whats going on? 44 mag

[sbrville]

My go to 44 Mag deer hunting load for years has been 240 gr XTP with 23.5- 24 gr H110. Been shooting it for years out of a Ruger carbine and shoots great. shoot them out of a super blackhawk also with no problems. I recently borrowed a friends chronograph for other rifles but thought id see what these where running. For some reason i grabbed my Marlin(REM) ss 1894 and shot 3 rnds. all three where so tight in the chamber after firing i couldn't hardly work the lever. primers seem a little flattened but not horrible. Chrony read all around 1700fps...My first thought being i loaded this batch with to much powder. pulled a couple and they are all at 23.8. Coal is 1.60". is the barrel tighter in the marlin? is this normal? thanks SB

 

[oldpink]

My educated guess would be that you just discovered how minute internal differences between guns, both in the chamber and in the barrel, can affect how your ammo behaves.
Your Ruger carbine's muzzle velocity (if you know it) might be a good bit of information to use to see better what's happening, as long as the barrel length is the same or very close.
I know the 1894 standard comes with a 20" barrel, and (I think) the Ruger .44 Carbine came with an 18.5" barrel.
It's hard to know definitively if your issue is with something about your Marlin causing higher pressure levels without expensive equipment (transducer), or if something else is making it tough to eject your brass.
If you can compare muzzle velocities between both rifles, it might give you some idea of what's happening, but there's another possibility of what's causing your issue that comes to mind, which is the surface finish of the chamber of your Marlin.
By that, I mean it's possible that the chamber could be just a bit less smooth than is the case with both of your Ruger guns.
That applies especially to the carbine, since Ruger quit making it decades ago, so it's likely that its chamber is nicely burnished from all these years of use, which will make chambering and ejecting brass all the easier as time goes by.
Further, you mentioned that your Marlin from after the Remington buyout, so that makes it less than ten years old, all the more reason to suspect that it's not quite as "broken in" as your Ruger guns are.
Another possibility is that the leade (distance to the rifling from where the bullet sits with a chambered round) on your Marlin is just a bit shorter than with your carbine.
Weatherby is an example of how a longer leade can change the dynamics of chamber pressures, since Roy Weatherby made his rifles from the start with unusually long leade to permit higher velocities with lower pressures.
The leade on the Marlin and Ruger could be different as manufactured, but leade also tends to get longer after years of a gun getting fired due to normal bore erosion over time.
As a suggestion, maybe you could carefully chronograph the exact same load from both rifles to compare side-by-side.
It also wouldn't hurt to give the Marlin an extra thorough cleaning before that, especially in the chamber.
It also might be a good idea to get a bore scope into that chamber to get a good look for any tiny machining marks or other little imperfections that could be causing resistance when you try to eject a fired case.

 

[Broom_jm]

Hot day -- hot ammo?

Did you leave the cases in the sun? It's not unusual to have loads that are right at the edge in mild weather get a little sticky in hot conditions. (Your load of H110/W296 in 44RM is close enough that it isn't unusual.) Shoot those same loads in November and you probably won't have any issues.

No disrespect intended toward oldpink, above, but odds are very good you've fired these loads in this very rifle many times, making his observations moot.

 

[AmmoManAaron]

Both of the posters above have good points and information. There are a lot of variables at play here, it could be any one or a combination of the above mentioned factors. Please keep us up to date with your findings.

 

[sbrville]

Wow thanks for all the info. This actually was the first time I have fired these rounds in the marlin. I have however shot many factory loaded ammo in it with no ejection problems. I will chrony the carbine and marlin again and see what happens. I just thought first off with the high velocity and hanging in the chamber where signs I overcharged the handloads. But pulling some down showed I did not. Thank you guys for the info. I must say though my dad shoots the same h110/xtp loads in his marlin(JM) 1894ss with no problem. Thanks again. Sb.

 

[throttletony]

Wow thanks for all the info. This actually was the first time I have fired these rounds in the marlin. I have however shot many factory loaded ammo in it with no ejection problems. I will chrony the carbine and marlin again and see what happens. I just thought first off with the high velocity and hanging in the chamber where signs I overcharged the handloads. But pulling some down showed I did not. Thank you guys for the info. I must say though my dad shoots the same h110/xtp loads in his marlin(JM) 1894ss with no problem. Thanks again. Sb.

Maybe the reloading dies are a bit tighter on your setup (not likely, but possible)
Also, were the rounds tight going in? A combination of tight chamber and oversized bullets?

 

[oldpink]

Hot day -- hot ammo?

Did you leave the cases in the sun? It's not unusual to have loads that are right at the edge in mild weather get a little sticky in hot conditions. (Your load of H110/W296 in 44RM is close enough that it isn't unusual.) Shoot those same loads in November and you probably won't have any issues.

No disrespect intended toward oldpink, above, but odds are very good you've fired these loads in this very rifle many times, making his observations moot.

No disrespect taken at all...far from it.
My own experience is that your theory is also likely.
Somewhere around twenty years ago, I had made up about twenty rounds of .30-06 loaded with the then new Barnes X-bullet, loaded to the max in winter.
Everything worked perfectly with those loads when I shot them in cold weather, better actually, because they were my first loads to shoot five inside 1" @ 100 yards out of my Ruger M77 bolt rifle.
I shot it again in early July, with the heat somewhere in the high 80s to low 90s, and immediately noticed problems.
The first one ejected with resistance, and I noticed that the primer was now flattened.
The second one was cratered in addition to being flattened.
The rifle was heating up just a bit more with each shot, so, getting nervous, I fired a third, and this time I was barely able to open the bolt (I had to repeatedly hammer it upward with the heel of my hand) at all.
When I slowly pulled the bolt back to prevent a full ejection, the primer actually dropped out freely into my hand, and the casehead had actually partially extruded into the ejector plunger hole.
Of course, the primer pocket was also totally expanded to the point that it was obvious with the naked eye that it wouldn't hold a primer at all.
I broke down the rest of my reloads with that bullet and reassembled them with the powder charge reduced by one grain.
That story may well apply here as well.
The only way off the top that might eliminate it as a possibility would be if if the Ruger carbine has no problems, while the Marlin 1894 has the issues the OP cited, but it would be essential to test them right next to each other to control for heat, humidity, etc.
Your idea about temperature sounds like the most likely of all, though.

 

[Broom_jm]

No disrespect taken at all...far from it....
Your idea about temperature sounds like the most likely of all, though.

Well, turns out the OP had not fired these rounds in this gun, so your original comments may be spot on. So, I'm glad I was respectful when I made my first reply.

 

[oldpink]

Well, turns out the OP had not fired these rounds in this gun, so your original comments may be spot on. So, I'm glad I was respectful when I made my first reply.

heh
I'm doing my best not to crack all those eggshells I'm walking around on.

 

[straight-shooter]

Hey Broom_jm, I'd say if the brass was wet tumbled there wouldn't have been any trouble at all.

 

[hammer24]

At 23.8 grs. I doubt it is an issue of over pressure. I've loaded and shot hundreds, if not thousands, of H110/240 xtp loads, and they were all loaded hotter than yours. Your gun, your experiment, but I'd take a closer look at the rifle itself. Under loading is a greater problem than over loading, typically, when in comes to H110 in the .44.

 

[sbrville]

Ok yeah heard not to underload h110. My manual calls 24gr max load. I've seen some online going up to 24.5 for a max. The rounds chamber smooth and when I say they hang up coming out I mean hard. As in you have to unshoulder the rifle and really pull on the lever. To me seems like the rifle just because I have fired these in the automatic carbine with no trouble(not this batch though, but exact same loads) and would think it would jam before anything else. Thanks again for all the help. Only other thing I can think of is unless I happened to shoot the first or last three rounds of the batch and they for some wierd reason where loaded hotter,(setting up powder thrower or messing with electronic scales)but I really don't think so. I tend to be even more careful when loading rifle or hunting rounds, especially hotter ones. Thanks again. SB.

 

[noylj]

Different gun, different chamber dimensions, different pressure.
A change in components? Same lot numbers of primers and powder? Same lot number of bullets?
Different action, different amount of flex in action or different chamber smoothness?
Different means different.