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Practically Shooting

Reloading 44 Rem Mag for new Henry Rifle


wwillson

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One of my friends just got a new Henry chambered in 44 Rem Mag. He said he loves to shoot it, but hates the retail price of ammo to feed it. I offered to teach him to reload on my equipment if he buys a set of dies.

I've never loaded for a tube magazine rifle and need some pointers. He uses this rifle mostly for target/plinking, but may hunt as well.

Bullets; I assume I should load a flat point? Do you have any favorites you use for 44 Mag? Should I use a heavier bullet for a rifle, say 300g?

Powder; I have plenty of Titewad and there is lots of load data, this should work fine for non-magnum velocity loads.

Loads; Is the modern Henry's maximum load the same as the standard 44 Rem Mag load, or is it any published max load, such as the high pressure Ruger 44 Mag loads?

Thanks,

Wayne

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Bullets: I would stick with 240g for plinking, but maybe do some 300g. Yes, flats and hollows, and Hornady FTX revolution points.

Loads: Check with Henry. Most new lever rifles are good with the hottest loads. My Browning hasn't exploded. Yet.

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I have no idea what rifling twist Henry uses, but some .44 Mag leverguns makers are notorious for using slow 1-38 twists (because they always have; that's why). That can sometimes limit how long (heavy) the bullet can be that will shoot well. The max should be around 265 grains.

That's the standard line, but for some reason, a lot of them do better than they shoul with heavy bullets. I've heard so many people express surprise over heavy bullet/slow twist results it no longer surprises me.

Henry is not bound by the "it's how we've always done it since 18xx" so they could be using a faster twist like Ruger does. If that the case, anything could be OK.

You weren't asking about bear stomping loads so heavy bullets may not be a factor. But- I have found good prices on 300 grain bullets sometimes, so that I might as well buy them rather than lighter. If the rifle can use them, it's nice to know, so he can maybe take advantage of the occasional deal.

I am going to assume you won't be able to slug the barrel to determine bore size in order to use cast bullets well. That's too bad, because the .44 mag is a nice cast bullet caliber whether rifle or handgun. That is, if you can match the bullet to the bore.

I've only seriously worked with two .44 Mag rifles. They had definite bullet preferences. There were a couple they would shoot really well, a couple they wouldn't shoot well at all, and a bunch that fell in the "average" category. I've only played around with some other .44 Mag rifles, but they showed a tendency to do the same. Based on that tiny sample, I would be inclined to want to know how well the owner wanted the ammo to do. Getting better than "OK" might take some trials. I don't know if he or you want to start that. You might want to shoot for OK and quit (and hope you get lucky and hit on "great" instead of "OK"). Getting an OK load should be easy. Getting a great one is a lot harder. What is that worth to him?

I have never got super accuracy from a .44 carbine. OK, but not super. Two inches for five shots at 50 is pretty good. Better can be had, but it takes some work to get a small gain. I may be limiting things by never using more than a 4x scope on them, but I can get that same 2" using almost any load in a .357 carbine. What I'm saying is: 1) Don't expect a lot. 2)Be glad if you get it. 3) Improvements that amount to much may not come easy.

Remember- a 2" center to center group with a .44 bore means the holes are pretty close. It's better than it sounds.

Personally, I think 2" @ 50 is fine for a .44 Mag carbine. They usually get used on deer at rock-throwing distance, so what do we need?

If I were loading play loads for me or someone else, I'd start with whatever brand of bulk 240 jhp bullets were the cheapest.

If you want the best accuracy with least effort, I'd buy some Hornady XTPs. All weights if XTPs seem to shoot well, but 240 would be the universal best bet.

Watch bullet shape and cartridge OAL with a lever. Some are funny about length, needing them to be within a certain range. A lot of them won't feed sharp-shouldered bullets like SWCs without a little throating.

Powder is harder to pin down because the.44 Mag can shoot about the same accuracy with anything from Bullseye to the very slowest handgun powder. It's just dependent on how fast you want it to go at the time. I use H110 or W296 (same thing) or sonetimes IMR4227 for full power stuff, and 231, Titegroup, and Unique for lesser loads. I've never tried Titewad in anything.

I've read a lot of .44 carbine shooters use Lil' Gun for full power loads, but I've never owned a can. I do plan on ordering some with my next powder order. I've heard some talk of Longshot for that too.

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Guys, Thanks for the replies.

The Henry 44 Rem Mag does have a 1:38rh rate of twist (directly from their website). I found 240g JSP for a very good price from Montana Gold, I'm going to start with these and see what kind of accuracy I get with Titegroup loads.

Wayne

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