44/40 Ruger

[Wilbe Lead]

Howdy Everyone,
Have any of you done much loading of 44/40 in a newer Ruger ?
What size bullet did you use?I know they made some guns with a extra cylinder in 44 mag.
Other then that I have not ever loaded a 44/40 shell.I have load a lot of 357,44mag 50 ae ,500 linb.Just got a good price on one in 44/40 and looks like for the price they want for loaded shell I will start loading for this one.
Also can not believe the price the cowboy shooters will pay for one of these guns.
There is a guy over on the cowboy wire that is asking over a thousand and they made it look like it came from the 1880s.
Later
Wilbe Lead

[Lloyd Smale]

i made a convertable 4 5/8s super blackhawk using a cylinder out of a 4440 vaquero. The guns a tack driver with the 4440 cylinder in it. What i did and recomend highly is taking your 4440 cylinder and having the throats opened to 4305. The 4440 cylinders are throated for 429 bullets and the barrels are the same as the 44 mags so they tend to not shoot that well. neat thing is once you open them up you can use any standard cast of jacketed bullet made for a 44 mag. Only drawback to the whole deal is beings that the 4440 case is bottle necked you need to lube cases and its slows down production quite a bit on a progressive press or id shoot alot more of them.

[Lone Star]

Depending on the pressure level you load to and the chamber dimensions, you may get by without lubing cases, neck size them instead.  Sometimes you can use the FL die backed out - sometimes not if you use higher pressure loads in a large chamber.  A special NS die could solve that issue....


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