I want to start this by cleary stating that I am in no way considering maxing out the 44 1/2 by making one into a elephant gun.  On the ohter hand, I am curious about the pressure limits of this action.  I have seen a CPA up for auction chambered in .348 and I do recognize this as a modern built replica of the original with dimensional and steel differences.  Having said that, and wanting nothing more than a better understanding of these rifles, what would be considered the upper end of safe use for an original 44 1/2 in restored condition? (with mine having been restored by CPA prior to my ownership).

S99VG I would call Gail at CPA and ask her. She has a tremendous amount of knowledge in regards to the original  Steven's 441/2's as well as her own newly made CPA's. I do believe the strength based on Neidner and others various chambering experiments make more stringer than some might actually think. But why continue to guess when we can probably get it right from Gail herself.

What cartridges/calibers are you considering?

Not sure why you might be feeling that way? When these rifles were being made they were not being made out of inferior and unknown steels or with unknown strengths. A rifle is either in good operating condition or not and the date of manufacturing has nothing at all to do with a 441/2. Steven's was a major firearms manufacturing company and had full lability over the products that they made and sold if not abused.

Schuetzendave, you made me curious so I just compared my CPA and my 44 1/2. The difference in total thickness is about .125 and the shank difference is about .053. I think that works out to about 12% more metal around the shank of the CPA. However, if the 44 1/2 is limited to a 30-30 sized cartridge base but the CPA is limited to a 45-70 sized cartridge base there is actually about .030 less metal in the shank itself around the cartridge base in the CPA so if you take that away from the extra thickness of the action then the effective difference in action thickness is... well you figure it out.

I did not say that I am only talking about the pre- engineered safe strength that everyone keeps on guessing about. Once that is a known then one would know what smokeless cartridges and or loads could be safely used either new and or old.

Based on my two actions: action widths 1.13 vs 1.24; shanks .875 vs .928.

No doubts about that! Mine was a Donaldson (and the barrel was originally a Lovell), and it shoots very well that way but I was more interested in accuracy than velocity.