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February 9, 2009
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I took a new shooter to the range today with his new to him .22LR single action Plinkerton. It was an inexpensive SA revolver with fixed sights. The gun was new and managed as many misfires as real fires. It also about half the time would fail to advance the cylinder to the next round without helping it along. he will be taking it back to get assistance with its mis adventures. Now to the 744 topic. While there I had brought along a 744 with some .44 special rounds and a few 275 grain .44 magnum handloads. I had never fired a .44 special prior to today and the results rather surprised me. I have for numerous years fired .38 special rounds from various .357 magnum revolvers with outstanding results, sometimes better than the .357 rounds are capable. These .44 special rounds were as accurate as a shotgun, no better. the .44 magnum rounds punched holes within an inch of each other like I am accustomed. The shooting was done at 25-yards freehand hold. So, question is why would this scenario vary so greatly from the .38 vs. .357 results? I am just puzzled by it.
SMF
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Dans Club
December 4, 2011
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Were the Specials handloads or factory ammo? I ran a few factory 44 Specials in my 44 before going with storebought mags and I didn't see any noticable difference between the two as far as accuracy was concerned. Now recoil and report were less with the Specials as expected. I was shooting 15 yards, so perhaps at greater distances the Specials beging to run out of gas, I don't really know. BTW what barrel length were you shooting? I was shooting a 10V.
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January 24, 2009
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That's strange. I have never fired a .44 Special, so I can't offer any real help.
I have exactly one .44 Spl loaded round...it was in a bag of 300 "once fired" cases I bought locally a while back. My Speer #14 book said to use 6.8~7.5Gr Unique with a 270Gr bullet (that's what I was working with), so I loaded it at 7.0 & buttoned it up, then tossed it in my "ammo collection" box with no real intention of shooting it.
Maybe I should go see how it runs next time I'm up on the hill...
Comparing the two, I didn't expect to see much difference. The difference between .38 & .357 is greater than the .44 Spl & Mag, so the .44 Spl hasn't piqued my interest much...maybe I need to look closer.
.44 Spl, .44 Mag, .445 SuperMag
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February 9, 2009
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Scorpio, I was shooting an 8V barrell and the specials were handloads I was given, they were loaded to cowboy action shooting balistics.
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December 4, 2011
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Only thing I can think of is the loads were ligher than a factory load. I don't really know what cowboy action specs are in relation to factory special loads. That combined with a longer range than I shot and 2 less inches of barrel may have been enough to make them erratic. You could try a box of factory if you wanted to compare but the Specials are about as expensive as mags. I think from now on if I want a lighter load, I'll just load up some mags on the light side and shoot them. No die adjusting that way either.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
My father
If a man designed it, and a man built it, then a man can fix it.
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November 23, 2011
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I would look at how well the 44 Specials fit your cylinder and barrel. I have seen this happen with lead bullets that were undersized for the gun they were shot in. I size my lead bullets .001 over barrel diameter. This gives me the best accuracy. Hope this helps. R S
Remembering Bill Ruger
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February 9, 2009
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I don't really plan to ever bother with the specials again. I have loaded down magnums in the past and had great results for large bore plinking fun. I was just rather perplexed at the poor performance when trying this combo. I have a box of Laser Cast 200 grain leads that backed by WW231 make a real nice plinking round out of magnum cases.
A man cannot have too many SuperMags
April 25, 2008
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Supermagfan said:
Scorpio, I was shooting an 8V barrell and the specials were handloads I was given, they were loaded to cowboy action shooting balistics.
Therein lies your problem. Cowboy action shooters load extremely light for minimum recoil so they can get on target faster for the next shot. I bet if you tried some normal .44 Special loads, you would see far better results.
The Savantist
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