The rub would be that you'd get the burned-on crud ring and cleaning out the Ti cylinders requires more care than stainless or carbon steel.

However, at least w/r/t the smallbore Ti cylinders, I am pretty sure that the instructions from S&W do authorize use of bronze brushes. I could be mis-remembering.

In any case, I would agree that going with downloaded .44 Mag cases is clearly the better route here.

 

[stans]

Right now, my favorite downloaded 44 Magnum load is 8.0 grains of Unique, 240 grain commercially cast LSWC, Winchester large pistol primer and Remington 44 magnum brass. I am getting 1000 feet per second from my six inch barreled model 29-3.

 

[Jim March]

You're always going to get less pressure for the same given ballistics when you increase the case volume. Which is why Linebaugh started HIS hot-rodding with the 45LC (more volume than a 44MAg case), and when going to the longer 454 case still had too much pressure so he expanded sideways to the .475 and .500. He was very clear that he was in search of as much case volume as he could get in a Blackhawk-length-compatible shell.

So download the 44Maggie .

Several vendors do it for you. Cor-Bon's 44Mag defense round is fairly weak; Proload has a "tactical lite" with a 200gr fat-mouth hollowpoint @ 1,000fps as a standard commercial load that would be one of my top choices for urban 44Mag defense duties.

 

[Hoploholic]

Be very careful loading mag brass to special specs. While there will actually be less powder in the case, there is a greater risk of over pressure and blowing a case out. With the increased free space in the case, there is more room for the hot gas to fill and by the time the bullet has been pushed to the forcing cone, you may have already stressed the case to failure. If you want spec loads, use the spec brass. Use jacketed bullets and if a ring builds up, alternate Sweets and your favorite carbon remover to get it out. That or just be sure to stay within minimum specs for the mag loading.

 

[stans]

Seems the NRA and bunch of others have tried to replicate the fabled light powder charge explosion, no one has been able to do it. The consensus is that light charges exploding and blowing up guns results from either a squib sticking a bullet in the barrel followed by a live round or a double charge of powder.

I have been downloading 357 magnum for more years than I care to think about and now doing the same in 44 Magnum, never a problem.

 

[Sunray]

I'd just load it with magnum brass to .44 Special velocities. 2.7 grains of Bullseye under a 148 grain full wad cutter works just fine in my GP100 and there's no reason a .44 wouldn't as well.
"...a .41 Magnum cylinder could be rechambered to .44 Special, but I wouldn't recommend it..." Me either. Especially as you'd have to change the barrel too. You'd be trying to push a .429" bullet down a .410" bore.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I have been downloading 357 magnum for more years than I care to think about and now doing the same in 44 Magnum, never a problem.

Same here. I believe I put my first light .38 special load in a .357 magnum case in about 1979, and haven't ever encountered a single problem with .357 or .44 magnum reduced loads.

 

[Hoploholic]

I won't say that you are wrong stans, but it is better to err on the side of caution than to have to sew the web of your hand back together and get fitted for that ever popular glass eye. Also, do you have any documentation of the reliabilty of light loads in mag cases that I could look through. Sounds like interesting reading.

 

[PinnedAndRecessed]

Hawk.

My favorite load is a 240 grain tmj powered by 7 grains Unique. It's an easy round to shoot and produces good accuracy.

But then again, I'm shooting out an m-29.

 

[PinnedAndRecessed]

Re the concern that 44 special rounds might not be as accurate in a magnum cylinder.

I read an expert who postulated that the bullet "jump" from the special case to the forcing cone is enough to destroy accuracy.

Personally, I don't think I can shoot well enough to see the difference.

 

[Old Fuff]

Ah ... Sunray:

If for some reason you wanted to have the model in question (which is a .44, not a .41 Magnum) rechambered to .44 Special you would have to use a .44 Magnum length cylinder. N-frame .44 Special cylinders are too short and this would require a different barrel of a kind they don't make. You don't want a .44 Magnum cylinder because you'd be back where you started.

However if you took a .41 Magnum cylinder (same length as the .44 Magnum cylinder) and rechambered it to .44 Special you would have .44 Special chambers in a .44 Magnum length cylinder - that would work in the gun under consideration because it already has a .44 barrel. In the process of rechambering the reamer would remove all traces of the original .41 Magnum chamber (.44 is bigger then .41, right?) and the chamber throats would be .429 (give or take) not .410 - anyway that's the way I see it.

I considered all of this in another application, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble given that the .44 Magnum cartridge can be downloaded. However in any revolver, if the cylinder is big enough in the first place a smaller chamber can be bored and reamed to make a bigger one. Lots of folks have reclaimed Colt Single Action Army cylinders by rechambering them when the original ones were rusted or otherwise ruined. Others have made custom conversions using Ruger Blackhawk's in .30 Carbine and .357 Magnum to make something in a larger bore - but this required a barrel change too.

Of course I could be wrong ...

But I bet I'm not ....

 

[Majic]

Hoplohoic,
Don't forget we aren't talking about a great difference in case size. The .44mag case is just 1/8" longer than the .44sp case and using the .44sp load creates a small increase of air volume. No one is talking of using extremely light loads where the unexplained detonation problem has existed for big cased cartridges. The .44sp case has the room to hot load it to magnum velocities, but is loaded for the weaker platforms using the round. The extra 1/8" of case has never been a problem with using almost any of the special loads in magnum cases. Shooters have been doing just that ever since the cartridges were introduced.

 

[only1asterisk]

Old Fuff speaks the truth and is indeed right on the money on all counts.

I also second Jim's advice on the ProLoad ammo.

David

 

[Hoploholic]

Roger that Majic. I think what it really comes down to is that when you are rolling up a load outside of published data go easy and keep your wits about you. I think if one were to down load the mag to the point of overpressure inconsistent ignition of the charge would become evident.

I wonder if one really wanted to down load mag cases if a filler could be used to fill up the case a little more?

 

[Majic]

Ahhhhh...the smell of fried oatmeal, I remember it well. Fillers were once the staple of rifle shooters shooting reduced loads, but you seldom see it being done today. The same techique should apply to big revolver cases also.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Yeah, something like instant Cream of Wheat should work. But I don't intend to down load by that much, really. About like a hot loaded .44 Special, i.e., pushing a 250 grainer to about 1000 fps.