Heavy subsonic .44 Mag

[Cold Forged]

Hello Stalking Directors,

As always, I've been thinking about a probably unnecessary rabbit hole / money sink. The idea is Ruger 77/44 bolt rifle, barrel cut to 12.5" and threaded for a big volume mod.

The goal is quiet subsonic plinking, not hunting or chasing velocity, just a heavy slow slug going "thunk".

The part I'm not sure about is bullet weight. My Lyman manual doesn’t really go past 300gr for .44 Mag. In the US you see 400gr .44Mag ammo on sale, but I guess over here it's reloading/casting only.

So the question is: where does this stop being sensible?
Has anyone here actually tried very heavy subsonic .44 in a 1:20 barrel?
What powders are good for clean, low blast subsonic loads for this setup?

 

[billgatese30]

Any reason why it needs to be 300-400 grain for plinking? Most gallery loads will get a 240gn bullet to 950~1050fps with a pistol powder such as N320 or N340 etc. Don't see why that wouldn't work well with a mod?

 

[Cold Forged]

I'm sure 240gn would work, but I'm looking to stretch the envelope and see how heavy you can practically go.
Same reason as people shooting extreme long range - it's not strictly necessary (can you even see a deer at 1200 yards?) but it's fun.
It also helps that I have a massive supply of lead I'm trying to use up!

 

[reiver]

They will be like mortar rounds if you can get them out the barrel
Better just using 240 gr cast or 265 gr interlocks I have tried sub sonic loads in my .444 . Trail boss or Tin star works well but not available in uk . Probably best to use unique or my favourite 2400 . You do need enough powder to get the bullet moving.
I have used 240 gr lead out of my rifle with 2400 on Charlie hi at warcop on knockdown targets at 300 m I had to aim about 2-3ft above the target and wait for the impact !! They did go down but not sure where they hit ?

 

[Cold Forged]

I'm sure they will get out of the barrel poly coating is better than lube. I'm not concerned about rainbow trajectory nor time to impact - the paper targets are not going anywhere!

 

[Greenmist]

If you have a scratch to itch fine, but look a little closer to your intended rifle, accuracy isn't great and the rotary mag is poor,

 

[Cold Forged]

I know, I know... accuracy with M77 is a gamble apparently, but the magazine problem is solved however by I.Q.Munitions. But there's not many alternatives for a bolt rifle in a large caliber in the UK.

 

[enfieldspares]

I used to get just under 1000 fps with the Lyman 235 grain bullet in my Winchester 94 in .44 Magnum using one of the American "dot" powders. It was very accurate.

 

[Greenmist]

I know, I know... accuracy with M77 is a gamble apparently, but the magazine problem is solved however by I.Q.Munitions. But there's not many alternatives for a bolt rifle in a large caliber in the UK.

Does it have to be a bolt action?

 

[billgatese30]

I'm sure 240gn would work, but I'm looking to stretch the envelope and see how heavy you can practically go.
Same reason as people shooting extreme long range - it's not strictly necessary (can you even see a deer at 1200 yards?) but it's fun.
It also helps that I have a massive supply of lead I'm trying to use up!

Fair play. In that case I'm sure there's a fast pistol powder which will do the trick. Sadly the much quoted Alliant powders are cery hard to come by, but RS Vit and Ramshot often have available equivalent grades. You might need to sort the bullet first then get the data into something like GRT to calculate pressure and velocity.

 

[Cold Forged]

Here we go again...

Does it have to be a bolt action?

No, but my question was mainly about heavy bullets.

 

[JoefromKent]

Blue fieldsports (or a similar RFD) would likely be happy to import some 400 grainers for you from the states

 

[Smallholder]

I wonder if it would be worth an email to Reload Swiss? RS14 is an available bulky powder for subsonic loads and they do show data for 300gr bu!lets in different powders.

 

[coldboremiracle]

So the question is: where does this stop being sensible?
Has anyone here actually tried very heavy subsonic .44 in a 1:20 barrel?
What powders are good for clean, low blast subsonic loads for this setup?

I did something very similar to what you are thinking. I didn't use a .44, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I used a .450 Bushmaster, which shoots .451 bullets. My thinking was like yours, when keeping under the speed of sound, the only way to improve ballistics is to increase the size of the bullet. They typically top out around 250 grains in that bore size, but if you step up to .458 they go significantly higher weights. So I bought one of Lee's swaging dies for .458 to .451, and started swaging 405gr cast lead bullets (because they were cheap and plentiful). I then loaded them to just shy of the speed of sound using Trailboss powder. The result was a whisper quiet rifle that sounds more like an arrow in flight. The impact of the 405gr flat meplat hitting a deer is much louder than the shot going off. I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing with some 300-350gr .429 bullets in your .44.
I detailed the project a little deeper here if you care to read it.

 

[Cold Forged]

@coldboremiracle amazing, this is what I wanted to hear!
Not sure if swaging will be the way for me, most likely will order custom molds.

What was the twist rate of your Bushmaster?

 

[coldboremiracle]

@coldboremiracle amazing, this is what I wanted to hear!
Not sure if swaging will be the way for me, most likely will order custom molds.

What was the twist rate of your Bushmaster?

I wanna say it was pretty standard like 1:24

 

[6mmarc]

You could try using 44 special cases I do

 

[Cold Forged]

You could try using 44 special cases I do

What bullet weight in your 44SP cases?

 

[MilesW]

Has anyone here actually tried very heavy subsonic .44 in a 1:20 barrel?

To actually answer your question, yes. Including IQ Munitions when testing their own 400gr ammo.

 

[Cold Forged]

To actually answer your question, yes. Including IQ Munitions when testing their own 400gr ammo.

Awesome! Any idea what powder family they use?