Bob’s 44 Carbine

As I mentioned at the beginning of the summer, I inherited a Ruger Model 44 Carbine from Bob’s estate. Since then, I’ve been slowly working towards turning it from a safe queen to a working deer rifle. I met Bob in 1982. I probably saw the rifle for the first time in 1983. It had probably been gone into Bob’s gun cabinet shortly after its manufacture in the early 70’s and only come out for guests.

I am acquiring more and more stuff left over from dead friends. I suppose that is the sign of leading a long and fruitful life, but frankly I’d trade the friends for the swag any day. I had a 1st gen Aimpoint scope left over from O.T.’s 25-06 that I plopped on Bob’s carbine. O.T. sold me the rifle just before he died, and was a tad miffed that I pulled the Aimpoint off, but try as I might, I couldn’t get my cheek down on the comb to get my eye lined up on the scope. It has sat in the drawer for 5 years. I figure it was a perfect match. I did not even have to change the battery, but I ordered a spare just in case.

Everyone talks about the Ruger Model 44 as the ultimate close-in deer getter. Between the raised comb of the Model 44’s “Sporter” configuration, and the Aimpoint’s abilities to throw that little red dot right on the point of aim no matter what, the rifle comes up faster than anything outside of my Remington 1100.

This rifle was turning into “Old Home Week.” In June as I was waiting on scope mounts and such to arrive, I found a stash of 44 Mag 240 grain JHP’s stashed in my larder. I recognized the markings on the bag. These had come from the bulk bins at Relo Sporting Goods back in late 2000, in the first month or so of my reloading experience. That’s a place I dearly miss. One of my favourite pastimes in those early years was going up to Relo on a snowy Saturday and rummaging through the bulk bullet bins until I had found a loading project worth doing. The fellow who ran that side of Relo did a fantastic job. Relo folded tent in 2001. Buying bullets by the pound– there’s an idea that has gotten lost. Wandering through Cabela’s or BassPro just doesn’t cut it– but I digress. I loaded 50 rounds of generic JHP’s over a load of H110 leftover from a project in 2002, and eagerly anticipated my first trip to the range.

Bob's Ruger Model 44 Carbine

Nostalgia and all that aside, the first trip to the farm to try out the Carbine was a bust. The loads worked fine. I chrono’d them around 1450 fps, which was just fine for a starting load. However, the brass was getting thrown every which way, and I would frequently have to stop and work the bolt to get it unlocked from the open position. Somewhere around 30 rounds into this exercise, the bolt locked up and wouldn’t unlock. After I got home, I took the rifle apart and gave it a deep clean according to these really great instructions from Youtube:

. . . but after all that, the bolt still wasn’t working.Whatever was wrong was in the trigger assembly. It was time to see a smith as recommended in the video.

I gave the rifle to Nathan Fleming at Legacy Gunsmithing to work on it. When it came back, Nathan said he’d tried twice to get a pin in the lifter assembly to stay put. He sounded guarded. I took it back out and 3 rounds later it had gone Foxtrot-Uniform again and it went back shortly before my birthday at the end of July. I wasn’t bitter. Sometimes these things happen. After 2 weeks back in the shop, Nathan called me and said it was ready. This time he’d pinch welded the pin and added epoxy. Nothing was going to get that pin loose again.

Just before Labor Day, I finally got Bob’s Carbine out and brought it to proper heal. I was only checking function at this point. The target was only 25 yards out, but I got the scope to near perfection and managed to get 20 rounds through it with no jams, singly and with 3 round burst to test the magazine feed. Angus and Moose took their turns messing with it as well. A good time was had by all. As a side benefit, Nathan’s work on the lifter assembly also caused the rifle to start throwing brass into about a 3 foot circle about 10 feet to the 2:30 position. Before, the brass was flying off to Shangri-La.

44 Remington Magnum in a semi-auto carbine is amazingly gentle to shoot. The round itself is about as effective as a 30-30 on deer, but the 30-30 holds the edge on range. The 44 Mag has an advantage in short-range stopping power. This will be an ideal stalking gun in our cedar thickets, from the more intimate treestand venues or from a ground blind.

The next step is 50 rounds of Hornady XTP 240 grainers, and putting this puppy on paper at 100 yards. My aim is to hunt with it this fall.

This post has already been read 1073 times!