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The first one (the tall one) is one that you won't find in the books-not even Lt. Col. Brophy's book. The Marlin 444 was catalogued in 1965.
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One year prior to that, the Marlin 336 in 444 magnum was produced. They were never catalogued, not sure how many were made.
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Marlin decided to change the name of the cartridge to Marlin 444 and thus the new model name. I've been told there are some early boxes that are called 444 magnum but I have not been able to locate one. This is my 336 in 444 magnum from 1964.
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Those Model 336 Marlins in caliber 444 are quite rare as they were nearly experimental.
When Marlin & Remington finally agreed on the cartridge design, Marlin went to work in altering it's popular Model 336 for the round.
That had been the plan from the start,,to use the basic, solid Model 336 rifle action and just do some minor changes to allow it to function with the larger cartridge.
The 444 uses a base dia that is the Mauser .470+ dia with a rim and is 57m/m oal .
Nothing close to that had been used in the 336, 36 , 1936 model in the past.
Marlin R&D did succesfully make the changes to the Model 336 to handle the 444 round.
It loaded, fed, chambered, fired and ejected the round just fine.
But questions remainded as to the safety margin built into it.
It was finally decided that the 336 action was just not strong enough for the cartridge 'as a product to be placed on the open market'.
The result was that a new action for the 444 was designed for just that cartridge. Most called it a beefed up 336 which it in simple terms is. But it is by all accounts stronger than the standard round bolt 336.
How many 444's were built on the orig 336 action? I don't know. I doubt anyone really knows. I was told it never went into line production on that action. Those built were for demonstration, sales reps, to be sent out to writers, etc.
But none of that distribution ever happened AFAIK.
The caliber marking of 444 magnum was made by using the 44 magnum roll die from the slightly earlier 336 44mag and spacing it so an extra '4' was added by hand stamping.
The Ammo was made by Remington.
They may have made up the stuff headstamped 444Magnum if that was decided on as the caliber by both parties. Boxes with printing was done by outside vendors and was a simple thing to add/change/delete if needed.
Often first run new caliber stuff was hand stamped on boxes in small quantities to get it out to the gun rags and sales reps.
That's about all I remember being told about the rifle.