Reloader's Press

Recently a package came in the mail from some friends over at Taylor’s & Company. I had been inquiring about getting a Winchester 1873 levergun from them chambered in 44-40 Winchester. It had finally arrived and as usual, the rifle was inspected and the mandatory checks were made on the smoothness of the lever, the crispness of the trigger, and so on and so forth. The excitement that filled the room from this delivery was almost contagious and it wasn’t before long that half the office wandered in to take a gander at what all the fuss was about.

In order to fully understand why I was so excited about this, we must go back in time to when my pickup truck was brand new (to me) and I was still making a living riding and working horses. My passion for firearms was also thriving, and at that time, a good saddle gun or truck gun was needed. Something I could carry around without it being too cumbersome, but accurate enough to wack a coyote that crept too close. There was a perfect candidate for the job in my father’s safe, a Winchester 1892 Deluxe Octagon Takedown chambered in 44-40 Winchester. At 16, I admit I could get a little unruly, and in this instance, I thought it better to ask forgiveness than permission. For the next decade or so, that rifle was as constant a companion as my truck or my horse. Wherever I went, you could bet it was with me. In the rural town I grew up in, this was not all that uncommon and it’s nice to know that even in today’s era, this can still be found in parts of the country.

I have many fond memories of that rifle, from taking my first coyote while on horseback,  to adventures in the wilderness and on pack trips. It was accurate enough from 150 to 200 yards with practice and most importantly, it was reliable and there when it was needed. My biggest complaint with it was the tang-mounted safety, which prevented the mounting of a peep sight. However, this detail was forgiven in time and I eventually became accustomed to the factory sights. Countless rounds have been run through that rifle and it now carries the wear of a well-loved but well-used rifle.

I finally had a rifle that was my own and could replace the Winchester as it was returned it to its rightful owner. I wanted a rifle in 44-40 Winchester mostly for nostalgic reasons, but I also already had all the dies, brass, powder and bullets as well as plenty of handloads for the Winchester 1892. It would make the transition simple and seamless, or at least that was the train of thought at the time.

With the new rifle in hand and a grin from ear to ear, I shot a handful of loads on paper at about 75 yards. After about 20 rounds were fired from a solid rest, the target was inspected and the grin soon disappeared. The groups were not horrible but certainly not what I expected, averaging out to 2.5 to 3.5 inches. This event led me down a winding path in which I learned a lot about the 44-40 Winchester and handloading for it.

I started out by seeking our own Brian Pearce’s advice on the subject. He pointed me in the right direction by suggesting some bullets to try as well as slugging the barrel. Over the years the 44-40 Winchester and it’s bore and groove diameters have been a little all over the place. While generally speaking, this is more important for revolvers, but it is still a factor for rifles as well. Most barrels will slug out between .427 inch and .430 inch. I decided to check both of my rifles, the Winchester 1892 slugged out to .428 inch and the new 1873 from Taylor’s & Company slugged out to .429 inch, which is exactly what you would expect from a 44 Magnum or 44 Special! This should have been done previously with the Winchester 1892, as I was shooting bullets with a diameter of .427 inch. Luckily, I had plenty of 44 Special bullets on hand, allowing me to experiment with a wider variety of jacketed bullets. Finding .427-diameter bullets can be rather challenging these days. Perhaps slugging out to .429 inch isn’t a bad thing after all. Further conversation with Brian led me to working up separate loads for this rifle and thanks to his suggestions, I knew exactly which bullets to start with.

I warmed up my Lyman Mag 25 Digital Melting Furnace and mixed up a good 1:20 alloy and thoroughly fluxed out any impurities. A plethora of bullets from RCBS mould 44-200-CM were cast. With this alloy and particular mould they were dropping at .4295 inch in diameter. I also cast a few bullets from Lyman Mould 427666. However, they were dropping from the mould at .4280 inch in diameter with this particular alloy. Those will be saved for the Winchester 1892 and used as payment for loaning the rifle out for all those years. I went ahead and sized and lubed the bullets using an RCBS Lube-A-Matic-2 and a .430 lube sizing die to ensure little to no material would be removed. The bullet lube of choice was RCBS Pistol and Low Velocity Rifle Bullet Lubricant. Now, it was time to start handloading.

I selected new, unfired Starline cases for this project as most of my other cases had multiple firings on them in the chamber of the Winchester levergun and I wanted to start fresh. I full-length sized all of the cases using Redding dies and then expanded the necks to seat the .429-inch diameter bullets. However, this is where the first problem was encountered. The expander on the Redding 44-40 Winchester die set could not flare the case enough to seat bullets without shaving lead from the bullet or collapsing the case. Thankfully, I had a Redding 44 Special die set with an expander, which worked perfectly since the bullet diameter was the same as the 44 Special. However, if you do not have a 44 Special die set, Lee Precision makes a Universal Case Expanding Die. A handy tool to have especially if you shoot cast bullets in rifle cartridges.

A light chamfer and deburr was applied to every case, and all cases were then primed using an RCBS Automatic Priming Tool. This bench-mounted priming tool made short work of the 400 cases I had set aside for testing. The next step was weighing out powder charges, for this task an RCBS MatchMaster powder dispenser was used to weigh and dispense all charges. Bullets were seated and then crimped in a separate step using a Redding seating die from the 44-40 Winchester die set. A heavy roll crimp was applied to every case. Since I was using a lever action with a tubular magazine in particular, an 1873, I wanted to ensure there would be no issues with bullet setback as clearing these types of malfunctions in a ’73 can be challenging.

Now it was time to test the rifle and see what it could do with loads specifically worked up for that rifle with bullets of proper diameter. As you can see from the results in the table, overall performance was good and in the 25 different loads that I tested, there were quite a few loads that were not only accurate but also had low standard deviation (SD) and extreme velocity spreads (ES).

I have since put about 450 rounds through this rifle and it has proven reliable, fast handling and accurate. It makes for a wonderful companion on horseback, on the tractor or in the truck. I am looking forward to spending more time with it as well as experimenting with heavier bullets, as the initial results from the 240-grain, powder-coated bullets look promising. The fact that these bullets are powder-coated eliminates the worry of lube contaminating your powder and causing ignition issues. This can be an issue when using longer bullets in the 44-40 Winchester.

As a whole, this cartridge can be tricky to handload and it seems like every rifle chambered in 44-40 Winchester is unique, but perhaps that is also what makes it so much fun. I have heard reports of chamber variations as well, with some rifles and handguns not able to feed larger-diameter jacketed bullets intended for the 44 Special. However, this rifle fed and functioned well with them and accuracy was fine with a good load. All in all, the overall performance of this rifle was good. After zeroing the rifle to my load, there was no problem hitting steel out to 200 yards and achieving good groups on paper at 75 yards. Plus, it is a whole lot of fun to shoot a classic levergun.