By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
To say the .44/40 is a black powder cartridge is an example of repeating the obvious.
After all, the .44/40 was our very first center-fire cartridge for a repeating rifle, taking its first bows in 1873. The Winchester Model 1873 rifle was introduced with the .44/40 as its only cartridge for the first few years and that is why most of the very early Model ’73s were not marked with any caliber indication. And it was the .44/40 cartridge that helped make the Model ’73 Winchester so successful and famous in addition to the many other rifles and revolvers that chambered it.
As we approach the 150th anniversary for the introduction of this fine and historical cartridge, let’s take another look at the black powder .44/40.
Reloading the .44/40 with black powder is easy. We might agree that the hardest part of doing so is simply finding some black powder. Most shops will not sell black powder but there are still some good places to get some. I get my powder from Bear River Powder Company (bearriverpowder@allwest.net) and they’ll be glad to sell and ship black powder to you. At our club, we let each other know when we need some powder so we can buy and split up a case at a time. Yes, the first step in loading with black powder is simply getting some black powder…
My favorite brand and granulation for use in the .44/40 is GOEX’s Olde Eynsford 2F. I find that Olde Eynsford is somewhat hotter and certainly cleaner burning than the standard GOEX powder so I have no trouble in recommending it. In the .44/40 my loads use 34.0 grains of the OE 2F powder under a 205- grain bullet cast with a 25-1 lead-tin alloy.
Heavier bullets can be used but with black powder loads those heavier bullets will displace some of the powder charge. Let me simply comment that I’m too pleased with the loads I’m describing here to try loads with heavier bullets.
Those bullets are cast from an Accurate Molds #43-205C mold, with aluminum blocks (accuratemolds.com). This bullet was specifically designed to be used with black powder loads and it has a single large grease groove plus a crimp groove. I always fill the crimp groove with lube as well as the larger lube groove just to get a little more “slick’em” in the barrel. Then the mouth of the cartridge case is still crimped into the same crimp groove but we might say “on the high side” of the groove to displace as little of the lube as possible.
The lube needs to be a black powder lube as well. There are several famous types such as SPG, Big Sky Lube, and Vigilante. You can look for these by name on the internet for simply do some shopping at places like Buffalo Arms (buffaloarms.com). The lube I prefer is called BPC (Black Powder Cartridge) and it is sold by C. Sharps Arms in Big Timber, Montana (csharpsarms.com). All of the black powder lubes will work quite nicely in the .44/40.
If a standard (non-black powder) lube is used, the gun’s barrel will fill with fouling after about three shots and accuracy is lost. Following that, the shooter will have a very dirty gun which will require some serious cleaning and it won’t come clean easily. With a proper lube on the bullets, the fired gun will come clean with just a couple of patches, moistened with a black powder solvent, and cleaning is very easy. More important than that is the fact that accuracy is maintained, throughout the day of shooting.
Loading the 205 grain bullets over 34.0 grains of black powder in new (Starline) cases does require some real compression of the powder. To do that, I simply do the compression while seating the cast bullets into the cases. No real problems there. I have tried 35 grains and then things begin to get a little tight. That can cause the bullets to become disfigured, perhaps enough that the cartridge can’t be chambered in the rifle. So, I stay with the 34.0 grain loading.
Currently CCI Large Pistol Magnum primers are used with my .44/40 loads. Actually, I’ve never made a comparison between the Magnum and standard Large Pistol primers so I can’t say if they have any advantage or not. Maybe such a test should be made but for now I’ll still mention the Magnum primers mainly because those are what I am using.
Once all those ingredients are properly mixed together, some good shooting can be done.
My loads are mainly used in my rifles, particularly my .44/40 Low-wall by C. Sharps Arms and an Uberti Model ’73 copy (from Cimarron) with a 30-inch barrel. Both rifles are very accurate but the best groups are shot with the Low-wall which has better sights and a set trigger.
While shooting with the Low-wall I’ve gotten almost one-hole groups at 50 yards, shooting from a bench rest. The ’73 performs very well too and it actually gets used the most, including on the “Meat Hunt” at our Buffalo Camps where I used it at our last camp to take first place. The “Meat Hunt” is one of the shooting events at the Buffalo Camp where rifles other
than our “buffalo guns” are used in a hunting-like situation, shooting at animal shaped steel hanging silhouettes along the muzzle-loaders’ trail-walk.
The velocity (out of the 30” barrel) averages 1,300 feet per second which was the advertised velocity of the old black powder factory loads. The new solid head cases have less
capacity than the balloon head brass so the slight reduction in powder charge is more or less compensated by less volume for the powder’s gases to fill. Pressure must be about the same and performance is certainly on par.
This same .44/40 load is a real handful in a revolver and out of a 7 ½” barrel it was clocked at 960 feet-per-second. That revolver was an Uberti “Cattleman” and it is most certainly a good serviceable load. Actually, it’s a bit of a handful and personally I prefer a .44 Russian with black powder loads for my revolver shooting, that’s just a little tamer.
There are several rifles available today chambered for the .44/40. In addition to the two that I have mentioned, Winchester also offers a new Model 1873 which is made for them by
Miroku in Japan. A couple of my friends use the new Winchester rifles with excellent results.
Also, Uberti makes rifle and carbine versions of the old Henry rifle of 1860 and the first
Winchester, the Model of 1866. Those rifles were originally made for the .44 Henry rim fire cartridges but today’s copies are chambered for the .44/40. Winchester is also offering a new version of the old 1866 rifle in .44/40. In this short listing of available rifles, we can’t forget the copies of the Winchester Model 1892 which have a huge crowd of cowboy action admirers.
While I’ve talked mostly about preparing black powder loads for the .44/40, a little more should be said and that is about cleaning the empty cases after firing. I generally clean my empty brass just in water, hot water if I can get it. After brushing the inside of the cases, with a small bristle brush, the empties are set aside to dry. Then they are tumbled for a couple of hours in a Lyman “Turbo Tumbler” to get some of the “soot” off. By the way, I do prefer using
Starline’s nickel plated cases because they are easier to keep clean. After tumbling, the brass is ready to be reloaded again.
For me using black powder means more good shooting fun. I could go hunting with these black powder loads in my .44/40 but this old cartridge more than proved itself many years ago. Even so, I don’t rule hunting out of the picture and some friends of mine have used this old cartridge successfully with black powder loads on deer and antelope. The .44/40, with black powder loads, has a lot to offer and I’ll be shooting mine for many years to come.
