Are the .44-77 BN and the .44-90 BN viable contenders in modern Creedmoor

[Distant Thunder]

There were actually a fair number of American .44 caliber cartridges including straight ones like the .44-70 Maynard, .44-75 Ballard, .44-85 Wesson, .44-90 Remington, .44-100 Wesson (3 3/8" case!), .44-100 Remington and .44-100 Ballard (from COW).

The big straight cases are impressive in their length, but it's the bottlenecked case that are the sexy ones! Just saying! Those were the .44-60 Peabody, .44-60 Winchester, .44-60 Sharps, .44-77 Sharps & Remington (my favorite ) and the big boys, the .44-90 Sharps and the .44-90 Remington Special (not exactly the same case). Also the .44-95 Peabody. All of them look pretty cool with a paper patch bullet hanging out the front.

[beltfed]

I thought that the old long range match Peabody cartridge names were Neat:
45-95 Peabody "What Cheer"
and of course 40s-they had a couple of them
40-70 and 40-90 Peabody "What Cheer"
Named after the old rifle ranges of that era
Arnie

[Distant Thunder]

I really like the looks of the .44-60 Winchester. It looks like it would make a fine mid-range and silhouette cartridge. It would also work well for deer size critters.

It was apparently dimensionally the same cartridge as the .44-60 Peabody and may have been chambered in rolling blocks.

[beltfed]

Yup, Jim,
SO many neat cartridges, so little time and money.........
Arnie

[Nuclearcricket]

Jim, I am with you in the feeling the 44-60 is a nice looking round and should be a good all around mid-range round. Dave H. owner of Lone Star Rifle thought well of it as well. I have seen one of his rollers chambered is this round. I have tried to do some research on line on the cartridge but have not been able to really learn much about it. One up side to this round is that it is easily made from 45-70 cases. Neck it down, trim, fire and trim to length and your done. If you like it well enough you can easily have it chambered in a lever action as well. Its short enough to work in a 76 Winchester, as well as marlin and Winchester copy's.
Baco offers reformed brass. I had gotten one case from them and it was a reformed 348 case, it will hold a bot over 40 g of powder. Reformed Rem or Starline brass ups the capacity to around 50 plus grains. Am thinking the reformed BACO brass would make for dandy chicken load and the thinner brass better suited for the longer ranges. Also there is getting to be better selections of bullets available as time goes on in the GG catagory as well as PP bullets.
Sam

[Distant Thunder]

Sam,

I happen to have an 18-twist take-off .44 caliber barrel and a roller action, neither is doing anything a the moment. That would make a sweet shooting little rifle!

According to my book on cartridge conversion the base diameter in the originals was the same as the .44-77, .517-ish. However, if you're building a new rifle you could absolutely go with .45-70 brass as the base and have very little taper to the shoulder. Case is 1.900" so it would work fine. With a bore diameter PPB you would be able to load a bit more powder.

I think you could still use a .43 Mauser die for initial sizing and once fireformed you'd be good. I'm not sure if you'd have to shorten the die but no big deal either way.

I was thinking about the .44 Maynard for my roller, but it's just another straight case. The .44-60 BN would be way cooler! You got me thinking that's for sure.

I would make a cool levergun cartridge! And very effective as a hunting round.

[Don McDowell]

I'm of the mind that something in the 44-70 st might just be a must have rifle, but I don't need anymore rifles, I don't need anymore rifles, I don't nee.....

[Kurt]

Jim,

I have a set of .44-75 Ballard dies, chamber and for the sizing die.
It is a .45 basic 2-5/8 long. It's a good caliber not far off a .45-70.

You can use the reamers if you want.

[Nuclearcricket]

My plan is to put the 44-60 on a Hepburn I am working on building. I have a 17 twist GM barrel, also have a roller action in the safe waiting its turn. I had talked to the buy at CH dies a while back and he had told me to just fire form necked down 45 cases and I would be good. I am a skeptic so I had to play around and find out for my self. Well not having a 60 chamber I did the next best thing. I necked down a 70 case to where it would just fit in my 77 chamber, loaded it with a GG bullet and set it off. Nicely formed case, short neck of coarse but no issues other than that. Only problem I ran into was when I went to push the shoulder the rest of the way down, the taper didn't match and I ended up running the case into a 40-65 die to take a bit of the taper out of it. If the neck is a nice fit int he chamber your cases sound come out nicely centered. Once fire formed, just neck sizing should be all you need to do. If you feel you need t do more, spend the money and wait 2 years or so for CH to make you a set of dies.
If you have more than one gun in that caliber, either keep cases separate or run them back into a 45-70 die to reduce the body diameter.
One other thing I would like to mention is if you are thinking of the 44-70 Maynard, be advised that there are 2 different reamers out there for that. One is 2.1 and the other is 2.2 in length.
Just keep your 40-65 rounds away from your 44-70. They will fit and fire just fine. Then you get to spend the next 2 weeks mining lead.
Sam

[Kurt]

Sam,

CH right now is so backlogged that it will take a couple years to get a die. I wanted a .38-50 sizing die and I was told that it would be 2 years or more to get it.
Just as well, I shot 500 corn meal blanks and they came out perfect and load perfect in the chamber.