I have been shooting a .44 Magnum 240 grain cast lead hand load for a number of years, a modest load of Unique behind a 240 grain cast lead bullet, probably 850 FPS from a revolver. This has been feeling kind of tame, so I jumped up to the maximum published load for 240 grain cast lead, enough Unique to get 920 FPS. Bullet is a hand cast 240 grain "Tumble Lube" design from a Lee Mold, lead is wheel weight lead from a scrounge of tire shops back in 2006. I understand wheel weight lead is about dried up now, as wheel weights are tin or steel now....

Results from the Rossi 92 where great, I was getting good hits at 70 yards on a swinging steel, fired from the prone position, so I went up one step on the rear sight to shoot an 8" swinging steel at 100 yards. "Bang! Clang!" five shots, five hits. Examination of the steel showed a group about 3-4" on the steel, very satisfying:



Shot the same load through my Ruger Super Blackhawk on a 5" swinging steel at 20 yards, again very satisfying results. There is a marked increase in recoil from my previous moderate load, but still very manageable.



Weather was pretty cold and windy today, about 27 degrees with a 15-20 knot wind, so all shooting was done with gloved hands. Some pics of the range and steel targets. Closest targets are at 35 yards, another at 70 yards, farthest at 100 yards:





I am really digging this combo of lever action .44 Magnum rifle and Super Blackhawk revolver. They both love the same hand load which is cheap to assemble and fun to shoot, with enough performance to matter if called upon to defend.....

Nice politically correct Virginia firearms combination, and a nice piece of property. But ya got me wonderin about the brass insert in the butt stock.

Good shootin”. Is your hotter Unique load, whatever it is, enough for jacketed bullets? I’ve only loaded .44 Special with Unique. 6.4 and 7.5 grains with store bought lead bullets.

I wave a Winchester 94 in .44 magnum. My 7 or 8 grains of Unique loads that I shoot in my M-29 are pretty tame in the rifle.

Big Wheel,

The thingy on the stock is sight data taped to it, says "240 grain jacketed or cast, second step on rear sight" This gives me point of impact/point of aim at 50 yards. Go up one step on the rear sight for 100 yards....

Wyatt,

With 240 grain jacketed bullets I use 2400 powder to get 1300 FPS from a revolver....

Ingenious!



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Slava Ukraini!

Nice shooting!

This reminds me I need to get back in the garage while it's cool and handload enough 44 MAG for the year.

I have the same rifle but it's the stainless model. Never tried slinging lead through it which is all I'v shot through my revolvers for the last few years. Seems like a good time to dig that gun outta the safe.

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Don't You Ever Wash That Thing

The little 20" Rossi lever is a sweet little gun.
I have them in both 38spl/357mag and 44spl/44mag.
Both mine are older and have saddle rings. The 38/357 even has the Puma medallion.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I just have to try out that unique load in my marlin 1894 in 44 magnum with the 240 grain bullet. Presently am using H-110 and recoil is a bit too much. Though in fairness it is a top end load by the books.Oretty accurate through.

Glad to hear the tumble lube bullets did good in a Carbine. I tried the 32 version in 32-20 in a Marlin 1894 CL and the stunk, but any bullet the resembles an Ideal 3118 RNFP is golden.

In the early 80's I had Marlin 44 Mags. A 336 in 44mag was only made one year and had Ballard rifling, very good with cast. Very early 1894 44Mag with Micro-groove rifling was moderately accurate with size .430" and very accurate with sized .431". That was with 240 SWC! With a 310 grain SSK mould sized .430, they were accurate in every Carbine, Pistol, and Contender I tried them in! (all that extra bearing surface made the difference!)

In those days, I had just bought our farm house. There was a mid 60's Kenmore refrigerator, the outside skin was like a car bumper and the inside skin was heavy sheet metal! I believe the insulation was 2.5 to 3 inches of cork. This was the test bed for penetration tests. 1911 and ball ammo would go through 3 layers, but couldn't get a through and through with any jacketed ammo. a 200 gr very hard cast Lee SWC at max load would do it but it shed lots of lead doing it, the exit hole was a 38 or so size! Using the Marlin Carbine with Jacketed 240 S&W Brand soft points would not T&T, but 240 cast (MAX. Load) did and the maintained more diameter.

I never tried a car door, but I'm pretty sure, If I used this load for SD in a car door , both the driver and passenger were in trouble!!!

Ivan