The 44 Rimfire is a cartridge that is not thoroughly understood nor has it been properly labeled or researched. Everyone seems to just call it the 44 Henry rimfire. That is not at all accurate.
The 44 Henry Flat was specifically for the tubular magazine Henry rifle design having bullets with flat tips for safety reasons. Not unlike the 44WCF. For what reason I don't know since the round was a rimfire not a centerfire? Makes little sense to me personally.
Then you add the large number of pistols that chambered a 44 Rimfire both Long and Short depending on frame type and then you start diving into errors in identification.
Pistol bullets are round nose bullets!! PERIOD... That's what they were at that time. Round nose.....Not flat nose. Pistols chambered the 44 Rimfire Long or short "Pistol round" NOT the Henry round... FACT.
Not enough research has been performed regarding this round and frankly, not a lot of information is out there. Most is lost to history. This was a very early period of cartridge firearms.
See photo's. The rifle round is the flat bullet....The pistol round is the conical bullet. The conical bullet was the round for the Smith & Wesson revolver. NOT the Henry Flat bullet.
That's why we need those measurements. I have measured several Colts that chambered the 44 Rimfire and "NONE" of them match the Henry round...NOT ONE!!
Murph
If only it were that simple, but it's not. First, the modern shooter/collector has to "lose" their modern SAAMI spec line of reasoning as that didn't exist in the 19th century. The reason why many .44 Rimfire rounds won't chamber in Colt '72 Open Tops is because Colt specifically chambered those for the .44 Rimfire Stetson Patent ctg. (1871) that had slightly tighter specs. The other .44 Rimfire ctgs. were made by several different makers who generally tried to make ammo to fit the Henry/Win. '66 firearms.
The .44 American was essentially a .44 Rimfire converted to CF.
The earliest .44 Russian rds. were OUTSIDE lubricated bullets and not inside as most believe. The also had an approx. 270 gr. bullet. My theory is that S&W had come to despise the Russian inspectors and their petty nitpicking and constant alterations during manufacture and merely made stepped . 44 Russian chambers, but let the ammo be. That was changed in the 1880's when a famous American target shooter complained about .44 Russian ammo fouling (I think it was Bennett?) and only then was ammo converted to inside lubed bullets.
FWIW, the first inside lubed U.S. ctg. was the .50 Springfield Carbine rd. which was for the 1865 Spencer and today called the 56-50 Spencer.
Finally, know that ammo production in the post Civil War was a constant battle between engineers and patent lawyers. That U.S. Gov't then was very frugal and hated to pay patent royalties, e.g., Alin Conversion & Grant's veto of the Rollin White Patent extension (which was unconstitutional). As well, the Gov't did not want to pay Hiram Berdan royalties so they avoided the Berdan primer and used the Martin and later the Benét. Winchester switched to the Orcutt primer.
As you can see, it is all very, very complicated. Note however that bore/groove diameters then were all over the map with some '73 Win. Models as an example gauging anywhere between 0.425 to 0.434!!! Some Marlin 1881's go way into the 0.460's!!
