By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
Prior to the introduction of the .410 shotgun (about 1925), the favored small shotgun was the .44 caliber.
And the name “.44 caliber” is not being used to be non-specific, that’s what it was called many times. There were other rather specific names for the loads, such as the .44 XL, or the .44 Game Getter, but often the cartridges were simply head-stamped with “.44-40,” or “.44 W.C.F.” because that’s just what it was, a shot load for the .44-40.
Going along with the various names for the cartridges loaded with birdshot, there were several different ways of containing that shot. Several of the cartridges were loaded in extra-long brass cases, having the same overall length as the loaded .44-40 rounds, so they would work in either the lever action rifles or the revolvers chambered for the .44-40. Others used the standard length .44-40 brass and they were loaded with a hollow wooden “bullet” which contained the birdshot. There were also shot loads wrapped in heavy paper and those were often too long to work through a rifle or a revolver, intended for break-open shotguns only.
Details for those old loads are hard to find but the .44 Game Getter, mainly for the Marble’s gun which carried the same name, used 30 grains of black powder under a .425” diameter, 115-grain round ball. That is, at least, a hint. I also found that most of the old shot loads for the .44 shotguns used 3/8s of an ounce of shot.
Such information was considered rather trivial until my nephew, Kyle Kirkpatrick showed up with a very nice old Harrington & Richardson single barrel shotgun in .44 caliber, saying, “Let’s shoot it.” And he had more than just the shotgun with him because he also brought some new brass cases, made by Starline, for the 5-in-1 blank cartridges.
The 5-in-1 cartridges were made for the Hollywood (and their kind of) movie-makers. The name came from the fact that those blank cartridges could be fired in the .45 Colt revolvers plus the .38-40 and .44-40 revolvers plus the .38-40 and the .44-40 lever action rifles. Just the thing for an almost universal cartridge to be used for making Western movies. This blank cartridge had the same overall length as a loaded .44-40 round, complete with bullet, so it would feed through the lever action rifles. I didn’t know that the popularity of this old movie-maker cartridge was enough for Starline to include it in their busy production but I am delighted to see that it is available. Kyle bought the bag he had of the 5-in-1 cases from Buffalo Arms Company.
While the old 5-in-1 cartridges were sized or contoured so they’d fit or chamber in any one of the guns just mentioned, these new Starline 5-in-1 cases are basically straight, as if they were meant only for the .44s and .45s. They don’t even have, or don’t seem to have, the slight bottleneck of the .44-40. So, to be sure of what we were doing, a couple of the empty cases were tried in the .44 shotguns chamber. Those empties chambered just fine.
Handloading for the shot loads was done right at the dinner table. For starters, ten of those 5-in-1 cases were primed with large pistol primers, Remington’s Number 2 ½ primers to be specific. Then the cases were charged with just 20 grains of GOEX 3Fg powder. And before going that far, I had punched some wads out of milk carton material with my .44 caliber wad punch, also from Buffalo Arms. That punch is actually for the .44 caliber Sharps rifles, so it is large for the .44 revolvers or the .44-40 but not too large, as we found out.
So, one of the waxed milk carton cardboard wads was pushed down over the powder in each of the cases, simply pushing it down with a cleaning rod and jag for the .44 revolvers. Then a dose of #8 shot, dipped with an empty .44 Russian case, was added to each of the primed and powdered cases. That amount of shot must come close to 3/8s of an ounce although we never weighed or measured it. And with that much shot, there was just enough room at the top of the case for another of the milk carton wads, forced into place with the cleaning rod again.
Those wads are just enough oversize, having a diameter of about .446” for the .44 Sharps rifles, that they “bind” very nicely in the 5-in-1 cases, holding the shot in quite well. With smaller diameter wads, which we might still get a punch for just to try, the top wads might need to be sealed in place with some melted beeswax or something similar. In fact, the beeswax would be my vote because that would add just a bid of lube to the load, keeping the fouling in the gun’s barrel a bit softer, which would have advantage for repeated shots.
Then we were ready to try those loads with some shooting, so off to the range we went. And for the first shot, because we were curious about all things including how the gun might pattern, I took a standard rifle target and posted it backward so Kyle could take his first shot. Then he paced back 15 yards from the target, turned and fired the gun much as if he was shooting a rifle. To say the least, the pattern on the target was very good, that immediately made things more interesting.
Following that, we found an empty cartridge box in the trash and set it out at just about the same distance. Again, Kyle shot and peppered the cartridge box quite well. Then it was my turn, and I was certainly impressed with the light little scattergun and how it shot with practically no recoil. I hit the target too and shooting that little gun was certainly sweet.
A picture was taken of Kyle while firing a shot. In that picture you can see some smoke from the black powder where it had escaped from the breech. This is a good indication that the brass 5-in-1 cases are not expanding in the chamber enough to prevent some of the gases from blowing back through the breech. Perhaps a heavier powder charge along with a load of shot that was contained in a shot capsule would help seal the chamber by expanding the case, we’ll have to see about that…
The load just described was, in fact, a rather light one. Shooting those loads was certainly very comfortable and they gave us good hits, at least while we were shooting at stationary targets. For moving or flying targets, it seemed to be another story.
The chance to shoot at some flying clays came the next day. We were going to attend a work party to prepare the club’s trail-walk for the “Meat Hunt” at Buffalo Camp, and then after that work party we’d have a 10-shot trap shoot on the black powder range, for shotguns using black powder loads. To be well prepared for this, I loaded an additional five rounds for Kyle, using the new 5-in-1 brass cases.
A chambered round, ready to close the action and be fired.
Those extra five shots were not enough of a help. Either that or maybe Kyle just isn’t used to this new little shotgun as yet. He tried four times without getting a chip off of any of those flying clay pigeons. Then he borrowed a double barreled 12 gauge and started to do some shooting. With his remaining six shots, in this short ten-shot match, Kyle dusted four of the flyers, which put him in 3rd place, behind Allen Cunniff, and Tom Witt. And while Kyle was still shooting the .44 shotgun, I held my chronograph next to him to get a velocity for those small doses of birdshot. The single load I checked the speed on was only moving at 720 feet per second, not a high-speed load at all.
Perhaps the velocity could be increased by encasing the shot charge in a capsule or shot cup (by Speer, (www.speer.com/bullets/shot-capsules/19-8782.html) and using more powder. Yes, using more powder must be considered a given but to do that we’d need to use the shot cups which would allow the shot charge to extend beyond the cartridge case. That’s exactly how it was done years ago with some of the .44 shotgun loads. But for now, that is still in the future. And the loads we were using didn’t disappoint us at all except for the flying targets. Those loads were not fast but they certainly did hit and pattern well on those sitting targets.
More shooting will be done, of course. And it is quite likely that Kyle will stay with the loads similar to what we had already used. In fact, switching to either Olde Eynsford or Swiss 3Fg powder should be expected to raise the velocity and with just slightly higher pressures that might expand the brass cases more to better seal the escaping gases at the breech. There is simply a lot of things yet to be done with this handy little .44 caliber shotgun. It might even put grouse “in the pan” while on a good hunt.
But then Kyle committed what could be a serious and grievous error. Things may never be the same after this and the .44 shotgun might not be as available as Kyle would hope it should be. He let his wife, Laura, take some shots with the gun…
Laura took her shots at a stationary target and got good hits, just like we’d expect her to do. And the expression on her face was certainly plain enough, she likes that gun!
Kyle might get permission to use it again but maybe not. That’s enough to make him look for another one. And I can admit that I’m somewhat interested in looking for one myself. For a light little black powder shotgun, one of those old .44 smoothbores will really do that job. And, in my honest opinion, using the Starline “5-in-1” brass cases to duplicate the good old .44 shot loads is more practical than using them for blanks…
