Does anyone here shoot the .44 2 5/8 (.44-90 SBN)?

[JonnyV]

Good info. Starline has 50-110 available for back order. Given this, if a guy was to go with one of these two, which one? Does the 44-100 S offer any advantage over the 44-90?

I do agree that any “advantage” may be slight or even negligible, but I’m doing all this for fun. Having something a little bit different than the next guy IS an advantage all on it’s own.

[Don McDowell]

With the availability of suitable brass the 44-90 bn will probably drift off into obscurity again. I have formed 44-77 from 45-90 trimmed to 2.3 and fireformed, but there is a slight bulge at the case web, and the 44 extractor is a bit large but it does work.You just treat it like a true bottleneck case and headspace it on the shoulder.
The 44 2.4 st is a good cartridge and when paired with a 1-17 twist barrel does make it possible to go with the longer bullets , but I've found that bullets at 1.35 length work well. 1.5 powder works the best consistently, but at times 1f does show promise. Cases are as easy as running 45-90 cases into a 44 die and go.
44 moulds are easily had from BACO, Brooks, Accurate moulds and probably others that do the custom mould thing.

[desert deuce]

With the thought in mind of an old saying, "those that are ignorant of history are likely to repeat it."

Soooo? What is the history of the .44 calibers? And the .44-90 Sharps Bottle Neck is/was one of the earlier ones. Given the genre and period from which it sprung it was obviously sufficient for Bison, Grizzly Bear and the like. It did make a brief debut in the long range target shooting of the mid 1870's. Once applied to target shooting it was soon eclipsed as though discarded. Ignoring the 44 Maynard and 44-75 Ballard (for which commercial ammo was not available) the long range .44 shooters of the era took the .44-77 to the range which, btw, also saw duty on the frontier.

Yes, I have chosen to skip some inconsequential details that fall under trivial in comparison to the overall message.

"Long Range" target shooters of the period, being not much different that those of today, were looking for that better mouse trap that would give them an edge in competition. Wah Lah, Remington Arms, bless their little hearts, campaigned that new and improved 44 2.6 or by another name the 44-100 R.S or Remington Straight. What a fine accurate cartridge that turned out to be, and still is for that matter. For whatever reason Remington followed that up with the final iteration of a .44 caliber long range target round in the 44-90 R.S. Remington Straight and oh my what an accurate round and burns less powder and provides less recoil in a 10 pound rifle. Unfortunately, it came in to full recognition toward then end of the black powder era.

Sizing down the 45-90 case produces the 44-90 R.S. case.
Sizing down the 45-100 case produces the 44-100 R.S. case.

AND, what appears to be a modern adaptation to a Ballard caliber that was not offered in a commercial loading was sizing the 45-70 case down to a type of 44-75 substitute as a 44-70 (straight) so the two don't get confused.

Any of these three have proven quite accurate and can be easily adapted to long range target shooting.

If you just have to have a 44-90 SBN a good idea would be to acquire however many pieces of brass you will need before the rifle is ordered as for scarcity it is right up there with hen's teeth.

[JonnyV]

So...some intriguing options...44-100 RS sounds the easiest to pull off, and I have a lot of 45-2.6 brass just sitting here....

At this point, going forward with a 45-2.6 build just seems like a near duplication of what I already have in the 45-90. Based on the ladder tests I've already run, I feel like any 45-2.6 load I came up with would likely just be a duplicate of my 45-2.4 loads. I'd just be using more wads to take up the space, or, I'd be loading more powder leading to heavier recoil, for seemingly not much purpose.

Some things to think on....

[desert deuce]

I believe the 2022 Quigley was won by a 44-90 RS from a 17 twist Krieger barrel

[Don McDowell]

I believe that a 44-70 s chambered up in a 77 or Borchardt would make an ideal 1 gun to do it all sort of thing. Ample powder capacity to fire a bullet with good bc for long range shooting and good sd for hunting, yet not a powder hog like some of the more well known cartridges.

[bobw]

Don do you think there would be a discernable differance between what you described and a 45-70 shooting ppb's? Bobw

[Don McDowell]

The windage and elevation differcrs between my 45/90’s and 44-90’s is quite discernible I would think the same would hold this the 2.1 cases

[bohemianway]

I wish I could recall the paper but in the 1980's in college when I started getting interested in this stuff I had access to some military stuff. The paper was a study in the 1880's that concluded the optimum caliber for long range was .43 which there are extremely few. I have a .43 X 2.6" Wesson which shows up nowhere in cataloged cartridges but the gun exists chambered as such. Are there any other .43's?

Charles

[semtav]

Both Dave Cook and I have .429s
Mine a 2.4, his a 2.6.
But the true 43 is bigger isn't it?

[Kurt]

Yes I have three rifles chambered for the .44-90 BN/2-5/8 as well as the .44-77, .44-75 Ballard and two chambered for the .44-2.6 Rem st. I favor the .44's over the .45's and I also have too many .45's . The .44-90 bn has held me high at the long range shoots and at the Quickly but I sort of quit shooting it because of retina damage at the 2017 shoot and again this Q with serious retina damage shooting the .45-2.6 that I lost my center night vision in both eyes. Now the two .38's will get used maybe.
The .44-90 bn is a great caliber for target and also it will knock a Bison down in a hurry. But like mentioned getting brass for this caliber is tough is tough to find. I friend is having a .44-90 bn build and I gave him 100 cases so he can use it.
But I will say this, the shorter .44's like the .44-75 Ballard will do just as well as the larger BN cases.
My .44's have twist rates 1/16, 1/17 and 1/19 ROT and all twists work very well.
In the past I shot the .43 Spanish and I have a rifle chambered in the .444 Marlin caliber. The .444 is actually a .43.

Kurt

[JonnyV]

The 44-2.6 is starting to sound like a very interesting option. I already have the brass on hand too which makes this even easier. Sounds really obscure to boot! It's like my Drill Instructor said..."I just wanna be different" LOL....at least I'm willing to do all the pushups that are gonna come my way!

Was thinking on going 40-65 with my existing Shiloh (from 45-70), and using that as a dedicated silhouette gun. I'm thinking that a 40, a 45, and a 44 would give me plenty of options for just about any sort of shooting I might encounter, although there will always be a good reason to buy another rifle, I'd like to have most bases covered before heading into the overkill phase...

[Tomklinger]

Gentlemen,
I’ve been shooting .44 Ballard, .44 2.6 REM. and .44/90 Sharps SBN. originals for many years, if you build one, be careful when you get them chambered because the originals had .080 rim thickness…..
Tom