Couple years ago I bought a brand new made in 2015 1894 in .44 mag.  Fit and finish were great but it gave me fits trying to find a load it didn't pattern like a shotgun with.  It layed in the back of the safe untouched for a long time.  Yesterday my brother wanted me to take him to the range to try out his new AR and I brought the Marlin along on a whim.  I grabbed the can of .44 mag and when we got out there I noticed I had about thirty 240 grain Bayou Bullet coated I had loaded for my revolver but had never tried out yet.  I fed the Marlin the usual jacketed stuff and not surprisingly it shot like crap.  MAYBE getting six -eight inch groups at 100 yards.  Frustrated I grabbed the coated rounds and stuffed five in the gun and let her rip.  No bags just resting elbows on the bench.  Went to the spotting scope and my jaw hit the deck.  One frickin' ragged hole about an inch across.  Loaded up five more and repeated the feat.  Unbelievable.  Of all the things I've tried a simple cast bullet is what the gun really likes.  

I am so pumped up about this.  I wanted to love that gun but until now it has been nothing but a let down.  Now I need to do a little load work up with them to see how fast I can push 'em.  Load was 10.0 grains Unique BTW.  Do you all think these would do OK on woods whitetails or should I try a few with say 2400 or H110?  I need to chronograph them to see what they're doing.  I am using Skinner Express sights on the gun.  No scope.

Thanks for reading I just feel so much better about the gun now.  Even still a little bittersweet though as of course I'd prefer the gun to shoot everything well but I'll take this for sure.  Need to tweak the sights a little to adjust POI but I didn't have my hammer/punches with me.  

You're definitely not getting close to the performance you could get.

That being said if i could only load one .45 colt load for the rest of my life it would be 9gr unique under 255 swc.

It hammers deers from my 16" m92 or 4 5/8 blackhawk. Awesome general purpose load

Oh I know.  I'm just glad I finally found something it groups decently.  How hard can the coated bullets be pushed?  Believe me I have tried a lot of things with this gun and nothing ever really worked.  I slugged the bore at .433 as best I could measure.  Consequently I ordered 1000 Zero 240 grain JSPs sized at .432 (largest jacketed bullet I was able to find).  Or maybe they're .431 whatever.  Best I could get out of those was six inches at 100 using mild Unique loads.  In all honesty I considered sending the gun back but I had a lot going on in my life at the time and decided other priorities were more important.  I am really glad the darn thing has SOME potential to be a good shooter though.  I'm probably going to try a few lightly loaded rounds with 2400 and see how they do.  I bought the gun as a "swamp deer gun" as I sometimes hunt where a 75 yard shot is really unheard of for the most part.  

I have been doing some reading on the cast boolits site (I believe I may be a member from long ago I forgot lol) and have seen where some people have had pretty good results on deer with cast/coated bullets.  Way I see it, getting plugged in the chest by a big ass chunk of lead in whatever form is going to do some pretty lethal damage.  No matter how fast it may be going.  Deer have been killed by .44 rounds out of a revolver going 1300 FPS.  I figure I should be getting at least that much and much more accuracy to boot.  Shot placement is king after all.  Any opinions or discussion is truly welcomed.

I think your bullet and powder combination will blow straight through any deer you are likely to come across within the 44 mags range.

With your Keith Style cast bullets, I really don't believe you are likely to see a great increase in terminal performance by stepping up the velocity to the levels 2400 or H-110 will give you.  Either way you're going to get a .430 diameter hole going in and out of the animal.  A long blood trail is very likely most of the time with cast, but there will always be a dead deer at the end of it.

We think alike.  Thanks.

I have a 1894 like that, patterned like a shotgun with WW but shoots like a laser with my Hornady 240 XTP max handloads.

Your load will drop deer no problem.

18 to 20 grains of 2400 with that 240 Zero .