44Mag in long guns

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Oleg Volk

Hickok45 just posted an informative video about muzzle differences from 3″ revolver to 8″ revolver to 20″ carbine. He got minimal difference between 3″ and 8″ but 33% to 50% increase from revolvers to the carbine! For the fans of random calculations, that’s about twice the energy. The carbine produced much less muzzle blast than the revolvers. Can’t wait to get my Henry out to the range with a chronograph.

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8 Responses to 44Mag in long guns

  1. Joe S. says:
    August 1, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    Oleg,
    As with all of Hickok45 video’s this was some fine work. But it’s also old new’s, the 44 Mag in a rifle or carbine barrel has long been considered as every bit the equal or better than the 30-30 Wincheter. It also kicks like a young mule in a Marlin 1894 where as the 357 Magnum is very pleasant to shoot in the 1894. A pre-crossbolt safety 1894 is on my short list to go with my 357 one.

  2. Firehand says:
    August 1, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    Read some tests a few years back, they found that with pistol cartridges like.357, .44 or .41 Mag, you got the maximum out of the cartridge with a 16-18″ barrel(I think specifically said 16, but can’t remember for sure); longer than that, friction begins slowing the bullet, below that you don’t get the max benefit from the propellant.

  3. Z says:
    August 1, 2012 at 7:28 pm

    Ballistics by the Inch has a bunch of tests done on various cartridges at different barrel lengths. It’s very illuminating seeing which cartridges are designed to scale up to carbine barrels and which are not, and to also compare muzzle energy between cartridges at different barrel lengths.

  4. John says:
    August 1, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    As a boy, my first deer kill with a “rifle” was with an old Ruger .44 Magnum semi-auto carbine. Great gun. Several years ago, my father purchased a Ruger lever-action .44 Magnum. He’s killed 18 deer with it over the years, and he loves that gun. Given, the areas we hunt in seldom have ranges in excess of 100yds, the .44 is perfect.

  5. Scott J says:
    August 1, 2012 at 10:21 pm

    I love the cartridge. My 3rd gun was a 629 Classic I still have (actually used the thing a CCW way back when).

    The first cartridges I ever reloaded were .44 Mag.

    I really want a carbine in the caliber of some variety but wish I could find one closer to the $200 I paid for my Winchester 94 .30-30 than the $500 plus I usually see.

  6. Paul Koning says:
    August 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    That reminds me: wasn’t there a Luger (9 mm) carbine, that was built to be loaded with extra high pressure loads? As I recall, the shells were black instead of brass so you could tell they weren’t allowed in a pistol. I wonder if the same could be applied here. 44 mag ++P, yikes…

  7. Gunnutmegger says:
    August 3, 2012 at 9:18 pm

    Oleg,

    The .40S&W must be a pretty efficient cartridge, because the velocity gain of a carbine over a 4″ pistol barrel was between 114 and 168fps.

    http://www.yankeegunnuts.com/2012/07/16/ballistics-testing-pistol-caliber-carbine/

  8. Kristopher says:
    August 4, 2012 at 11:58 am

    The real advantage to shooting .44 mag in a carbine is that you can seriously hot load the round.

    Try starting with .44 mag Ruger Super Blackhawk only loads, and work up from there.

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