44 Caliber

I have a 445Sm barrel I believe 1-20 twist anyone heard of converting one to shoot smokeless with bare bullets? Thanks Lou

Need a full form die but it can be done

I would have looked into doing this with the 444 Handi that I had, but Indiana will not allow muzzleloaders smaller than .45 caliber for deer.

The downside would have been a lack of bullets that would reliably hold together at velocities that could be pushed with a smokeless muzzleloader.

I dont really think speed would be that big of a problem using "break action speeds". The smaller 1" OD is going to limit you some. Bullets designed for 444 Marlin should perform pretty similar but selection is far less than .45.

to me it sort of is a shame, your barrel your choice and I even thought about doing it once when my barrel was a 44, but I really like my 445. Mild recoil and a 240 bullet going down range at 2125. Easy as all get out o reload for, the only draw back is no factory loading but heck there isn't one for a muzzle loader either.

GM54-120 said:

I dont really think speed would be that big of a problem using "break action speeds". The smaller 1" OD is going to limit you some. Bullets designed for 444 Marlin should perform pretty similar but selection is far less than .45.

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I was just thinking of the plethora of .44 Mag bullets that would come apart at .444 Marlin velocities vs the limited # of bullets that I know of that are recommended/designed for the Marlin. What, copper bullets and two offerings from Hornady? That was all I could think of anyway. Really sounds like we were going down the same avenue thinking only .444 Marlin bullets.

Definitely doable. Like I said, I would have done it with the .444 Handi except for Indiana's muzzleloader caliber restrictions.

Speer has one also. If you move upto a 300gr bullet you wont safely get them moving a whole lot faster than a 444 can manage in a break action. Just to keep that in perspective....Guys have been shooting 45cal 300gr XTPs for ages in the MLIIs at 2300fps. They will knock the snot out of a deer. Even at safe pressure i dont think most of us would enjoy going much faster in a Encore or Scout type platform. Recoil becomes very annoying.

What ive always wanted is a 405Win conversion with the sole intend to shoot the 300gr at roughly the same speed. Thats pretty tame by todays SML standards but im sure it would flat out destroy anything with hooves.

I like the 444 marlin I have used it a lot. The best bullet I have found is the Hornady 265gr flat point. That bullet is bad medicine on whitetails. It’s good for speeds up to 2500FPS atleast. I would say it will handle a little more than that but I haven’t ever tried.