adirondackbushwhack

Before it rusted the second time

Yes a stainless barrel. It was fine inside the house but the first time I took it in the woods it rusted. On a sunny day no less.

A couple of years ago I ordered a custom shop complete rifle. It rusted the first day in the woods and it wasn't even raining. This was in early bear season and i sent it back and missed the entire hunting season with it. They replaced the frame but refinished the barrel and sent it back. This past hunting season I took it hunting and the barrel rusted again badly and they had me send it back again and again I missed the entire hunting season with it. Enter Smith and Wesson. Now they no longer will make a 444 barrel so They offered to refund my money but only if I could provide the original reciept, apparently they don't know what they charge for their products. My bad luck can't find it so they offered to replace it with another production barrel. I opted for the 375 H&H but now they don't make it anymore, so 35 Whelen but don't make it anymore. They did offer me a .243 though but I want to hunt with it so I suggested a 12 ga. Turkey barrel instead. They agreed and said i would be hearing from someone. I never heard so I called them back now they want to send me the original barrel back. Mind you since I already missed two hunting seasons with the rifle and we had an agreement I went out and purchased a 444 barrel from MGM so I could have the original rifle I had tried to purchase in the first place. Why a new rifle would rust as it did is beyond me. Why it would rust a second time is beyond my knowledge too. TC was vary helpful until Smith took over now they stall and lie and do everything except to fix the problem. Mind you the production barrels are less expensive than the custom barrel and so I was taking a loss anyway, they don't care. Okay they are big buisness so maybe loosing the sale of a few rifles and barrels to me won't matter much but sooner or later guys like me add up. And we will add up eventually with the way they do buisness.

LOL normally I'd be offended by that but they've got me so pissed I'm beggining to believe it.

TC customer care sucks now that Smith and Wesson has taken over. In fact it is so bad that I am no longer going to do buisness with them. I've purchased several TC rifles and barrels over the years but no more. I really love my custom Encore but cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone take the chance of doing buisness with them and loose their money.

Oh ye poor misguided soles. 444 are bought for 20 to 25 a box. Factor in that when using it I'm only shooting one shot, regardless if I am clearing trees or not, and it quickly becomes clear that the single shot 444 is much more economical than the auto loader spraying bullets through the woods. I never thought much about needing to get bullets in a pinch but I guess if yer using three to down gut and hang a doe plus needing even more to clear trees I can see how ya might need to find some from time to time. My little girl says that her 06 hurts less too.

What a waste of ammo. Thats what happens when folks use them little bullets. Get yerself a 444 and take them off their feet, gut em and hang em all with one shot. I once bagged a deer that I missed. The breeze from the bullet coming close was enough to do him in.

They're only ugly when fitted with one of those pea shooter barrels (smaller than 35 cal) They just don't look right shooting BB's. Fit with a proper mans barrel and a Leupold VX 3 1.5-5 scope it's a thing of beauty that is appreciated by all real men.

On the buck in the pic I used 120 grain Fusion. On another buck that didn't drop as I like I used rem 120 cor lokt I think. But to be honest the first buck I shot with it went down so fast I wasnt sure what happened to him. I use a single shot Encore as my hunting rifle too but my 25-06 is a Sako 75.

Maybe you'll give me yours then?

I'll go with 35's or higher. 30's are too small for what I am looking for in performance.

I don't think it's as cut and dry as that. There is a big difference in the effect that different cals have. So for example I would want the bullet to mushroom and have complete pass through with my 25-06 but I don't always get pass through, and don't care because the deer is down with my 444.

Here is how I measure it. With my 444 I've never had a deer run further than 30 yards after being shot. With my 25-06 I have had deer run further than that by quite a bit and therefore i judge that the 444 has more knockdown power than my 25-06 and therefore there is less chance of lost game. Incidentally that buck in my little pic there was taken with a 25-06. That deer didn't go far after being hit. He went right down but popped back up and ran off but after he went out of sight I waited to see if he would reappear as he should if he kept going and so I waited ready for a second shot. I waited a while and then slowly and quietly worked my down to where he disappeared. I found him still alive but having trouble getting up to get away and I put three more into him before he went down for good. I don't like them to take that long to suffer and die and so I judged the 25-06 as failing in that instance because the deer suffered needlessly. Had I my 444 that wouldn't have happened. In any case the deer is dead either way but the quicker less painful death is the one I judge to be the more succesful harvest. I'd rather have a deer drop in its tracks and never know what hit him than to have him run off and die. I consider it my responcibility to kill as quickly as I can to minimize suffering.

I can see how that can happen with a pointed nose 338 that doesn't hit major bone. The bullet might zip right through unable to impart enough energy to the doe to knock her down. Your 9.3 and it's larger frontal area will impart more energy given the same shot placement and flat or round nosed bullets in either 338 or 9.3 will do even better simply because they are able to impart more energy starting right at the entrance hole. At least thats my take on it. I believe even with my 444 that my use of the flat nosed bullets is a big part of why the cal has performed so well for me. I don't believe i'd have the same results with pointed bullets.

Well thanks.

I'll bet that rumor was started by those who use the .243 or maybe 7mm when one got away.

There was a time when I thought the 30-30 was the best rifle ever and I myself took many deer with it but I lost some with it too. Here on my wall is a mount of a nice ADK buck that I got with the 30-30. He offered me a braodside shot and I took him right off his feet but he popped right back up and bolted. He had three doe with him and they split up two doe one way and he and the other doe another. There was snow and good blood where he went down but it dried up quick. When they split up it was impossible to tell which deer was which in the deep powder and I had no blood. I followed a pair of tracks and ended up crawling on hands and knees to follow through the thick stuff where I found one tiny drop of blood and eventually caught up to him where I put several more rounds in him before he died. If there were no snow I have no doubt that I would never have recovered him. That first shot was a bit above center line just behind the shoulder and was a kill shot it just didn't kill fast enough. On another occassion I put a good shot with the 30-30 into his bigger brother and never did recover him(no snow). Now I don't use the 30-30. If those hunters you speak of that are shooked ever loose a nice buck with the 30-30 maybe they won't be so shocked after all.

Should be fun for varmit or paper.

The idea isn't to bust brush. Maybe a slower heavier bullet does better at that than a light fast bullet does but that never entered into my reasoning for going with the 444 and never enters my mind when choosing ammo. Any bullets flight is altered when in comes into contact with anything solid even 444 bullets.

I also believe that bullet weight is not the only factor. Bullet construction, frontal area and speed are also factors in delivering knock down power I believe. Muzzle loaders using a patched round ball or a flat nosed bullet especially with todays magnum loads work great. The 9.3x62 fits perfectly into my idea of a round that would deliver great knockdown power. Have you noticed a differance in performance between it and your 7mm/280? I'd be willing to bet that the 9.3x62 does a better job of anchoring shot game. When I was serching for a cal to replace my 30-30 I had it down to two. The 444 and the 35 Whelen. The deciding factor was that the 444 was available in a lever gun and the Whelen was not. I had been hunting with a lever gun forever and thought the transition would be easier staying with the same rifle only in a larger cal or else I may have gone with the Whelen. Actually I had my eye on a single shot rifle way back then too but with two kids I felt I should spend a bit less and get the lever gun. At that time there either was none or I was unaware of anybody producing any of the modern so called lever gun 45-70 ammo or that would have been in the running too. But at that time the 444 was flater shooting and harder hiting than the 45-70 and the old ammo. Of course that was before computers and so somebody might have been making lever gun 45-70 ammo and I was just unaware of it. 9.3x62 would work for me I think. Of course time would tell but it fits into mt scheme of things.

It's not fraud it's your government redistributing your wealth.

Ha! Certainly seems that way. I'll bet Lawdwaz probably hunts more open country while I'm in the thick stuff too which further cements the shot placement/knockdown power differences.

Certainly those are good results that can't be argued with. But not the same results I've gotten with the 444. I don't mean anything by it when I say I've shot many more deer with the 444 it is just the truth. I don't often get those broadside shots and so my shots are from every angle I guess. Of those shots and I guess there are 100 deer or more none have run further than 30 yards. Of those I guess I could count on my fingers the number of deer that needed a second kill shot. If I see that the deer is still alive when I chamber another round he gets it, I don't like them to suffer at all. One particularly big one Just kind of stumbled forward when I hit him back and high in the rib cage and heading back and down towards the hind leg. He stood there for a couple of seconds just looking around and I missed with the second shot I guess i was wound up a bit and as I was steadying up for the third he just fell over. On another occassion I hit one that did give me a broadside shot really poorly but I didn't know it because he dropped at the shot. I waited and watched and after a few minutes i walked up on it and found it still alive' I had gut shot it but I guess that the shock of that big medium speed bullet had put the deer into shock and it went down and stayed there until i walked up on it. The majority of deer I shoot with it go down right there or within a couple of yards and i believe I only had just one go as far as 30 yards. I don't know about that one it was strange. The entrance wound was probaly 6 to 8 inches long and a couple of inces wide and took out several ribs. I got pics of it somplace but not on the computer it was probably 15 or more years ago. Anyway that one went maybe 30 yards and i never could believe that with that massive hole in the rib cage. I think the bullet must have hit something in front of the deer. That is the only explanation i could come up with for such a massive entrance wound. Anyway I want the deer to die instantly or at least really quickly and not move a muscle after the shot. Now i don't quite get that performance but it's close enough that I am happy with it. Should i ever get a deer that runs 100 yards with the 444 then I would question my ammo. I only use flat nosed bullets because I believe that they hit much harder than either pointed or hollow point bullets do. With this set up the entrance hole is actually bigger than the exit hole and I can put my thumb in the entrance hole while the exit hole is only as big as the expanded bullet. I once did have a bear go maybe 40/50 yards when hit with it though. It was a broadside shot and the bullet broke both shoulders and I recovered it just under the skin of the opposite shoulder. I used a flat nosed 270 grain on that occasion and well the stories of break both shoulders and the game is down just aren't true 100% of the time. I don't really worry about getting complete pass through with this set up and don't mind at all if the big flat nosed bullet gives all of it's energy to the deer. The entrance hole is plenty for blood to leak out of should the occassion ever arise that I should need to track one. I've only ever killed deer and bear with it though.

I like talking about this stuff and listening to and understanding the other guy is how i learn. I have a belief that all perspectives are only partial perspectives limited by our personal experiances. Others should question me so as to gain an understanding of what I am saying and I should question them so I can understand them too. Light recoil isn't a concern for me as you may have guessed with my use of the 444. Honestly the 120's in 7mm08 do seem light and lack frontal area to perform as I wish but I have no personal experiance with it. I should expect you to get a pass through with the majority of shots when a perfect broadside shot is presented. It is the not so perfect shots that concern me most. So I would have to ask how many deer you have shot with it and of those that were not perfect broadside shots how much tracking was involved and how many of those less then ideal shots have you taken. Of course your idea of killing well and mine might be different and so I wonder what your idea of it is.

While your at it you might think about upgrading the rest of the springs. I went with the Bellm # 4 trigger spring (2-2 1/2 lb) in mine and polished everything up and altered the sear notch. I also upgraded every spring there is on the rifle to more heavy duty ones and added a hammer extension even though I have the swing hammer the hammer extension is much better for me. Changed from the factory hinge pin to a accuracy locker hinge pin. (not the bellm oversized hinge pin) While I have a TC pro hunter muzzle loader barrell; for my hunting rifle barrel I have a Match Grade Machine, Shilen select match barrel in .444, prettied up a bit too. Have the flex tech stock in two camo patterns and upgraded the stock forend and butt stock screws to Stainless ones. My frame was ordered from TC's custom shop when they were still in buisness and is actually a prettied up version of an encore frame featuring engraving and I had it upgraded with the pro hunter hammer and as I said changed all of the springs and polished everythng up so it is now (really) a custom frame. You can really have a lot of fun customizing your pro hunter and when you are done you won't believe the difference in it. It will feel and perform much better than when you began.