IN A JDJ THREAD curiousshooter ("cs") WAS RAVING ABOUT THE THEORETICAL ABILITY OF THE 444 MARLIN AS A GREAT HANDGUN ROUND. I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN HANDGUN HUNTING SINCE 1972 BUT DO NOT RECALL MUCH ABOUT THE 444 MARLIN's USE FOR HANDGUN HUNTING. BACK IN THE 70's AND 80's I AM NOT SURE THERE WERE APPROPRIATE BULLETS READILY AVAILABLE FOR ELEPHANT, CAPE BUFFALO AND OTHER LARGE AND DANGEROUS GAME. SO WHO OUT THERE HAS USED THE 444 MARLIN IN HANDGUNS, AND WHAT HAVE YOU TAKEN WITH THEM?

I considered the .444 early in my career, but JD vetoed it due to poor bullet choice lacking anything suitable for really big game.
He was a big advocate of the .45-70, so I got a 12" .45-70, put over 2000 rounds through it, stretched the frame, and was given a new one by T/C.
Remember, Ray, his first attempt of a .444 was to cut it down a little, call it a .430 JDJ, and put that in a Contender. I never heard of anyone using this or a true .444 to take any dangerous game. Diehard handgunners knew the .375 JDJ was head and shoulders above anything else in the early days of Contender hunting.

I dunno much about contenders but i do know bfr has a 444 marlin that is reputed to shoot really well. With the plethora of good bullets in that caliber now i think it could be a great choice.

I imagine the bullet selection would allow it to work very well nowadays. I believe back in the '80s the main bullet i heard about being used in the triple 4 was a Norma(?) 265 grain SP. Other .429 bullets were not suitable for the velocities of the long case. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of options now.

But, I believe JD designed the 375 for penetration. I don't own one, so I'm just relating what I've read. It seems the tough slugs designed for the H&H cartridge and expanding bullets, such as those for the 375 Win., allowed it to cover three bases very well, those being:

- Meet the minimum caliber for parts of Africa.
- Drive tough solids of high ballistic coefficient to adequate speeds for penetrating these large animals and not have the rainbow trajectory of fat handgun slugs.
- Use lighter expanding slugs at speeds which duplicate big bore brush gun capabilities for typical North American game.

Though it's not exactly my cup of tea, it's hard to argue that it was\is a cool concept. What absolutely cannot be argued against is it's long proven track record all over the world.

I don't mean to reopen a sore subject by rehashing the 375 JDJ debate, but with that said, I am curious to know how much modern bullets have leveled the field between the JDJ Wildcats and standard rounds. I imagine the .444 offers great penetration and handgun bullets of good design, like the XTPs\Partitions\etc., offer toughness and expansion. I don't hear too much about the .444 anymore, so I'd like to know if anyone is really hunting with it anymore. One thing which won't change is the ballistic characteristics of .429 slugs. That will limit it's long range use. Even Leverevolution type slugs cannot off the advantages of long pointed bullets.

JDK,

You are pretty much right on, IMO.

JD's initial bullet recommendations back then for his .375 JDJ were the 270 grain Hornady Spire Point for large game and the 220 grain Speer flat point for deer sized game. As you said there are other bullet choices today.

For large game, I have killed four bull elk and one cow elk with mine, all with the 270 Hornady. All were one shot kills, but all were not pass-throughs. I recovered one bullet from a chest-shot bull; the lead core had separated from the jacket but it sure did the job; one shot-one kill.

Good question. IMO some but not really enough to make a difference (Contender) unless you go with the Encore platform and use high intensity rifle rounds, and even then some of JD's Encore rounds produce higher velocity (I don't care about efficiency, just performance) than the factory rounds, and certainly a lot more fun to work with. Again this is my opinion based on MY EXPERIENCE of owning and buying with my own money that which I am referring to.

A pound of powder isn?t going to last long loading that brass, lol

Like wvhitman, I've used both the .375 JDJ and .45-70 a fair amount, and never saw where the .444 would fit into my needs.

I don't have it in a handgun but I do have a Marlin 444S lever action. I have 375JDJ in both rifle and handgun as well as .45-70 in both rifle and handgun. It really doesn't make much sense to have that void between the two filled but I really like the 444 Marlin. Its just a fun round to play with. I agree with the others that bullet selection is much better for it today making it pretty versatile. I'll probably pick up a 14-15" 444 Marlin Encore barrel at some point.

I knew a guy that had an iron sight 14 inch Contender in 444 Marlin back in the 80s. I never hunted with it but it was fun to shoot silhouette with. It would spin a 200M ram around with a heavy load. The gun was a bit nasty to shoot. Shooting Creedmoore it would torque your wrist 90 degrees and the muzzle would rise about 90 degrees. We loaded JDJ 320 cast bullets in it and it was brutal. I had a 358JDJ iron sighted barrel too and it would hit just as hard with 220 flat points and had much less torque due to the smaller caliber. The 444 certainly was a sledgehammer but as the others have said there were not great hunting bullets for it. I think the necked JDJs have it beat even today.

Longer, smaller caliber bullets of like weight have a better BC - they shoot flatter and penetrate deeper - Assuming comparable bullet construction.

Rey, never owned a 444 BUT my father-in-law did so I shot it a lot. I had/have a 45-70 SSK barrel and we found through informal testing that the 45-70 beat it in every way. Now I never killed anything with the 444 but my FIL did. Quite a few deer but nothing bigger. Several bullets were used and I'm not sure which deer were killed with which one, but wound channels were always less than my 45-70. I used the Speer 400gr @ 1600fps exclusively. Recently I have bought some of the Hornady 325 flex tips but have used them on game yet. The comments,if you scrutinize them, by CS tend to make me believe he has very little real world experience.

I never wrote that 444 was a good round for the Contender let alone "rave" about it. I think 444 is overpowered and exceeds the chronic stress limit for the Contender action. Bullberry makes both 375 JDJ and 444 Marlin barrels and states it is for G2 only, so I think my suspicion here is correct. Better for an Encore if you ask me.

It is my observation that flat shooting is much more a result of muzzle velocity than it is BC at the ranges handguns are typically used.

An example is the 32-20 vs 22 Hornet. They both get the bullets with comparable BCs going pretty fast out of a Contender, and so are all essentially flat out to the 100 yard field pistol targets. But take them out to the 200 yard range and you see a big difference! The Hornet, which starts the bullet off faster, around 2400 FPS compared to 1700 FPS, will stay flat out to 150 yards or so, while there is noticeable drop with the 32-20.

zeroed at 100 yards, 1.5" sight height

22 Hornet from 10" Contender 45 grain Hornady #2230 BC .202.
100 yards 0
125 yards -.9
150 yards -2.3
175 yards -4.5
200 yards -7.3

32-20 WCF from 10" Contender 110 grain Speer #1855 BC .273
100 yards 0
125 yards -2
150 yards -5
175 yards -9.3
200 yards -14.8 (2x the drop with a better BC bullet!)

Another fun thing to do is take something like a 9mm or a 45 ACP and shoot it at 200 yards. The drop is in feet, not inches! And 230 Grain 452s and 147 grain 356s have better BCs that lightweight 224s!