44 mag henry carbine hunting

[OldBroad44]

...i have a 22" octagon 44mag rossi. I was floored with how much extra power it had over my .44mag revolver. It's obvious in retrospect, but I hadn't thought about it until I saw the steel target bent from the impact. I have no doubt it would make a fine hunting rifle.

Yeah. .44 mag loads can be amazing out of rifles. Its enlightening to look at velocities of various Buffalo Bore loads shot from barrels of various lengths, as they often include a Marlin 18.5-inch. See website.

For example, consider the Buffalo Bore 305 gr. LFN HC. This is a standard pressure load that gives 1328 fps from a 6-inch revolver. (1194 ft lbs.) However, from a 18.5-inch Marlin barrel it gives 1779 fps. (2143 ft lbs) (!!!!!) (ft lb calculations mine.)

This means the standard pressure .44 mag load out of a rifle can far outclass the classic 30-30. But out of a rifle a .44 mag is a really gently recoiling load compared with commercial 30-30s.

Some additional implications. The .44 mag bullet is going to shoot a lot flatter coming out of the rifle.

However, because .44 mag ammo is generally designed for handguns, when rifle-shot the bullet is going to be going a lot faster than the ammo manufacturer figured. This can mean that jacketed hollowpoints and some jacketed soft-points may expand prematurely instead of penetrating adequately first. (This might be a problem even when a self-defense jhp designed for a 4" revolver is fired from a much longer revolver barrel. It might just go splat and make a huge but superficial crater instead of doing doing serious damage.) Hardcasts are probably a better bet if shooting .44mag factory ammo designed for handguns out of rifles. But even those are designed with a balance between bullet composition and hardness and speed. More speed than the bullet is designed for can mean it shatters when it hits bone instead of plowing through the entire animal, bone and all, like it's supposed to. It might be a good idea to check out the penetration of bullets you are planning to shoot at speeds very different from what the manufacturer was expecting.

 

[Magnumjohn]

Just ordered some rpp cloverleaf peep sights for my henry will show and tell when received

 

[DeanMk]

However, because .44 mag ammo is generally designed for handguns, when rifle-shot the bullet is going to be going a lot faster than the ammo manufacturer figured. This can mean that jacketed hollowpoints and some jacketed soft-points may expand prematurely instead of penetrating adequately first. (This might be a problem even when a self-defense jhp designed for a 4" revolver is fired from a much longer revolver barrel. It might just go splat and make a huge but superficial crater instead of doing doing serious damage.) Hardcasts are probably a better bet if shooting .44mag factory ammo designed for handguns out of rifles. But even those are designed with a balance between bullet composition and hardness and speed. More speed than the bullet is designed for can mean it shatters when it hits bone instead of plowing through the entire animal, bone and all, like it's supposed to. It might be a good idea to check out the penetration of bullets you are planning to shoot at speeds very different from what the manufacturer was expecting.

Federal P44E is about to go out of production.
It might behoove some of us to buy a box and deconstruct the load.
Similar to the mentioned BB load; 300gr. hard "Cast Core" bullet leaves the handgun barrel @ 1160 (896 ME).
That means a Marlin '94 should produce something akin to 1740 MV (2017ME).