44 Magnum hunting load with-?

[725]

They are all up to the task if your marksmanship is. I like a 240 - 250ish gr boolit with some H110.

[GLynn41]

Deer are thin skinned animals-- the key is placement -- bad placement --even 240-300 gr will not work-- certainly there are what we all think are better bullets-- me too and i dont even shoot a .44 - but with good placement I can not see why it will not work -- sometimes we use what we have-- for the guys who do not like his boolit -- offer him some of your better boolits// I can not as I do not make .44s--
as with all of us be certain of yur placement- lets us know howit goes

[lead chucker]

I like the lee 310 gr in my 77/44 for deer i like the extra weight because we have brown bears where i live.

[white eagle]

I would prefer a heavier boolit
but hey that is me
as long as you have the time
look into making an accurate load
your choices may very well move beyond what is currently
available to you

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

OK, guess we can all agree to disagree on bullet wt.

I have carried 310gr LBT/LFN in my BlackHawk/Redhawks for years, but if I had a mold casting a WFN profile boolit, I would gladly give something in the 240 - 280gr range a go.

As said, the 200 is light for caliber. However, those in the 240gr +/- range have been tried and proven for many years.

Hunting being what hunting is, if you spend enough time in the woods, you will have or see a shot go off the most desirable point of impact for whatever reason. It happens, this is hunting, not going to the meat market where everything is clean, served up on a nice white piece of some material and neatly wrapped in plastic wrap.

For that reason, if for no other, I would go with a boolit that will assure enough and more penetration, should it be needed. It happens.

But more important here, no matter what boolit weight you come down on, is boolit profile/shape.

Yes, we are presently talking deer, a thin skinned critter, but more importantly we are talking cast boolits which are in many/most cases, non-expanding.

Therefore, a round nose boolit would be an extremely poor choice and a RNFP or semi-wad cutter only marginally better. Remember, we are talking hunting situations here. My Clark Custom 77/22 will put down a deer "if everything" goes right, but few people consider the .22 to be a viable deer cartridge.

I have a friend who has shot deer with a .44mag in a rifle, with very poor results. Wasn't there, don't know what load/boolit he was using. It happens.

A very good read is Veral Smith's - LBT - work, "Jacketed Performance With Cast Bullets" which goes into bullet design and what has been proven to be relyable and effective in "hunting" situations.

You can get info on LBT on the net or go to Graybeard Outdoors Forum and post questions for Veral.

Most any cast .44 boolit of most any weight is going to poke a hole in a deer sized critter, but it is the hunters responsibility to make sure that boolit is the most effective design possible to insure a rapid kill. The Wide Flat Nose design is just such a boolit.

AS far as sending samples of our cast boolits, well I can do that, with a couple Semi-Wadcutters in the 240 - 250 gr range, but would wonder at the wisdom of sending any of the 310gr beyond a dummy test round simply because they would likely cause feeding problems in the rifle and would be overly stressful for the Taurus.

Would I recommend these semi-wadcutters for hunting, nope, but they are better then a RNFP.

All that is needed is for the "OP" to send me a PM with his snail mail info.

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[longbow]

Well, I guess I have to add my $0.02 worth partly to make a point if it hasn't been made and maybe to get an education too.

How is the .44 mag loaded with 200 gr. boolit less effective than a .44-40 loaded with a 200 gr. boolit/bullet? While I haven't done it, I have certainly read a lot of accounts on .44-40 being a very popular and effective deer cartridge to about 100 yards.

Not arguing that heavier boolits might give better penetration but shot placement and range would seem to the be issue here. Also, the OP is talking hard cast so too much expansion of soft/hollow point isn't an issue.

Just curious.

Longbow

[x101airborne]

Deer are thin skinned animals-- the key is placement -- bad placement --even 240-300 gr will not work-- certainly there are what we all think are better bullets-- me too and i dont even shoot a .44 - but with good placement I can not see why it will not work -- sometimes we use what we have-- for the guys who do not like his boolit -- offer him some of your better boolits// I can not as I do not make .44s--
as with all of us be certain of yur placement- lets us know howit goes

Glenn,
Excellent idea and wonderful advice. I have several boolit styles in 44 cal around 260 - 270 grains that I will be happy to offer up to the testing and trial efforts of the origional poster. OP can contact me by PM. I have no opinion regarding pros and cons of boolit weight and as long as reasonable judgment is used, why not use em. Still though, OP, if you want to try some, shoot me a message.

[JeffHolt]

I have a Tracker framed 44 Mag also.
You can forget loading anything much heavier than a 240 gn bullet.
The cylinder on the tracker is too short for the heavy weight bullets.

For lead, Unique or 2400- either will do with what you're driving down the bore. The 2400 woud do better in a longer barrel. I would think that given the 30 -50 yd Range you pan to shoot at Unique would do the trick and you would use less. I'd be more concerned about over driving it and leading.

Btw, we load a full tilt, commercially available round using an XTP 240 gn bullet that chrono'd 1226 fps out of my Tracker Talo (with a 2 inch barrel.) I haven't chrono'd them out of my Puma 92 20 inch barrel. The load data stated 1500+fps with an 8 inch tube. I believe it based on my measurements with a snubby.

Had a customer named Rocky Gorby (somewhere in Central Maine) e-mail me to tell me he took a really nice Black Bear with our Appalachian Emancipator 240gn XTP-HP in 2010.
No Pics though. Sheez

Regards,
Jeff

[MakeMineA10mm]

btroj:
205 grain bullet is the standard weight bullet in a 44. 240 and 255 grain bullets are the heavies. Just because it's common to shoot heavy 240 grain bullets in a 44 magnum does not suddenly reclassify them as standard and the 205 grain as the light bullet.

Gabby,
You were doing great on your point, and I agree with you. In fact, there were plenty of fellows out west who used the 44 Henry RF Flat to kill big game with, including, a bear, supposedly...

However, I have to disagree, or perhaps a better word would be "clarify," your point here.

The 205gr bullet was "Standard weight" for the 44-40 and the 44 Henry Flat. The 240-250gr boolits don't work worth a hoot in the 44-40 - I tried, and they hit WAY TOO high... Totally unusable...

In the 44 Spl. and 44 Magnum, the 246gr LRN and 240-250gr SWC (respectively) IS the standard weight, and a 200gr is generally considered "light."

Even still, I agree with you that the 200gr RNFP will kill a deer no problem.

[btroj]

Nobody here has said a 200 gr bullet won't kill a deer quite well. What many have said is that a heavier bullet gives more margin for error should a quartering shot be required.

I can bring 200 cinder blocks home in a VW bug but a 1 ton pickup does it easier.

[Larry Gibson]

Maybe they've got some humongous white tails in Appalacjia if a .44 cal 200 gr RNFN at 1200+ fps won't give all the penetration required, even on a "quartering" shot. To quote Mike Vemturino in a recent article on the 44-200-FN........."at 1150 - 1200 fps I got complete side to side penetration on every deer shot." Are the white tails that much bigger in Appalachia than in Montana? Having shot deer with 200, 215, 225, 240, 255, 270 and 300+ gr cast bullets I find the "margin of error" to be how much hillside or trees I want to shoot up on the other side of the deer. With in the OPs hunting criteria the 200 gr bullets will do just fine.

Larry Gibson

[GLynn41]

Larry I agree 100 %-- I started with what ever heavy bullet I had and learned what you said-- again nothing wrong with that --just what you prefer--- and they all work with good bullet placement- i still use the heavies becasue I can-- in a .41of course

[MakeMineA10mm]

Nobody here has said a 200 gr bullet won't kill a deer quite well. What many have said is that a heavier bullet gives more margin for error should a quartering shot be required.

I can bring 200 cinder blocks home in a VW bug but a 1 ton pickup does it easier.

I get it. Personally, I like the 429640 in solid or HP form (and in fact, [gasp] I load them with a medium- to light-load where they're only going 1100-1200fps, because we don't need 25,000grs of W296 crushed by the seating of the bullet to make the load an efficient killer either...).

My quote above was actually quoting Gabby's response to you, and I just wanted to clarify that 200grs was "standard" weight for some 44-cal. cartridges, but that 240-250 was "standard weight" as well, but for other 44s... The "true" heavyweights are 265 or so and heavier.

[LUCKYDAWG13]

[QUOTE=MakeMineA10mm;1516255]I get it. Personally, I like the 429640 in solid or HP form (and in fact, [gasp] I load them with a medium- to light-load where they're only going 1100-1200fps, because we don't need 25,000grs of W296 crushed by the seating of the bullet to make the load an efficient killer either...).

i use this boolit in my ruger B/H in hp form pushed by 19.5 gr of 2400
in my tender & Encore 12" barrels 24gr of H110 work good if i had a
200gr mold i would use that too
good luck