Old Stumpy
Member
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2019
- Messages
- 1,451
Recently I bought 2 new Marlin 1894 rifles, based on being pleasantly surprised at how much Remlin quality had improved. Both rifles had nice walnut with a matte finish, excellent fit and finish inside and out, and worked great. The barrels were on straight and the dovetails and sights were mounted great. Every screw head was perfect and the guns functioned great. The trigger pills were both on the heavy side though. Both have Ballard rifling with a 1:38" twist.
The first, a .45 Colt Cowboy, proved to be very accurate at my initial 50 yard sighting in. With American Eagle 225 grain standard velocity soft points, it grouped around 1 1/2" with the marbles factory iron sights, even with a very fuzzy sight picture with my old eyes. I am confident that at 100 yards, it will shoot quite well with this ammo or with .454" lead 250 grain bullets, even with the slow twist common to old .44-40 rifles and 200 grain bullets.
The second rifle, a standard .44 magnum 1894, shoots poorly, using 240 grain Hornaday XTPs and a stout load of 2400, even though the velocity must be in excess of 1500 FPS. I am getting about 3 1/2" groups at 50 yards with the open sights. The problem being that the groove diameter slugs at .4315" and the Hornaday bullets are .430". The bullets don't tumble even with these undersized bullets, so some obturation is taking place. But not enough.
This sorry state of affairs is pretty common these days with .44 magnum rifles. Makers are following a SAAMI spec for rifles which specifies a .431" groove diameter (+ or - .001" I believe).
The reason for same is to reduce pressures in the concern that lever actions are lacking in the strength needed to withstand really heavy loads.
The thing is that I bought the .44 magnum to be used with heavier loads, and with factory JSP bullets or with hard cast at around 240 grains. To get the potential accuracy from this rifle I would need to have a mold made that drops .433" bullets, which may or may not result in a cartridge which chambers okay or not at all. Measuring fired cases with a dial caliper results in an internal measurement of .432", which is about as large as I would want to go, to allow proper spring back of fired cases. And of course there are no .432" diameter factory JSP bullets readily available.
Since I believe that the .45 Colt Cowboy will shoot well with any load from standard velocity up to .44 magnum class hand loads, and will I'm sure handle cast bullets of .454" quite well, the .44 magnum 1894 is going to have to find a new home. I don't need a fussy rifle.