Reaming a 44mag barrel to 440 Cor-Bon

[Unbreakable]

Is it possible to open up a 44mag DE chamber to accept 440 Cor-Bon and work with a 50ae bolt? If so is there anyone that does this work professionally?

[CPTKILLER]

I don't know.

[kenemoore]

The .440 never caught on, rounds are stupid expensive. I don't know about the modification, I'm a little shy about playing with wall thickness on high power rounds.

[MrBlackCat]

There were only a small number of these barrels made originally from Israel is what I have read... (maybe 1000?) but there were several times more barrels converted here in the states by Magnum Research, in both 6" and 10". This can be determined by the caliber designation stamp having a zero added to a 44 barrel vs a full centered stamping on the originals as well as other stamping differences I can't remember. It is well documented in many placed on the internet, so I won't try to go from memory any further.

To answer your question, yes it not only can be done, it was done for most of the 440 barrels in existence. When I looked into doing this myself, I ran into two issues... one, making my own brass seemed like a lot of trouble, and two, the chamber would no longer be chromed. The other issue, and why the round failed in the first place, was reliability, as it head-spaces off of its angular surface, and the consistency was not met by the supplier, CorBon. The chamber reamers are still available and it can be by any competent gunbuilder... or even a good machinist, especially if you have a 50 barrel on a given firearm to match the head-spacing from.

Maybe this round failed into obscurity, but you never know, another caliber using the same principle could pop up for the Desert Eagle ANY day. ;) I think I will just wait and see if that happens.

MrBlackCat

[MrBlackCat]

Well, what do you know! Its the "all new" Desert Eagle .429! ;)

Not much information at all yet.

https://www.ammoland.com/2018/10/magnum-research-introduces-new-429-de-pistol-cartridge/#axzz5VV9eh8Vx

https://www.ballisticmag.com/2018/10/30/magnum-429-desert-eagle-cartridge/

MrBlackCat

[lockhart]

When I had my Mark VII it came with 2 barrels in the deal. One was .44 mag, and other was .50AE, with both types of magazines included in the deal. This was purchased from an individual. I later ordered an .440 Corbon barrel from IMI. I had absolutely no trouble making cases. You simply run .50AE brass into .440 full length sizer die, and voila, you have .440 Corbon! I fired hundreds of rounds through that 10" barrel. I dont remember the load I was using as that was about 16 years ago, but over my chrono it was around 1750 fps. Not bad for a 240 grain Sierra bullet. This was not a maximum load, either. Alas, I had some legal problems come up and I had to sell my whole gun collection to help pay the lawyers. After several years, I changed to a much higher paying job and was able to replace almost my
entire collection.