Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. John Taffin HANDLOADING SAGE ADVICE FROM THE HANDLOADING GURUS Hornady, Sierra, and Speer all offer excellent jacketed bullets for use in .44 Magnum sixguns and leverguns. Sixgun/Levergun Combinations: .44 Magnum n December of 1955 S&W began providing test sixguns chambered in the new .44 Magnum to such well-known shooting personalities as Maj. Hatcher of the NRA and the man most directly responsible for the advent of the new big bore sixgun cartridge, Elmer Keith. It wasn’t long before shooters wanted a .44 Magnum levergun and they were accommodated by an Arizona gunsmith, Ward Koozer, who converted .44-40 Winchester ’92s to .44 Magnum. I wanted one! The only problem was there was no way I could afford one. By the mid-1960s both Winchester and Marlin were at least advertising .44 Magnum leverguns and I well remember an article at the time by John Lachuk, who I was later to meet and be able to call friend, in which he said if he had his druthers he would just as soon grab his Marlin and a companion .44 Magnum sixgun and head for the hills. That really captured my imagination and I ordered a Winchester .44 Magnum as a companion to my 4" S&W and 45/8" Ruger Flat-Top .44 Magnums. Two things changed my mind about the Winchester. Remember, this is now post-1964. When I went to the gun shop to pick up my Winchester I was not at all happy about the finish and sitting next to it was a Marlin 336 which look so much better. I left the shop without the Winchester but with the Marlin. Nearly 45 years later I still have the Marlin, which was used to fire many of the test loads for this article. Above: John purchased the Model 336 Marlin .44 Magnum in the mid-1960s. It matches up nicely with a pair of custom Ruger .44 Magnum Bisleys. John has been using #2400 for loading the .44 Magnum for more than half a century. I Excellent cast bullets for use in .44 Magnum sixguns are the 260 grain Keith bullet, 255 grain Thompson GC, and 295 grain NEI GC; the latter two will also work in leverguns if crimped over the front shoulder. ince those first two .44 Magnum leverguns, several others have been offered. Marlin’s offering is now the Model 1894 with an action more suited to the .44 than the original Model 336; Winchester chambered their Model 1894 and .44 Magnum offering 16", 20" and 24" versions before closing their plant in 2005; Browning offered their Model B92 in a 20" lever action carbine for a short time; Rossi still offers both blued and stainless steel replica Model 1892s; and Ruger’s original semiauto Deerstalker carbine is long out of production but it has been replaced by the excellent Deerfield. Leverguns chambered in .44 Magnum are not near as picky about bullet choice as the same guns chambered in .357 Magnum. The latter almost demands a gas checked cast bullet while at least some .44 Magnum leverguns work fine with plain base cast bullets. However, many of the best loads for sixguns are too long to chamber in most .44 Magnum leverguns. We are speaking here mainly of those sixgun cartridges prepared with the use of Keith-style SWC cast bullets. The microgroove barrel of my Model 336 Marlin does not like these at all, however they will Continued on page 78 Choices S 28 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009