Please pardon the recap but the story began with my acquiring at the Denver Show a Frank Wesson Two-Trigger circa early to middle 1870s. Several opinions were given me that most of these would be happy with shooting 43 Russian and the cartridge I picked up at the show seemed to be happy in the chamber. I made a  chamber cast and the case length was determined to be 1.6 inches. Being a Wesson I jumped to the conclusion that it was a 44 Wesson Extra Long, albeit with a sloppy chamber. Hey, it's old. So I picked up some 445 Super Mag brass which happens to be 1.6 inches long and of the same family as the 44 American, 44 Russian, 44 Special and 44 Mag just in different lengths, worked up a load and was enjoying it - at a 44 Russian level of course. Then recently I picked up a copy of the Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions and was just flipping through it when I landed on the 44-40 Extra Long. Wait, that's the same size as the chamber cast. No. Could it be? A 44-40 dropped right in the chamber. Son of a gun. Today I received in the mail a vintage cartridge headstamped U.M.C. .44-40 but 1.6 inches long. It dropped right in the chamber. Now some folks believe that the 44-40 Extra Long doesn't exist in a rifle but that it is just the 5-in-1 Hollywood blanks with a bullet stuck in. To be sure a 44-40 Extra Long would no longer be a 44-40 but say, a 44-50 in that nomenclature. A case headstamped U.M.C. would be later than the rifle as I don't believe they starting headstamping them until 1883 or something. However, unheadstamped cases do exist! It is just that there don't seem to be any rifles chambered in it. Well, I know of one and that one dates back to the time of the creation of the 44-40 for one of those Winchester thingies. I would like to find one of those unheadstamped rounds. Meanwhile, back at the ranch. How to you go about making them now? Simple, relatively, you take a 444 Marlin case, chop it to 1.6 inches, full length size it in a 44-40 WCF sizing die with decapper removed, trim it back to 1.6 inches, anneal the new neck, and fire form it. Here's a pic of the chamber cast, the U.M.C. round, and two cases made from 444 Marlin (one has had a light fire form and polish and the other fresh out of the annealer and ready for fire forming. That is where it stands right now. More to follow.

Never mind, I see it in your other thread.

I was able to find 100 pieces of new 444 Marlin Remington brass (the two pieces burntwater kindly provided me for testing were Remington and I knew Remington would work) and I formed and annealed all of them. I loaded them all with what I hoped would be a mild forming load of 7 grains of Bullseye (I have an old Pacific pistol powder measure with a rotor that drops 3.5 grains of Bullseye so 2 drops per) and some light 200 grainish 44 bullets I had laying around which I sized to my .421 for this rifle - some of these were so old that they had been lubed way back when with that Lyman black gunk lube. You old, er, that is, more experienced guys will remember that stuff. Now these bullets, unlike the 240 grain ones from my custom Accurate mold that are long enough to bridge the gap of the large freebore, had to take a huge jump out of the case to get to the rifling so I did not even consider them to have more than "shotgun" accuracy capability. So I stood at the range and started pumping them through the rifle. There were some chunks of clay pigeons on the 50 yard berm so just to not be so bored with the repetition I starting aiming at them and, lo and behold, they started disappearing. I love this rifle. Have I said that before? I just love this rifle. Anyway, I now have 100 formed cases (well, partially at least) and I didn't get any blowback (as I was getting with the 445 Super Mag brass) because the base is now the correct size for the chamber. I have cast up a couple of hundred of my correct bullets and I am ready to start working up a load with the new brass. It's all fun!

Thanks for asking, Jim. I've been meaning to check the twist. It is 1 in 40. A 44-40 XL blank case will hold 60 grains of Swiss 2F full to the brim with no compression. These are balloon head cases so you can subtract some for solid heads like the .444 Marlin and a bit more for the Marlin's thick brass and some for a seated bullet and add back in some for compression and I think this will bring us close to the mention of UMC making a few sample rounds up for Spencer and calling them 44-50-240 Spencer.

200 rounds downrange now. Results pending but in the meanwhile thought it might be time to pay more attention to the brass. I polished it and had a good look. Since these were all low pressure loads but some higher than others it was obvious that the brass was in various stages of being fire formed. I thought I'd move it along a bit so I ran a 40 Rifle M expander through them to help them out. Running it in I could feel which ones had expanded more from shooting but afterwards they were all closer together. Thought it might be time to also give them an even trim to true up the mouths of the cases, followed by a new deburr and chamfer, then a fresh anneal to finish up. I'm only sizing about 3/32 of the neck to even up the tension. With all this done I'll be ready for the next 100 rounds with more intensive testing. The little bead on the post covers the red on an ASSRA 100 yard target almost completely - say 95%. The mask we have to wear on the range now keeps fogging my glasses up so it can get interesting trying to hold a perfect bead. Now the problem is that I have shot up all of my bullets so casting time.

Tell me about it, ndnchf! So 200 rounds, 8 different powders, and 40 loads. These were hoped to show any tendencies to perform better by more or less of this or that powder. First test powders were AA5, Unique, 5744, 4227, and 4759. Second test powders dropped the AA5 and added Herco, Reloader 7 and 4198. I had my Chrony up for some of the second test (the old plastic sky shields cracked and one flipped off just as the range was called hot so I shot the first 20 without it and taped it up at next cease fire.) The Herco (see first pic) may just replace Unique as my cheapo load as it looks promising - 8 grains goes a long way and it is cleaner. More extensive testing on that next time. 4759 (see second pic) gave a good account and came in with the lowest ES (lowest SDs were 4759, 5744, and Herco). 4227 (see third pic) is the one that drives me crazy - 3 in 3/8 inch this time and 3 in 7/8 inch the first time - but there were 5 shots and the other 2 were somewhere else. 4227 and especially 4198 might burn more consistently with a little crimp but unfortunately the bullet has to be seated so far out to clear the freebore that there is nothing to crimp to. Or does it have to be seated out? Something to explore in the future. As it is I get no leading at all and I wouldn't want to change that. The next 100 will be a highlight round with the now uniformed brass and 10 shot groups to try to eliminate more of me from the results. Remember this is for 100 meter Cowboy Silhouette matches where once I get past the turkeys a little horizontal spread will be OK on the rams. It's the vertical spread that gets you.

I just read this whole post. For some reason I was not aware of it.
Wow! Now I want to see this rifle.
I too am more than ready to see the local silhouette matches resume. I want to play with a few rifles.