Lever in 44 magnum for silhouette?

I think we need a little more info. Are you asking about the chickens, pigs, rams and turkeys used for rifle category metallic silhouette shooting?

If so then you pretty much need a Marlin 1894 so it's easier to fit a scope. Or you need the same eye doctor that they used on the Bionic Man.... :D
 
Yeah the farm animals lol.
I can see them fine (hitting them is another matter)

So, marlin 94? This is about having fun and I'm not too concerned about scoring.

I heard that there are potential issues with the marlin. Oversized bores?
 
Over-sized bores were notorious in very early Marlins, 1880's to 1930's. Anything made after that , provided it isn't shot out should be okay. The notion that all old marlins are "loose' is not a hard & fast rule neither, I have shot with a fellow that regularly cleaned our clock with an all original second year production model 1889 in 38 WCF.
Actually for lever gun sillywet, because of the less importance on "time restraints" I would recommend guns that I wouldn't for Cowboy main match rifles. My go-to gun for sillywett is a second year produced model 1892 in 32 WCF, the wife's is a Marlin 94 short rifle in .357 mag. Both guns shoot good every day...its us that have the good or bad days.
In this sport a good shooter can make a mediocre rifle look good but very seldom will a good rifle make a mediocre shooter look good.

The .44 mag is an excellent round for pistol cal silhouette shooting but won't do the job on rams consistently if you are planning on using it in rifle cal. shooting. The bullets aren't heavy enough to consistently knock the heavier ram targets over at 200yds.
 
Damn. Thx for the tip on rams at 200. I was hoping that i could stay single calibre. Heck, if I'm looking at a 50% knockdown on rams I might just do it anyway lol. I'm more interested in a nice lever than scoring.

Would the 94 be a good choice for cowboy action as well? How about a henry big boy?

(I have never seen cowboy action and I don't know what it entails, but it might be nice to try sometime)
 
The .44 Mag has a trajectory like a mortar and isn't anything special(no pun intended. snicker.) out of a rifle. The bullet weight matters a whole bunch. A 300 grain bullet drops 31.7" at 200, but a 225 about half that. This is a pretty good example of a ballistics table for a .44 Mag rifle. Add the W's. .gunnersden.com/index.htm.44-magnum.html
Lot of video's about cowboy action shooting on-line.
 
fingers284 said:
Over-sized bores were notorious in very early Marlins, 1880's to 1930's. Anything made after that , provided it isn't shot out should be okay. The notion that all old marlins are "loose' is not a hard & fast rule neither, I have shot with a fellow that regularly cleaned our clock with an all original second year production model 1889 in 38 WCF.
Actually for lever gun sillywet, because of the less importance on "time restraints" I would recommend guns that I wouldn't for Cowboy main match rifles. My go-to gun for sillywett is a second year produced model 1892 in 32 WCF, the wife's is a Marlin 94 short rifle in .357 mag. Both guns shoot good every day...its us that have the good or bad days.
In this sport a good shooter can make a mediocre rifle look good but very seldom will a good rifle make a mediocre shooter look good.

The .44 mag is an excellent round for pistol cal silhouette shooting but won't do the job on rams consistently if you are planning on using it in rifle cal. shooting. The bullets aren't heavy enough to consistently knock the heavier ram targets over at 200yds.
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How much do the rams weigh?
I'm surprised that .44mag won't know it over at 200 yards.... specially if your wife uses .357mag?
 
I'm seeing reports about people using the marlin in 44 with 240g bullets and getting a >90% fall rate on rams...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Can-down said:
How much do the rams weigh?
I'm surprised that .44mag won't know it over at 200 yards.... specially if your wife uses .357mag?
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rifle ram targets are probably twice the weight of pistol Cal rams. Lever gun pistol cal targets are the same size as the targets used in rim fire silhouette.
Sorry for the confusion... the wife uses her .357 on the pistol cal targets only. She uses a 30-30 for the rifle silh targets. With the 30-30 she has to use 170 gr gas-checked bullets wound right out, even then some of the rams she hits just stand there and look at her.
A lot of controversy in what caliber works for rifle set-ups stems from how different clubs set their targets. I've seen some sets that a 38-55 (the .44 mag probably will work in this case) will knock every ram over and some where a 45-70 require good solid body hits to tip them over. Some States clubs are going to just swinger targets and any movement or a "ding" counts as a hit.
The 94 is a good rifle for the sport, mount a good Lyman type or vernier peep sight on the tang and handload to get the best performance out of the calibers it comes in and you will have a lot of fun.
 
I've used my .38-55 with good effect on the big rifle size rams for two years at the match in Heffley Creek. They don't jump up and dive down but they do tip.

Bullet weight likely counts for as much as velocity. My 255gn bullets will hold their velocity out farther than the short 250gn .429's. So that helps as well. The rifle lobs them out at around 1300 to 1400fps at the muzzle which would be a pretty stout Magnum load for that size bullet. So the muzzle velocity is about on par compared to some .44Mag loads. The difference would be the velocity drop off due to the bullet size and BC value.
 
Hi BCRider,

Are there levergun silhouette matches up at Heffley Creek or are you talking about the black powder silhouette match? I mostly like single shots but have this Winchester 1886 that would be a lot of fun to take to a lever gun silhouette match :)

Chris.
 
sunray said:
The .44 Mag has a trajectory like a mortar and isn't anything special(no pun intended. snicker.) out of a rifle. The bullet weight matters a whole bunch. A 300 grain bullet drops 31.7" at 200, but a 225 about half that. This is a pretty good example of a ballistics table for a .44 Mag rifle. Add the W's. .gunnersden.com/index.htm.44-magnum.html
Lot of video's about cowboy action shooting on-line.
Click to expand...
Two words sunray: adjustable sights

They also grace the fine lines of many a decent BPCR rifle too, for some odd reason. (snicker)
 
gunlaker said:
Hi BCRider,

Are there levergun silhouette matches up at Heffley Creek or are you talking about the black powder silhouette match? I mostly like single shots but have this Winchester 1886 that would be a lot of fun to take to a lever gun silhouette match :)

Chris.
Click to expand...

I used the rifle to knock down the rams at 280 yards during the Monday fun shoot BC vs Alberta. This was at the summer time cowboy action weekend called Palmer's Gulch. On Friday I tried to use my .38-55 rolling block in their long range match. But it's set up that we need to get off 12 shots at various distances in something like 90 seconds. And with the reloads and altering the peep sight elevation and my lack of practice it just didn't come together at all. The targets in this case were hanging plates of various sizes so knock down power isn't an issue. They just needed to go DING!.

For this particular long range flavour a lever rifle set up with long range sights that can be re-set fairly quickly is the way to go.... that and getting some darn practice for a few weeks ahead of the match.... :D
 
Smcx said:
Ok so I found a 20" blued rossi 92 and a 16" stainless. I like the idea of stainless. Would the 16 incher be long enough?
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If you have any doubts at all about if you will keep it then the 20" is better. It'll hold a full 10 rounds or more in the tube so you could sell it easily to a cowboy shooter later on. The 16" is a great and compact rifle but it won't hold 10 even if you push hard..... :D
 
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