Marlin 1894 44 Mag Accuracy Test
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Marlin 1894 44 Mag Accuracy Test
Been playing around with the Lyman Devastator GCHP bullet. Checked and lubed they are right around 265 grains. So I used new brass, weighed them into an identical group and checked for length, and weighed a few bullets to get identical weights. 22 grains of H110 I had chronographed before put them around 1630 fps. Shot these at 50 yards off a rolled up sleeping bag on a bench. The top hole was to foul the bore and wasn't loaded with as much care. The group of 3 is just a hair more than 1/2 inch. I usually use Hornady 240 gr XTP for deer hunting, but I doubt I will buy more. I didn't expect this kind of accuracy. Will need more testing at 100+ yards.
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Re: Marlin 1894 44 Mag Accuracy Test
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Isn’t that a great feeling, when you find out that a gun is so accurate that you can have complete confidence in it…!!!
You know that if you do your part, the bullet will arrive where it is supposed to reliably.
Going back about 10 years ago my then-college-age son was about to sell the 44 Mag Marlin 1894 that I had given him as a reward for harvesting a Whitetail for Thanksgiving dinner when he was 13 years old.
He had become interested in bolt action rifles and decided that they were so much more accurate than leverguns were just not gonna do it for whitetail anymore. I’m not sure why he thought that since he had never had to take a second shot and had harvested at least two deer every year since that first one when he was 13 years old. He had started hunting out west a bit by then though and that’s an entirely different situation ballistically.
So we decided to ‘pattern’ his (my old) Marlin against the stainless steel version that I had replaced mine with when I gave it to him. Theoretically, we would sell whichever one was the least accurate (at least that’s what I told him, the idea of actually selling a firearm seemed blasphemous to me
). Anyway, what we found was that his 1970s production Marlin 1894 shot pretty much anything from 180 grain to 265 grain bullets really well, and at 50 yards missing a ping-pong ball would be the shooter’s fault every time, not the gun.
My stainless steel one was not quite as accurate, but was pretty close, and plenty good for deer hunting.
One of my projects is to work up a load for the 30-30 Marlin XLR. I have to see if I can get something that would out shoot most bolt action guns; it should be possible…
Isn’t that a great feeling, when you find out that a gun is so accurate that you can have complete confidence in it…!!!
You know that if you do your part, the bullet will arrive where it is supposed to reliably.
Going back about 10 years ago my then-college-age son was about to sell the 44 Mag Marlin 1894 that I had given him as a reward for harvesting a Whitetail for Thanksgiving dinner when he was 13 years old.
He had become interested in bolt action rifles and decided that they were so much more accurate than leverguns were just not gonna do it for whitetail anymore. I’m not sure why he thought that since he had never had to take a second shot and had harvested at least two deer every year since that first one when he was 13 years old. He had started hunting out west a bit by then though and that’s an entirely different situation ballistically.
So we decided to ‘pattern’ his (my old) Marlin against the stainless steel version that I had replaced mine with when I gave it to him. Theoretically, we would sell whichever one was the least accurate (at least that’s what I told him, the idea of actually selling a firearm seemed blasphemous to me
). Anyway, what we found was that his 1970s production Marlin 1894 shot pretty much anything from 180 grain to 265 grain bullets really well, and at 50 yards missing a ping-pong ball would be the shooter’s fault every time, not the gun.My stainless steel one was not quite as accurate, but was pretty close, and plenty good for deer hunting.
One of my projects is to work up a load for the 30-30 Marlin XLR. I have to see if I can get something that would out shoot most bolt action guns; it should be possible…
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