44/40 44mag. Bullets

[long colt lawrence]

Howdy Gents,

Can I use the same bullet for 44-40 and 44 mag?  The 44-40 is .426" dia. and the 44 mag. is .429-.430".  Anybody know?

thanks

[Mikey]

Long Colt - Nope!  As you stated, the 44-40 bullet is a .426-.427 diameter bullet that will rattle down the bbl of a .429 44 Mag shooter, and give you lousy accuracy.  Best to stick with proper diameter bullets.  But, if you are shooting an older 44-40 with a large bbl diameter you might be able to shoot the same bullet from both - you would need to slug your bore to determine that or, recover one of your spent slugs from the 44-40 and mic that for a measurement.  But generally, you would need tow differently sized bullets for those two calibers.  HTH.  Mikey.

[Iowegan]

My Hornady manual shows a .430 bullet in its 44-40 loads. A Ruger Blackhawk was used for the test gun. Older Colt 44-40's had a smaller diameter bore and would not be safe using the .430 dia bullets.

[Flint]

Colt and most clones used a 427 diameter bullet in 44-40.  Colt also uses a 426 bore in their 44 Special !  Ruger uses a 430 bore for both 44-40 and 44 Magnum.  So, you have to load the diameter bullet proper for your brand of gun  If in doubt, slug it.  How a Colt responds to factory ammo in 44 Special, presumably 430/431 diameter, I don't know as I only shoot reloads.  I load 44-40 with 427 or 428 bullets.

[The Shrink]

Lawrence

Yes, you can, as long as you start with the larger size.  Then simply buy a swager (The Lee is less than $20.00 complete with liquid Alox) of a .427 size and swage the bullets to .427 for the .44-40.  

This is assuming that you are using cast bullets, of course.  I haven't tried to swage a jacketed bullet with the Lee, but I think it would probably tax the poor thing to destruction!  It works fine for .429 diameter 200 gr flat point cast bullets.  

Next on my list is a real swager, maybe Christmas?