Does anyone have experience with this round?

I have a 12" .44 Mag Contender barrel that I have been thinking about getting rechambered to a .445 Super Mag. The section on the .445 in the book "Hunting For Handgunners" warns to keep pressures around .44 mag levels. I can't see any reason to rechamber if thats the case. It sounds like they were still doing load development at the time the book was written though.

I know the Contender can be chambered for 444 Marlin using large charges of slightly slower burning powders. I only have limited .445 data and none of it lists what the pressure levels are. Do you feel the gain of around 200-300 fps over .44 levels is worth a rechamber? Is the .445 pushing the Contender to its limits?

My experience with the .445 Supermag has been in revolvers, not Contenders. I did get started with the round back in the day when we were making brass from 303 British cases. As with most, if not all other cartridges originating from a shorter parent cartridge; the .445 was intended to push "regular" weight bullets a bit faster and heavier weight bullets as fast as the parent cartridge drove the regular weights without an increase in pressure. Back prior to changing the feet on rams, a .44 may not knock one over.

The Sierra manual had a good listing of powders for the .445 in Contender at one point. I can get you a copy if it is no longer available. It's a nice round and whether or not to rechamber is going to come down to personal preference. If the largest game you are going after is elk on down, it probably won't make much difference in performance. A good hard cast bullet around 300 grains will give you plenty of penetration without firewalling the firearm.

I have an older Dan Wesson revolver and these days I run mostly 250 jacketed silhouette bullets through it ahead of 34.0 grains of 1680. This gives me around 1400 fps with lower pressures than a .44 Mag would generate to acheive the same velocity.

Hope this helps.

I love the 445 supermag Dan Wesson. I have been reloading for this cartridge for a few years now. If you plan on the 445 supermag in a contender then its ever more of a good thing. you will have no loss from cylinder gap so you will get the full dose of the 445 supermag. You should be able to beat the 44 mag by a considerable margin of around 300 fps with most any load. Note this is from other shooters who ( like you ) have this in the contender. This really is a gun for most anything you want to hunt.

I wish you luck and good shooting.

Brian

Pab,

I think I understand your question. I have owned and shoot a 445 SM for the past 3-4 years. Mine is a Super 14 factory Contender barrel.

While I can't say what the pressures are, I can provide you with my data, reloading data sources and my experience. I bought it with elk at timber distances in mind, so my data reflects that interest. I have used 296 and 680 (yep, still have some) with Sierra 250s, Nosler 250s (Partitions), Sierra 300s and Cast Preformance 300 WFNGCs. The 250s get up to 1900+ fps. The 300s (Lead) are at 1750 fps (the load I favor) and the SPs get to 1675 fps. All of the above are easily achieved with published data. Pressures appear normal with easy extraction.

Data: Sierra's newest still lists the 445 data as does Hornady (email me if you don't have access to these, I'll forward what I can). Hodgdon's reloading magazine also has published data. All of this data is developed for the Dan Wesson so velocity is higher with a TC.

Overall, I like the round. I'd really like to shoot a big bull with it. I think the above data shows it to be very close to a 45-70. IMHO, if smaller game is your target, there's no sense in the 445. I say that because I just can't believe a 44 Mag won't kill deer/bear as dead. Further, 445 SM recoil is fierce, twice (?) as much as my 375 JDJ but I admit to being a recoil whinney.

Some say you can shoot 44 spl and mags in it as well. I have never done this.

Hope this helps

DanS

I have a Dan Wesson 445 super mag. It really likes the 300gr pills. Very accurate with AA 1680. I have not got the chrony around to this load.

I also have an encore barrel in 445. With starline brass, pistol primers, 31.5gr of H 110 and the 240gr Rem SJHP bullet I'm getting 2,000 fps, that's a grain under max in the Sierra manual. I shot about 10 rounds into a melting snow bank, wet packed snow is very dense. After the snow melted I recovered about 7 bullets. I was impressed at the bullet performance. I figured at that veloctity they would have shattered into pieces. Most mushroomed perfect. I did find a few with jacket core seperation.

Thanks for the information. It sounds like I will be happy with a .445 rechamber. The fact that TC offers this round from the custom shop eases my concerns about excessive pressures.

I feel limited with the .45-70's jacketed bullet selection jumping from 300 gr JHP to 400 gr JSP (I am told the 350 gr bullets will not expand at Contender velocities). I think the .445 will make a great round a step below .45-70 with the variety of bullets available and higher velocities than a .44 mag.

Why are you worried about a bullet from a .45-70 expanding? The bullet starts at nearly one-half inch in diameter; this is what most who use .30 calibers and similar would like to achieve.

After hearing of many people having difficult game recovery with hard cast bullets, I guess its drilled into my head that I need a jacketed bullet. When I think about using cast bullets, J.D. Jones column from the July/August '01 American Handgunner magazine always comes to mind.

He basically said that increasing the velocity of a cast bullet does little to increase its effect on game while the opposite is true with a jacketed bullet, the effect is greatly increased. He also stated that jacketed bullets cause more tissue damage, resulting in a faster death than hard cast bullets.

I have no problem with hard cast bullets and I love to shoot them. From my own experience, I have only shot one animal with a bullet that did not expand and while I did recover the animal, I feel I would have been better off with an expanding bullet.

This was a 60 yard shot on a large bodied 300 class 6X6 bull elk. I shot it with a 50 caliber muzzleloader and a 444 grain flat point Powerbelt bullet at around 1350 fps. This is close to the loads I shoot in a .45-70. The shot entered just behind the right shoulder and exited through the left shoulder blade clipping the front of both lungs. At the shot, the bull showed no sign of being hit and took off down the mountain. I was above timberline at around 11,500 feet elevation, so I was able to watch the bull run while I dumped half my powder the ground reloading. At about 200 yards the bulls back legs buckled, and at around 250 yards, he did a semi-circle and went down.

Recovery was not an issue since I was able to see him go down. The rest of this mountain is covered in dark timber which could have made for a difficult trailing job if the shot had happened anywhere else. I thought this bullet was supposed to expand but it only made a 50 caliber hole throught the elk. Knowing now how hard that bullet is, I should have aimed for the shoulder on the right side, not behind it.

An expanding bullet may not have performed any better, but for now I plan to use them and hopefully put my next elk down a little faster. Like I said I have no problem with cast bullets. I have heard from some people who love them and have had great success on game with them. For time being I feel more confidence in an expanding bullet.

OK, now that you've pretty well made your decision can I ask you if you've really considered the .444 Marlin? Pretty much the power of the 45-70 with the bullet selection of the .44 line. Mine is s 14" barrel (Contender), & using AA1680 I'm getting just over 2100 fps with excellent accuracy with 270 Speer Gold Dots, while still 1.3 gr under the max recommended by Accurate Arms. No pressure signs.
Of course if you don't need the extra power for the critters you hunt then the .445 will be a much more economical round to load, using less powder & makes more sense.

Fair enough.

Vance, I have considered the .444 Marlin, but I think I will wait until I move up to an Encore for this one. It would be nice to use the same bullets for three rounds, the .44 Mag., .445 Super Mag. and .444 Marlin.

I have a .445 SM in a T/C Contender 15" with muzzle tamer from Fox Ridge. Fed with 300gr. XTPs, 52gr. of Accurate 1680, CCI mag pistol primers. Accuracy is impressive, recoil is "mild". . Very happy with this round!! Lots of reload data to be found at loaddata.com. You`ll like this round.

Hey 45Superman, have you chronographed that load? As I recall the last load I used was 51.7 gr of 1680 in the .444 Marlin!! That got me just over 2100 with the 270s.

CAUTION UNTIL 45Superman rechecks his data!!!!!!
the Accurate Arms manual shows a MAX LOAD OF 32 gr WITH 1680 for the 445!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that load will not even fit in the case. I have worked with AA 1680 and the 300gr Sierras. 31.5gr gave me 1240 fps out of an eight inch barreled revolver. (found my chrony data)

Sorry about the typo!!!! That was 32gr. Sorry, the old fingers don`t work like they used to!!