My Alaskan .444 Part I

My Alaskan .444   Part I

Years ago, my brother-in-law built a rifle chambered for the .444 Marlin while he was attending Trinidad Jr. College in Colorado.  The action he started with was a large Martini single shot.  A factory rep. had dropped by and showed the students some of the new .444 Marlin cartridges.  Somehow, they ended up with one after he left.  They quickly sent said cartridge off to a company and had a chambering reamer built.  His rifle was finished before loading data was available, so using the advice of one of the instructors as to powder choice, brother-in-law started working up loads.  When he saw the first signs of pressure, he backed off a grain and loaded ammo for it.  Later, when loading data came out, he was astounded to find his handloads where a full seven (or maybe it was nine) grains over what the loading company considered maximum!   He gave it to his father for a pickup truck gun, where it rode in a case behind the seat with a few rounds of ammo in case he was called upon by the local deer hunting gang to block a deer escape route. 

I used to love to spend weekends with my sister and him, working on my gun projects with his help (which he freely gave).  Nothing is more fun than rooting through someone else’s gun junk, so one evening after supper we found a box of his old handloads.  Then next day we borrowed the rifle back from his dad and took it for a spin.  My first shot with a .444 accounted for a huge feral house cat, and the second took down a flying bird (I’m not that good a shot – bird, brother-in-law, and I were all stunned!).  I handed it back to him and said, “That’s good enough!”  I knew there was a fair chance I’d miss the next shot!

I purchased my first .444 Marlin rifle back in the 80s when I worked at Shooters Supply in Hutchinson, KS.  The one I’m going to tell you about now I acquired while here in Alaska.  This one shows I’m absolutely unafraid to hunt with an engraved gun.

I bought it for the huge sum of $125 from my friend Slim Lambert, who used to live and gunsmith in Nome, Alaska.  He was using it as a boat gun on fishing trips for bear protection, because if it was lost overboard, he wouldn’t care all that much.  I rescued it from him after he bought a Marlin 1895 in 45/70 which he liked better. 

Slim retired from the US Army while he was stationed in Nome, staying on there because he loved the freedom and friends he’d found.  Not long after he was discharged, he teamed up with a fur buyer who was flying to northern bush villages purchasing furs.  While his pal was tending to the fur business, Slim would put out the word that he was paying cash for broken or unwanted firearms.  My .444 was one of those guns.  After polishing, engraving, and replacing the sad original wood, I sent it off to be hard chromed.  I’d shortened the barrel to 16.5” and drilled a series of holes at the muzzle to help control barrel jump.  When finished, it was now a short, powerful lever action that I could use when more than a handgun was needed. 

The last several years I’ve hunted bears and caribou about 20-40 miles west of Iliamna, Alaska with a Ruger #1 I rebarreled to .378 Weatherby.  I hope never to wound a bear and have it get into alders, as they can be almost impenetrable.  Digging a bear of any size out under those conditions using a big single shot rifle would not be my preference.  I take this .444 along in case something like that happens.  It’s short and powerful, just the combination I’d want. 

The great Jack O’Connor wrote in his monthly column about the .444 Marlin when it was introduced, “With a .444 in my hands, I wouldn’t run away from the biggest bear that ever walked.”  I see no reason to disagree with him, and our bullets are superior to those of those days.