Crimping Factory .444 Marlin cartridges

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Hi there

One of my old hunting friends hunts deer,with hounds in Ontario,using a Marlin 444 and factory Remington 265 gr.bullets.Throughout a day of hunting,he may unload and reload his rifle 2 to 4 times.However,after a week,many of his loaded rounds have the bullets pushed down into the case.I've seen the same thing happen with Remington 30/30 bullets that have been loaded and unloaded multiple times in Winchester 94's.

My question is whether it would be possible to back out a .44 magnum seating/crimping die far enough out of the press to re-seat and re-crimp the .444 Marlin bullets.I would use an RCBS kinetic ( hammer ) bullet puller to set the bullets back to the approximate factory OAL.That's where the final seating and crimping process would take place using my RCBS and/or Lyman .44 Mag dies.

Just curious as to whether anyone else has tried this approach.He usually fires these shortened rounds off at the end of the season just to get rid of them,but I suspect the pressure could be an issue,and the ammo is expensive.

I may give it a try for him this year but was wondering if anyone else had any comments or experience regarding the issue.If it works,it's a cheaper alternative to buying a set of .444 Marlin dies.

Thanks
 
A collet bullet puller would be the simplest option,compared to an inertia/hammer type bullet puller.

As mentioned,a Lee 444Marlin Factory Crimp Die will give you a better crimp than a 44 mag die & will not wrinkle/accordion cases...rendering them useless.
 
DANS40X said:
A collet bullet puller would be the simplest option,compared to an inertia/hammer type bullet puller.

As mentioned,a Lee444 Marlin Factory Crimp Die will give you a better crimp than a 44 mag die & will not wrinkle/accordion cases...rendering them useless.
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The issue I see with a collet type puller is that only the ogive is exposed above the case rim,limiting the ability of the collet to grab the bullet without sliding off.I could use the kinetic puller to expose more of the bullet shank for the collet to grab,but by then I might just as well continue the procedure with the kinetic puller.

I use the Lee Crimp die for 45-70 crimping,and have the Lyman .44 Mag seating die set to crimp in a separate step after bullet seating .44 Mag bullets with an RCBS die.

I'm curious as to whether others have experienced the issue of "sunken bullets" in cartridges loaded and unloaded repetitively in lever action rifles,and whether my .44 Mag dies would work for both seating and crimping steps if backed far enough out of the press.

The best way would of course be to use a Lee .444 crimp die but the proper seating depth would still have to be acheived first.
 
Can't say I've ever had this issue, levers are my favourite but i factory crimp. Specifically .444, it's nothing fancy but this RP brass I've reloaded 20 times for sure.



You can see the edges are a little bit but the pockets clean up nice and it feeds/ejects smooth. I have many pets for this rifle, sometimes I like to shoot jackets hot and I really enjoy lobbing heavy cast pills with lighter loads as well.





30-30 in a win with mostly win brass and .308 in a blr mix of headstamps for bottleneck cases, less variety for each but same spread of hot and light loads I play with and i use a factory crimp for each. Seated to desired oal previously.
 
Your idea should work fine. You'll have to do everything by eye/feel but not a big deal. I am surprised at how many commented without comprehending your post...
 
B said:
Your idea should work fine. You'll have to do everything by eye/feel but not a big deal. I am surprised at how many commented without comprehending your post...
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Thanks for the feedback.

I sometimes question the clarity of what I'm trying to convey in a post,but it's reassuring that you were able to understand what I was trying to achieve.In the meantime,I'll try the original idea of using the kinetic puller to extract the bullets part way out of the case,then re-seat them using the backed-out 44 Mag seating die adjusted to the correct OAL of the 444 Marlin.If it works up to this point,I'll crimp using the Lyman seating die set to crimp only.

If this works,I may add a Lee 444 Marlin crimp die on my next component/tool purchase.

Many thanks
 
You might not even need to back the die out. Just go in little by little and keep checking until it is seated where you want it. I've done that way back when I only had the one set of .38/.357 dies and didn't want to spend time readjusting the seating die back and forth.

Auggie D.
 
Auggie Doggie said:
You might not even need to back the die out. Just go in little by little and keep checking until it is seated where you want it. I've done that way back when I only had the one set of .38/.357 dies and didn't want to spend time readjusting the seating die back and forth.

Auggie D.
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That is what I had assumed he would do. Shouldn't need to change the die as he works just set it low enough to do it all. When done seating pull the plug and go deeper to crimp.
 
B said:
That is what I had assumed he would do. Shouldn't need to change the die as he works just set it low enough to do it all. When done seating pull the plug and go deeper to crimp.
Click to expand...

Excellent

That's the solution that would achieve my original intent.

Thanks B and Auggie D. for your input.
 
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