.500 S&W and .444 Marlin

by AaronB, Thursday, December 12, 2024, 07:40 (9 days ago) @ Otony

I'm intrigued by your experiments with .500 Smith and .444 Marlin.

Interestingly, the .444 in factory trim generates the same energy as the 9.3x62, which is a time-honored cartridge that has a long and successful record in Africa. It's got plenty of oomph for sure, if that's what you're looking for... but I also agree that you could load it below the factory specs and still have the cartridge that the "Buckhammer" wants to be when it grows up.

I worked with Rob Lipford (mostly I stood by gawping) as he worked out how to shoot reduced cast loads in a Ruger No. 1 Tropical chambered in .458 Win Mag. With the enormous throat for that cartridge the only cast bullet we could get to shoot well was the RCBS 500-grain RNFP with a gas check. One of us had come across some tribal knowledge indicating that you could reduce load data for IMR-4895 down to 60% of maximum and the velocity would reduce proportionally, so we tried that... The result was beautiful little clover-leaf groups at 50 yards, and a rifle that shot more or less like a Trapdoor Springfield depending on how "reduced" the load was.

Given that they're both straight-wall cartridges, you might try 4895 for your heavy-bullet loads in .444. I can't speak from direct experience on that caliber, but I would think it would be worth the experiment.

-AaronB