Seating a bullet more shallowly in a Spl case.

Try going the other way?

Not sure if this would help, but if you loaded your 44 magnum cases to (heavy) 44 special recipes and overall length, all your ammunition would be loaded to the same performance parameters (except for the amount of neck tension, but the variance would be on the "too much" side, not the "not enough" side). And it would not matter to your accuracy which brass you had in the mix.

Just a thought.

Lost Sheep
 
David R.

Snark warning (the snark is made playfully, though) Should have fired those three rounds from a Ruger (Special or Magnum).

Seriously, now. Your Charter Arms' experience screams loudly that any ammunition that is too hot or unknown should be disassembled at the first opportunity. And carefully labelled in between. A lesson, while off-topic, is worthy of mention.

That Charter Arms replaced your gun speaks very kindly of their customer service.

Thanks for sharing the picture (post 2) and the backstory. It is a valuable caution.

"The wise man learns from his mistakes. The TRULY wise man learns from the mistakes of others." One reason I read these forums.

Lost Sheep
 
I load specials in special cases. I understand your situation.
Do as you wish.
Click to expand...

David R. I do not assume the OP is the only person reading the information posted. There is a remote possibility others read this material and never get involved with a response. Point; one of my favorite old actors was Wallis Berry; Wallis Berry had a way of explaining the simplicity of every problem. It seems he solved every problem with an answer that sounded like; “Well there little buddy don’t worry about it, everything is going to be OK”. In the movies that approach works.

I do not shoot competition, but if I did I would go through 1,000 cases for the sole purpose of matching cases by volume, weight and head stamp. I can not imagine someone grabbing a hand bull of cases of different lengths, weight and volume. But there is that possibility; you bet, no problem and right away works.

I load specials in special cases. I understand your situation.
Do as you wish.
I agree, I do have a problem with my 44 Special cases, they are once fired in the box they came in with S&W head stamps.
 
Well, not having shot much .44Spl prior to starting IPSC revolver comps this month it seemed I'd cleaned and primed about 80 cases.

So this now brings me to about 200 cases to play with which is plenty for a Level 2 match.

In other words I don't need to contemplate some .44Mag substitute.

I will be loading Mags with the same bullets and powder at some stage but that's another story.

BTW: beautiful Smith, DavidR...
 
I believe it is a bad habit to shoot 44 Special cases in a 44 mag chamber.
Click to expand...

What???
What is bad about it? I have been doing it for over 30 years and so far it hasn't caused a problem and that's 95% lead.
 
What???
What is bad about it? I have been doing it for over 30 years and so far it hasn't caused a problem and that's 95% lead.
Click to expand...

Ozzlman it is OK, you are a moral free agent with a philosophy. A philosophy is nothing more than what you think. I believe it is a bad habit. I had old 22 rifles that had been used with 22 shorts, longs and long rifle ammo. It got to the point is was difficult to eject long rifle cases because too many 22 shorts had been fired it the rifle. Then there are wildcat chambers. When forming cases for wildcats I have had many of the cases shorten .045” from forming to firing.

I choose to cover the chamber with the case. I have one wildcat chamber that has a case neck length of .217”. There are reloaders that believe the 300 Winchester Magnums neck is short because it is .270” +/- a few long. T solve the problem by find long cases for forming, long cases increase my need for all the bullet hold I can get and the long case covers the chamber.

Again, it is your choice, I choose not to because I believe it is a bad habit. It is never my intentions to drive someone to the curb or simply lock them up.

F. Guffey
 
Ozzieman, I said it was OK, you can shoot long cases, you can use short cases, and it was not my intention to drive you to the curb. It was not my intension to provoke you; again, if you want to use short, medium or long length cases it is OK with me. I believe it is a bad habit.

Like Dave said:

I load specials in special cases. I understand your situation.
Do as you wish.

David
Click to expand...

F. Guffey
 
James:

Agreed on the Guffey remarks.

I think he has a lot to offer but has no skills in presenting it in a readable fashion.

Bart B and Unclick seem to be able to see through the obscurity, the rest of us scratch their heads
 
You did not drive me to a "wall" or provoke me, but when your opinion differs with most of the world you should not try word it as fact. You are entitled to your opinion but an opinion is all it is.
Since people have been shooing 9mm, 38's, 357's in the same gun with two different cylinders (one for 9) and 45 acp in 45 colt and 44 specials in 44 magnums for well over 50 years and I have never heard of an issue that caused an injury your opinion is simply wrong.
But that is my opinion which is worth as much and no less than yours.
I am sorry I drove you to the point that you felt you needed to make negative comments about me to get your point across.
Its ok, that doesn't effect me in any way, but I feel it's a bad habit. :)
 
Pond, I would love to send you a bag of .44 Mag brass because you are good people and I can spare the brass. I do fear it would end up being an international incident and I'm sure neither of us care to be on the evening news.

FWIW, I think your idea is sound. I have never done it with .44 Special but I do it often with full-spec, thunder & glory 158gr .357 Magnum in .38 Special brass. I have four boxes on hand right now, I do it specifically to feed my Coonan which throws/loses brass. Not only does it work 100% of the time... but it has only one chamber and not six and I also shoot .38-level .38 Special through it (thousands) and my chamber (one, not six!) still happily digests .357 Mag brass also.

My .357 Mag loads in .38 Special brass? Fat black sharpie line sold boldly emblazoned on the case head that you'd have to be blind to miss it. Helen Keller could FEEL the stripe of black ink.

In closing, ammo does not ever "find it's way" in to firearms, even cheap modern ones. That first picture in this thread was nobody's accident, it was true negligence. Charter should sue to remove the image from existence.
 
Pond, I would love to send you a bag of .44 Mag brass because you are good people and I can spare the brass. I do fear it would end up being an international incident and I'm sure neither of us care to be on the evening news.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the thought but I can see it now - "NEWS-FLASH: 3 weeks after the Estonian Mag-gate incident, NATO disbands"
:D
 
Were I in your situation I would have no issues working around it.

The 44 was a concept long before it was reality using 44 Spl cases and those were a WHOLE lot different than the ones used now. Not only that but they were being pushed far beyond what your contemplating.

Now if you were asking about putting together some nuclear type loads like what one might purchase from one of the custom manufacturers then I would toss out a complete and total H#$% NO you don't do that.

However your looking to produce mid to lower level ammunition, to be used in a modern manufactured revolver, and you do not have nor know of anyone else withing your given area who could use the remaining loaded 44 SPL rounds in their firearm. That being the case, I would go for it, but I would also plainly mark the cases so that they are very easily distinguished from anything loaded in the magnum case.

Like the other fellow, I would happily send you fresh new Starline cases if I thought there was a remote chance of them getting there and either of us not getting into an issue over it.

Good luck and proceed with caution. :D
 
I have sent cases and reloading equipment to shooters and reloaders in other countries with the understanding they had to ask if it was OK. Then there is that part about asking when we ship. I have been turned down once because the postal service said the items being shipped were on a list of stuff that could not be shipped.

Then there is the price of shipping.

F. Guffey
 
Holy Cow at the discourse over this....

I've thought about doing this with 357/38. The conclusion I came to was that I can get hold of 357 brass easy enough and there is no need. Besides... shooting a six-gun helps save all of my brass and I load mid-level rounds so I can get 8 or 10 firings from one case before I start to have issues (I've started culling at 8 and I keep up with lots after I noticed carbon on the base around the primer pocket in a couple of rounds). So... I've contemplated it because I had a ton of .38 brass but I've since realized that once-fired 357 is cheap enough and easy to come by.

44 mag/spl is another animal. If I had a hard enough time finding brass for 44 mag, but had a ton of 44 spl, I would probably do exactly what you're talking about. I would not approach 44mag max loads, but would feel safe with mid-loads so long as they were marked and no one could accidentally load them in a 44spl.
 
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