The 44 Devastator on game

[Bongo]

This is my first thread so be gentle on me...Has anyone had the opportuunity to put the 44 Devastator bullet thru the vitals, heart / lung, of a deer or hog? I just loaded a bunch up and I am curious about their effectiveness on game. I'll be using a 7 1/2 inch SBH. They have 19.5 grains of WC820 behind them. Thanks!

[44man]

Maybe too much of a good thing. need penetration all through the deer. If the boolit breaks, stops, etc. you might not be happy. I use hard boolits with no HP's on deer with the .44, WLN and WFN.
You have a good gun and load but only you will see results. One deer will not tell the story, like those that say you need 10 shot groups, you need experience on deer.

[pergoman]

I can't speak to the Devastator but I will tell you I made the mistake of using a 240 grain XTP on a big doe. Nice hot H-110 load out of my 6" barreled 29 Classic. 25 yards standing broadside was a perfect pistol target that I could not pass up. The shock wave created globs of "blood-snot" jelly under the hide from her jaw to her tail on the exit hole side. The bullet took off the top of her heart and she fell a few feet from where she was shot. I hit no bone on the entrance side and took out a rib on the exit side. The exit hole would fit a golf ball. I shot a nice little 6 pointer with a hard cast boolit this year and really liked the lack of meat damage.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Sage advice above. Welcome to the forum!

[reloader28]

Whats your alloy?

Theres a guy here from Australia (dont remember his name) but he uses them all the time on hogs and likes them.
I would think you would have to tweek your alloy and powder load to get a certain performance. You need to test and tweek, test and tweek.

Thats what I do anyway. I've only used a hollow point on 1 deer (usually solids). Didnt catch the boolit so I dont know what it looked like, but the performance was great from my 44 mag rifle at 120yds. Most guys use 50/50/2% alloy.

[Bongo]

The Devastator is advertised by Lyman that it was designed to use ww alloy. We mixed a batch at around 11 BHN. I am looking forward to testing. I was just putting feelers out there to see if anyone else has already began the process. Even if the nose did shear off you would still have well over 200 grains of lead traversing the rib cage. Lubed and checked they are 268 grain. A mature Whitetail averages 11 inches across the rib cage. I don't think lack of penetration will be an issue on a Whitetail. A 500 pound hog may be another story. I don't know but, I plan on finding out. I once shot a sow of around 130-140 pounds with a 357 using a j*** 158 hp. The entrance was just below the right ear, down the neck, completely thru the body, broke the left rear leg bone and lodged under the hide. There was no exposed lead on the bullet making it look like a j***wadcutter. The side of the bullet was dented hard from hitting the leg bone. The distance was a whopping 20 feet. She ran about 30 yards and piled up. I have trailcam pics of some boar that I'm sure are over 400 lb. I just recently heard of the first 600+ lb. boar being taken out of my hunting area. I've only heard of a handfull of "verifiable" 500 pounders. Thanks for the feedback and the welcome!

[richhodg66]

This was the thread reloader28 referenced;

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-205006.html

Not sure if the pictures will still show up, but it sure looked fun. Enduro bikes, lever guns with cast and lots of big game to shoot, doesn't get any better.

Never shot a deer with a pistol, but I have shot several with .44 SWCs in sabots with a muzzle loader. My one experience with a jacketed hollow point, it was my son when he was 12 or so and using a Hornady 240 grain XTP and 70 grains of Hogdon 777. Most destructove gunshot wound I ever saw, ruined a lot of meat and didn't put the deer down any faster than the SWCs did. Hopefully a Devastator won't act like that XTP.

[Larry Gibson]

I cast my 44 Devastators out of 16-1. Excellent expansion, through and through on deer and plenty of penetration in pigs. It is now my go to 44 hunting bullet.

Larry Gibson

126082

[Hickok]

After reading of Larry Gibson, Fenring, and others experience with the 44 Devastator, I have one coming in the mail.

[jimb.]

Bongo, Pergoman, Larry, et.al.: I've been experimenting with a couple bullets for my two .44 Magnum Ruger Super Blackhawks - one a regular 7.5" barrel, the other a silhouette model (10.5" barrel, with 4x Weaver scope). After trying several alloys, I ended up with 10:1 (lead:tin), mixed 50/50 with Lyman #2, resulting in 2.5% antimony, 7.5% tin, 90% lead, 13 bhn. This is to get a hard & tough alloy, but not too brittle. I'ts also fairly simple to make.

I'm trying to get bullet performance that peels back into an intact, classic, pretty mushroom. My bullets are gas-checked. I'm using Glen Fryxell's lube formula, with a bit of ATF added - works darn well. With my load of H-110, I get pretty impressive velocity, with no signs of excess pressure, and no leading. At this velocity, it is a challenge to get an alloy that will not shed the mushroom petals, but 100 yd. impacts hold promise.

I am using two bullet moulds: Lyman's Devastator mould, and a great mould I got from Al at NOE. I know a friend who has access to a lathe, so I have had the hp pins reduced, to bring the radius of the hollow point mouth cavity down to .140", which is a considerable reduction in size from the stock moulds, and thickens the bullet mouth walls considerably. This results in the Lyman bullet casting 280 grains (w'gas check), and the gas-checked NOE casts 255 grs. I am still in the process of testing these bullets @ 50 yds. and 100 yds., and the loads seem to be quite accurate. I may still have to reduce the hp pins for a hp mouth radius of .120", but that is still in process. I am not changing the depth of the hp cavity. I'm trying for a good bullet for deer and elk.

By the way, Pergoman, are you telling us that you shot your .44 Mag. 240 XTP broadside through your deer's ribs/lungs, with your S&W 29, H-110, and got blood-shot tissue on the off-side, all the way from the deer's jaw, back to the deer's rump?!! Sorry, and not trying to create any controversy, but I just cannot believe that. Your muzzle velocity would be around 1,200 fps to 1,400 fps (6" barrel, correct?). That just will not produce hydrostatic hemorrhaging the entire length of a deer's body (unless you shot it length-wise). Perhaps I've misread your writing, or what you meant. I just like to stick strictly to empirical facts, with no hyperbole. Thanks for all the information, everyone.

jimb.

[Lonegun1894]

I recently got a RCBS .44 HPd by Buckshot, so this thread is educational. Thanks everyone!

[Camba]

Larry,

Those devastator boolits look great! Are they gas checked? I am wondering how they would perform from a 44 mag Ruger 77/44 rifle.
Camba

[44man]

I shot three deer behind the shoulders, double lung, with 240 XTP's out of my SBH 10-1/2" barrel with 24 gr of 296. I recovered all three against the off side ribs, No blood trails at all on back tracking them. Average distance to dead was 60 yards and I seen them fall, could have lost them in thick cover from no spoor. I gave up that stuff fast. Most accurate bullet I ever shot but it just opens too fast. Now from a .44 special!
A friend shot a large boar with one and it was still alive 2 hours later, bullet found in pig.

[Bongo]

Some excellent posts! I have seen where a couple of other people have trimmed down the HP stem to increase the wall thickness also Jimb. Thanks for the recipe. I'll keep that on hand. I know with the thin walls at 11 BHN the nose can get damaged easily. Kinda ironic with the posts about XTP's but, today I received a call from my youngest son and he was all hyped up from shootn' a big 'ol wild boar with his 357 GP100 using XTPHP's. Knocked the hog down like it was spine shot and it rolled down a hill. It recovered and came back up the hill and he put two more rounds into it. Tracked it for about 3 hours before running out of sign. My son said that he was sure it would go over 250 lb. He might of had enough gun with the right bullet but, I think he needs to be looking into a 44. Until then I'll be loading up some hard Keith bullets for him. I need to keep him around for a while. He has 3 of my grandkids to raise and on is in the oven. Thanks for the link to the archive thread Richhodg66. I fell in love with the little 44 Ruger Levergun. SWEET! Thanks Larry! I'm hoping this will be my go to round once all the tweaking is done. Hamgunner and I are gonna ream the throats on our 44's. Two of mine are tighter than the others which I hope accounts for the two strays, slightly low left, from my other four in my groups. That and some slicking up on the trigger will hopefully tighten groups. I'm considering the Tubbs system to clean up the bore on it also.

[kevmc]

I cast my 44 Devastators out of 16-1. Excellent expansion, through and through on deer and plenty of penetration in pigs. It is now my go to 44 hunting bullet.

Larry Gibson

126082

Care to share load data or velocity?

[Larry Gibson]

Larry,

Those devastator boolits look great! Are they gas checked? I am wondering how they would perform from a 44 mag Ruger 77/44 rifle.
Camba

Yes they are GC'd. That's why they can be cast soft and driven hard and maintain accuracy. They are long in the nose and may not fit the short oal of Ruger magazines?

Larry Gibson

[bikerbeans]

Yes, I killed a doe this afternoon with a lyman 44 cal devastor. I shot this boolit in a 44/50 MMP in a 50 cal smokeless MZ with a MV >2,000 fps. Almost a perfect 90 degree angle through the rib cage. Bullet passed through the heart and disrupted the lungs. It also caused the diaphragm to rupture and put some massive trauma on the liver. Shot was a clean pass pass through at about 60 yards with 2 broken ribs on the entry and exit. The good sized doe ran over 50 yards after being hit, which after inspection of the deer I didn't quite understand.

BB

[Larry Gibson]

Care to share load data or velocity?

No Problem

Cast of 16-1 alloy, GC'd sized at .430 and lubed with BAC, Javelina or other good 50/50 lube my Devastators weigh out fully dressed right at 270 gr. I use 23 gr H110 in W-W cases with WLP primers. The OAL is 1.680. They run 1446 fps out of my 8.4" Contender barrel at 30K psi as measured in the Contender barrel via an Oehler M43 PBL. The 10 shot group was a ragged 1.2" at 50 yards.

Same load runs 1360 fps out of my Ruger 50th Anniversary FT w/6 1/2" barrel. Runs 1150 fps out of my 4" Anaconda.

You can use another 1.5 gr H110 and pick up another 50 - 100 fps and be right at the SAAMI MAP{ for the 44 but the 23 gr load is very accurate and does the job.

Using Alliant 2400 I found 20 gr to be a max load right at the SAAMI MAP (36,000 psi) and runs about 20 fps slower than the H110 load. Both loads are very accurate though.

Larry Gibson

[reloader28]

Larry, I dont suppose you happen to have a picture or can at least tell us a measurement of expansion/penitration? I'm just curious for comparisons. Your running a touch hotter than me.

I have a 250gr RN Lee mold I have drilled and made 2 different sized HP pins for (now around 230gr from 255gr). I had to down load my 44 mags to high spl loads to keep the boolit together with 50/50/2% with the big hole (explosive). I aint had a chance to try my smaller HP. Hopefully this winter. I made it for the rifle, but thinking it'll be for mag pistol loads or long range rifle.

[Hickok]

Larry thanks for the timely post (for me). Having several T/C Contender barrels, I just ordered a Super 14 .44mag barrel before they were all gone. Got the last one MidSouth had!

Your accuracy report is reassuring. I shoot barrels in bottle neck cases in super 14's, 7/30, 35 Rem, 8mm JDJ, with excellent accuracy. Was curious about the .44 in the T/C.

You loads duplicate mine in the Lyman 429421 and Lyman 429244 with 20 gr/ 2400, but I use 22 gr/H110 for both boolits, still pretty close to your load.

I backed down from 22 gr/2400 to 20 gr, years ago when the burning rate got faster. Thanks for your pressure data.

As I stated a 44 Devastator mold is in the mail, eagerly anticipated!

[bikerbeans]

Larry,

Have you shot the 44 devastors in a 1894 44mag Marlin? I am picking up a well worn 1894 Monday and plan on using this Lyman boolit for my load workup.

thanks

BB

[Larry Gibson]

Larry,

Have you shot the 44 devastors in a 1894 44mag Marlin? I am picking up a well worn 1894 Monday and plan on using this Lyman boolit for my load workup.

thanks

BB

No, but have shot them in a 16" M94AE. They were very accurate and the H110 load ran just under 1600 fps. It's definitely a thumper in the carbine!

Larry Gibson

[Blackdog]

I have some Devastator boolits loaded up for 444 Marlin. No field experience with it yet, but I expect it to live up to it's name.

[Larry Gibson]

Got a chance to test the feeding of the Devastators in a Marlin today. Not to worry, they feed just fine:smile:

Larry Gibson

[sw282]

When l first started hunting deer with my S&W Model 29 l killed my first couple deer With 180 gr JHP Super Vel factory ammo 44mag.. l was impressed with the destruction this ammo did.. lt fact on the first deer l destroyed the entire off side shoulder. The same happened with my second kill and l disliked so much destruction...Being this was the late 70s & early 80s l had gotten in to IHMSA silh shooting ..l started shooting more.....So l got a Lee 240swc mold,dipper,and 4pd electric pot and discovered Unique powder,RCBS almost all at once...

l also discovered that 9gr of Unique and a 240swc Lee 44 bullet work on deer too. l have not killed any deer since those first 2 with jacketed bullets ..No more shoulders lost either.

For kicks l got our match director to ck the speed of those Super Vel 180s..He had recently gotten an 0ehler chronograph.. Quite a device for 198o l think...Anyway those 180s averaged 1803fps from my 8 3/8'' Model 29.. My cast 240 Lees were app 950fps...

As in the real estate business its ''location-location-location'' that counts..
Same goes for bullet placement..

[jimb.]

Doggone it, everyone, I even proofread my previous, relatively long post, and I still miswrote something: With a lathe, I had my hp pins turned down to give me a hollow point cavity mouth DIAMETER of .140". I mistakenly wrote before that I had a hp cavity mouth radius, which was incorrect. Sorry about that.

jimb.

[depoloni]

I tested a few things awhile back to see "apples to apples" how different alloys behaved at different velocities using the Lyman 44-cal Devastator mold. FWIW, YMMV, etc. All media was overnight-soaked newspaper. Have done a LOT of this kind of testing for that matter, have dozens of these sheets from both cast and jacketed load tests. NOT saying it's a direct correlation to on-game performance, just a way to compare bullets.
126698
126699
126700
126701

[Larry Gibson]

^^^^^^^

Now that is excellent testing, documenting and reporting!

Very well done.

Larry Gibson

[Irascible]

I gave up on XTPs a long time ago with one exception, the 357 XTP-FP design is a wonderful bullet out of my 357 Herrett. That is the only XTP I would recommend. 44 cal XTPs out of My Dan Wesson or the muzzle loader have failed miserably, no penetration and lots of blood shot meat.

[shoot-n-lead]

I gave up on XTPs a long time ago with one exception, the 357 XTP-FP design is a wonderful bullet out of my 357 Herrett. That is the only XTP I would recommend. 44 cal XTPs out of My Dan Wesson or the muzzle loader have failed miserably, no penetration and lots of blood shot meat.

Kind of mirrors my experience with the XTP...just have little confidence in them.

However, I have, for a good while now, given a lot of thought to the Devastator.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

^^^^^^^

Now that is excellent testing, documenting and reporting!

Very well done.

Larry Gibson

+1

Nice work!

[Three44s]

I realize this is a boolit site but while we are talking J-words and the .44 ....... we should not leave out the 270 gr. Speer gold dot.


Three 44s

[Bongo]

Outstanding reporting and testing depoloni! Thanks a bunch. That is a lot of information. It's looking like about a 9 bhn might be a mean machine in a 44 spcl. I'll be sure to post results on game using the Devastator when I get the chance.
Three44's, I used that 270 Gold dot out of a 444 Marlin on a little 8 pointer one season. I know it's kinda overkill but I really wanted to see what that bullet would do. The shot was about 50 yards. The buck did a heart shot kick, ran about 25 yards and pilled up. I went to where he was standing at the shot and was amazed to see no blood. I looked about five yards in the direction he ran and seen about 1/2 a lung stuck to the side of a big black oak. No problem finding blood from there on. Nothing but mush in the boiler room. It was overkill. Better suited to bear hunting or black timber elk hunting I believe. I can't remember the specifics on the load but I got it from an article in Handloader magazine several years ago. It was an excellent article on the 444's. That recipe turned my rifle into an inch shooter from a 3 inch with factory junk. I still have that magazine. I'll look up the recipe and if you would like. I have nothing to report on the Gold dot in the 44 mag. I'll never shoot j***** out of my revolvers or model 94 30-30 again. Still gotta work on loads of cast in my other rifles. Wish I would've gotten into casting 30 years ago. And I wish I still had that 444 to put some cast through!

[No_1]

I have an old 44 devastator mold in the original box that I have wanted to use and think it is about time to break it out.

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive shot a couple deer a pig and a 1000lb buffalo with it. The buffalo was an opportunity thing. I would never have taken a 44 mag if I knew I was going to shoot a buffalo but we were at my buddys game ranch and he had a cow he wanted culled. The 44 mag was a 4 5/8s super pushing that bullet at about 1100 fps. They were cast out of straight ww. Shot was about 50 yards and at the shot the buffalo folded on the spot with blood spraying out of her nose. My buddy who owns the place asked what the #### I was shooting as hed never seen a buffalo drop that quickly even with rifles. We gutted and skinned it and found a few small pieces of lead (probably blew the nose off as that's what it usually does with that alloy) the bullet went in just behind the shoulder and there was about a one inch diameter hole on the far side where it exited. About perfect performance but im not gullible enough to say it would happen every time with that bullet. Another thing ill say about that bullet is ive bought MANY hp molds on group buys here but in the 44 that devastator still is the best shooting bullet. Ive even got copys of it but theres just something in that original design that isn't in the rest. Some are close enough that casting 4 of a kind vs 1 makes the a real winner but if I want tiny groups with a hp bullet in the 44s I still go back to that one.

[phaessler]

I have used the 429640 and the its variants of the Devastator, as well as the other "640" variants of the design and have had superb success with the RNFP 434640 run here by 45.1 years ago. No hollow point just a BIG meplat has proven bang flop enough for me to feel secure out to the limits of my vision. I use to use XTP's before that and a lot of blood-shot meat and shock. Again whatever your comfortable with.
I do believe the shape is a classic design which has proven itself in solid or hollow point form in many calibers, not only .44.
Pete

[Grendel99]

I don't have a ton of experience with this bullet on game (yet) but I have shot three deer with it so far and absolutely love it. I use it in a 44 mag Super Blackhawk Hunter (7.5 inch barrel) with 20 grains of 2400. It chronoed just over 1300 fps IIRC. The first two deer I shot dropped on the spot. The third went 10 yards or so and left a huge blood trail the whole way. I actually was able to recover one of the bullets after an almost head on shot on the first deer I used it on. I'll post the thread I made with the recovered bullet in it below. It exited on the other two deer I shot with it. I'm not worried about penetration with this big hollow point at all. Even if the front comes off you still have a big wadcutter that keeps on going. I wouldn't hesitate to use these on big hogs or even elk. Hopefully I'll be able to test the bullet on some hogs in the near future. I just used wheel weights with a little tin added. I might add some pure lead to the mix next time so it might hold the front end of the bullet together better as it expands and because I have a bunch of it. I wouldn't be changing the HP pin size around before you get to use it on game. As seen from this thread and others, it works awesome as it is from Lyman. I have used the 429421 Keith bullet on three deer as well with the same gun, load, alloy, and shot distance. They worked pretty well but they didn't have much of a blood trail and they ran 30-50 yards. They still worked great but I'm liking the Devastater much better.

It's interesting to see how most people here really don't like the 240gr Hornady XTP. I have several friends who handgun hunt with them and love it. I have one friend who even thinks they're too hard. As they say, your mileage may vary.

Here's my thread showing two of the deer I shot with the 429640 bullet and one of the bullets recovered from it. Cast up a bunch of them and go shoot something with them!
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?222305-Two-bucks-a-hog-and-a-bullet-(pics)

[Hickok]

Grendall, your thoughts on the Hornady .44 240 xtp reflect mine. In reading a lot of different posts from various shooters about having trouble with this bullet.

I used them in my 94' Winchester loaded to 1641fps. and killed several deer with perfect results, through and through penetration, and thumb size exit holes.

The older Hornady 240 hp with the lead exposed on the front of the bullet and hp, (which they no longer make) were way too quick opening. They would not completely penetrate on a broad side lung shot from a Model 29 Smith, and also shed jackets from the lead core.

I once put three of these older Hornady hp's into a deer's lung area before finally killing it with my Smith .44 mag. A lot of tracking and had it not been for snow, I would have lost the deer.

I went back to my Keith #429421 after that in revolvers.

[bikerbeans]

Got a chance to test the feeding of the Devastators in a Marlin today. Not to worry, they feed just fine:smile:

Larry Gibson

Larry,

Copy that, I just loaded some this morning with 2400 and they load in my Marlin 1894 cycle, chamber and eject fine. Will try and hit the range tomorrow and see how they shoot. I would have used H110 but my wife and son have claimed that powder for their 300 blackouts.

BB

[TXGunNut]

^^^^^^^

Now that is excellent testing, documenting and reporting!

Very well done.

Larry Gibson


Couldn't agree more! Nicely done and welcome to the forum, Depoloni!

[6pt-sika]

I have some Devastator boolits loaded up for 444 Marlin. No field experience with it yet, but I expect it to live up to it's name.

Over the last eight or so years my casting has gone almost exclusively to the 444 Marlin in variouse Marlin leveractions with both 1-38 Micro and 1-20 Ballard rifling . Anyway as to HP bullets ,

I used the 429640 Devestator a couple years ago to shoot a small buck at about 35 yards . My bullet was air cooled WW's and pushed with XMP5744 at about 1700 FPS . The bullet hit where I aimed , the animal went down regrouped and got back up to stagger maybe ten yards and lay back down where I put a finisher in it . I was not overly pleased with the result although that animal had no possibility of getting away from me .

With that being said I have a Lyman 429244 HP mold and that one cast of wheelweights and pushed a bit with H322 did a wonderfull job on two whitetail doe at about 50 yards .

Before either of these I used the NOE/RD 432-350GC HP on another doe at about 60 yards pushed pretty good with H322 hitting where I aimed and I needed to shoot her a second time . Again I do not think she had a chance of getting away from me , but to make it a quick death she required a finisher .

Before that I used the MiHec 434-295GC HP again pushed with H322 and it pretty much hammered a 5 pointer at about 40 yards .

At the moment I have a NOE/RD 432-265GC HP to try . I am of the opinion for the 444 in a rifle the HP cavities in the Lyman Devestator and NOE HP's are perhaps a bit to large as the Lyman 429244 HP and the MiHec 434-295GC HP both worked very very well with the smaller cavity . The Devestator and the NOE bullets seem to blow up a lot easier etc etc then the other two . In a 44 MAG handgun or rifle I doubt if this would be as big an issue . But this is only my opinion as the last 44 MAG levers I owned I didn't shoot the HP bullets in .

[pls1911]

The HP bullets in general are an interesting pursuit and good reading, but I cannot see the advantage of this design over a well designed SWC or Flat Nose like Ranch Dog profiles.
While it is true that I've never recovered one from game, I will assert that they are profoundly destructive, penetrate into next week, crush skulls, bones, and joints while cutting whorish holes, leaving excellent bleed out.... notice I didn't say "blood trail", as my experience remains singularly bang... SLAP....Flop, one shot drops, or I pass the shot.

[jimb.]

depoloni: Nice data. I'm assuming that the velocities you're showing are muzzle velocities. At what distance from the muzzle to the target are these bullet impacts?. In other words, what are the impact velocities that gave these results? If we know the muzzle velocities, and the muzzle-to-target distances, we could figure out pretty closely what the impact velocities were. Thanks much.

jimb.

[depoloni]

Thanks Jim.

The media was set at 10 yards, the chronograph was set at 5 yards... essentially making the impact velocities listed accurate (sans 5 yards).

I vary the loads to represent different muzzle velocities to simulate longer impact distances (slower velocities) rather than move the media further and further from the muzzle. Makes everything simpler, less likely to shoot a chrony if I moved it way out with the media, etc.

[jimb.]

Got it. Thanks, Depoloni. Good stuff. Now, I just wish for more opportunity to use my NOE & Lyman Devastator bullets (with hp pins lathed down to produce hp cavity mouth diameters of .140") from my 7.5" & 10.5" barrelled Ruger Super Blackhawks (.44 Rem. Mag.) on deer & elk, especially elk!

jimb.

[gutpile]

folks,
what is the crimp groove to nose on this boolit? please tell me its under .315 and loaded it is not over 1.605 inch
Gutpile

[depoloni]

I'm getting about .412" sticking out of the case on one of my loaded rounds here... OAL is 1.690" with the bullet seated in the crimp groove.
It does appear that there is about .100" or so of full-diameter shank ahead of the crimp groove, which makes me believe you could probably seat these to 1.600" or so while still having a .430" bullet diameter to crimp onto.

I have not tried that however, and will leave that answer to someone who has.

[bikerbeans]

My loaded 44mag rounds with the 44 devastator have pretty much the same dimensions as depoloni's ammo. FWIW, these rounds cycle fine in a 1979 Marlin 1894, I don't have a 44 wheel gun anymore to check them in.

BB

[Fenring]

Happy with the Devastators for pigs. Loaded to 1650fps from my Ruger 96/44 they expand more than readily - viciously in fact and they mangle smaller pigs. Mine are cast from air cooled clip on WW's and end up at 275gr ready to fly.

Left three are Dev's that have lost about 100gr of nose cone, that's rolled right back. Recovered from pigs around 40 - 50kg shot close in, and found just under the skin on the opposite side of the chest.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/Fenring/Shooting/Goodooga%202010/P1050767.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Fenring/media/Shooting/Goodooga%202010/P1050767.jpg.html)

Other boolit is the Lee 310gr FN launched @ 1500fps.

Pigs hit good and proper with the Devastator tend not to go too far - that said the biggest I've taken would be around 80kg or a bit more, if you were after real big boars with solid armour you may want something harder.


And another Lee. These lose no weight.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/Fenring/Gpigs%202013/P1020381_zps061569db.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Fenring/media/Gpigs%202013/P1020381_zps061569db.jpg.html)

[crawfobj]

Great thread. Dopoloni, awesome work. Thanks for sharing.

[Bongo]

Thanks for the awesome photos of the recovered boolits Fenring. I've taken nine wild hogs so far and the two biggest were 110 kg - 125 kg. (250-275 lbs.) There are some that have been killed in my hunting area that went 225kg (500 lbs.). Not many but they are there so I want to be prepared if the opportunity presents itself. I may have to invest in the LEE 310 mold. I like the results with that mushroom with almost total weight retention. I'll be pushing the Devastator at a muzzle velocity around 1,400 fps out of my SBH. The only hogs I've taken with cast boolits so far have been with the Lyman 31141 weighing 173 grains at 2,000 fps out of a Win. model 94 30-30. They worked great but, I was not able to recover the bullets.

[Dogmann]

I wish a ruger 44 auto would feed these !

[Boyscout]

I shot a doe with the Devastor at 60 yards. She ran 15 yards and piled up. My alloy is air cooled WW +1% tin, 22.5 gn Win 296 and WLMP. Accuracy is excellent. The bullet passed through but left a lot of lead fragments in the opposite shoulder. This was my first kill with this bullet.157100 My plan is to cut my wheel weight with pure lead. The Lee C429-240 SWC shoots very well out of my Handi-Rifle also. Anyone have experience with that bullet on deer?

[chrispy]

Whats your alloy?

Theres a guy here from Australia (dont remember his name) but he uses them all the time on hogs and likes them.
I would think you would have to tweek your alloy and powder load to get a certain performance. You need to test and tweek, test and tweek.

Thats what I do anyway. I've only used a hollow point on 1 deer (usually solids). Didnt catch the boolit so I dont know what it looked like, but the performance was great from my 44 mag rifle at 120yds. Most guys use 50/50/2% alloy.
you'd be thinking of Fenring

[Larry Gibson]

I would suggest a softer more malleable alloy for your GC'd HPs, especially at magnum rifle velocities with handgun cartridges. The COWW alloy, even with tin added is still too brittle. That's why we are seeing examples of the nose and expansion petals blowing, shattering or sloughing off. I suggest, if CWWs are used that 2% tin be added and then mix at 50/50 with lead. Even a 30/70 mix can be very effective depending on bullet design and firearm. Even better is just us a 16-1 lead - tin alloy. I have found it to be excellent for top end handgun and rifle HP bullets such as the Devastator in the 44 Magnum.

Larry Gibson

157125

[Idaho Mule]

I would suggest a softer more malleable alloy for your GC'd HPs, especially at magnum rifle velocities with handgun cartridges. The COWW alloy, even with tin added is still too brittle. That's why we are seeing examples of the nose and expansion petals blowing, shattering or sloughing off. I suggest, if CWWs are used that 2% tin be added and then mix at 50/50 with lead. Even a 30/70 mix can be very effective depending on bullet design and firearm. Even better is just us a 16-1 lead - tin alloy. I have found it to be excellent for top end handgun and rifle HP bullets such as the Devastator in the 44 Magnum.

Larry Gibson

157125
I believe 16:1 Lead:tin was ol' Elmer Keith's recipe too. And if I have read my history books right that was also the alloy used in 45-70 back when it was service issue. It is fun to me to see how stuff that once worked well still does. I believe the binary alloy of lead/tin really makes it want to stick together on impact. JW

[Ramjet-SS]

Larry

I have allot of plumbers lead and Linotype. What I have been doing for my mix not knowing if it is even close to what you are suggesting is in a 20 lb pot 15 lbs of plumbers lead and one roll of 50/50 solder and 4 lbs of Linotype. Any ideas it seems to work well with the HP I am casting but rarely do I recover them on deer pass thru and allot of damage to the boiler room.

Thoughts?

[Markbo]

So the .44 Devastator HP is ~ 260gr right? Using a little different alloy would this be a good boolit for a Marlin .444 and a Ruger Redhawk? It would be nuce to have a single bullet for both, even if the alloy has to be tweaked for different velocities.

[Blackwater]

This is a subject that's generated extra heat around campfires for ages, and isn't likely to be settled here. FWIW, if anything, my experience with HP's always indicated that extra tin, to the tune of 4-6%, always seemed to help the bullet to hold together and mushroom instead of fragmenting the front off. Not sure which is the better way to go on game, though, but in .44, and on our southern whitetails where a 200 pounder is a big one, I think I'd go with Larry's advice and soften WW's with a good dose of nearly pure lead, and salt it further with a good dose of tin. Then I'd drive it as fast as I could get really great accuracy with, and have at it. I believe if it didn't work right, it'd most likely be my fault in placing it on the game animal. YMMV, and likely does, though.

One of the things that has long mystified me, is the simple number of folks who've had such great results with hard cast WFN's, like 44man advocates. I have absolutely no qualms about his honesty in his reports because there are so many more out there reporting almost exactly the same average results. When he explained his theory about deer having very strong clotting agents, and that cut blood vessels and capilaries bleed a lot longer and are harder to stop, as when we cut ourselves shaving with very sharp blades, than those that are torn, as with HP's of any type, it suddenly started to make sense. The hard cast WFN type seems to me to do exactly what he says. Take a look at them and they always seem to have very much sharper ojives at the FP's than expanding bullets do, so it seems a no-brainer that they would tend to cut rather than tear or squash blood vessels. When he posted this, the light went on in my head, and I did a bit of a "Eureka!" This seems to explain the differences between the HP's and the WFN hard casts.

What has remained a question for me, at least, is the variability of the performance noted with HP cast in various calibers at various velocities on actual live game. I've come to suspect that much of it is likely (?) explained by differences in shot placement, alloy (which controls rate of expansion and where maximum shock is effected), and velocity. What many call "perfect shot placement" varies widely, and in my experience, small differences in shot placement CAN make big differences in results, and most especially with handguns and handgun like velocities. Just how it all fits together I cannot say, at least yet, but I suspect a faster pistol load with softish lead and good velocity will put down deer the fastest, IF (big "IF" there!) it's placed very precisely in a high heart shot location where it takes out the aorta. In all the well over 300 autopsies I've done on deer, it's long seemed that this is the fastest killing, most reliable shot one can make on most deer with an expanding bullet. The closer the expanding bullet is to the heart, the more "pressure" it'll put on that organ, and the more damage it'll do to the aorta. No blood vessel will leak as much blood as fast as the aorta! This seems to maybe at least explain at least a good portion of the variability in reported results with expanding bullets in pistols.

The fact that the hardcast WFN's seem to do nearly as well seems to give credence to my little theory too, but it's still just a theory. All I know for sure is that killing game sure can produce some widely varying and unexpected results at times. If we've been in the woods much or for very long, I'm sure most of us have seen deer or other creatures that just simply "took a lot of killing" to bring them to bag. Though mystifying, it does tend to cause one concern when hunting stuff, like big, mean boars, that DO have the ability to hurt you. A really big wild boar with its gristle plates CAN sometimes "take a lot of killing" to stop it, not to mention kill it permanently, and where it's recoverable. Penetration seems to be the key, and now that I think I have at least some sort of handle on the WFN's, I'm going to be trying them more, and likely would use one of that type if hunting hogs, or where hogs might be. The reassurance of very deep penetration, no matter what it hits, is reassuring on animals like this. I'd have no problems whatever using cast HP's on my little deer here, though, so I guess I'm kind'a ambidextrous and could go either way on deer.

Now that I have a Ruger FT in .44 Spec., that'll make some interesting testing as well. There should be little problem with it on deer as to penetration. A buddy put a 250 gr. Keith bullet from stem to stern through a decent whitetail buck of about 145 lbs. or so with a 4" S&W Mtn. Gun in .44 Spec., and I doubt the Devastator will be penetration challenged in it, either. Big, heavyish bullets at good, decent velocities are pretty hard to stop, at least from what I've observed with them.

If anybody gets it all figured out PLEASE explain it to me. Until then, I'll continue to be fascinated by it all, and I'll keep on trying to place my bullets as precisely as I can. That's all up to me, of course. I long ago found it much more satisfying to simply let myself be amazed at all this than to try to let my ego intervene and make me adopt any given theory. They all seem to have their applications, and again, if anyone gets it all figured out, please contact me immediately, because I've been trying to figure it out for a very long time, now, and have met with only partial success in the endeavor. It's still fun, though, and very mystifying when you take in all the data available.

[Markbo]

The older I get, the less I know. :)

[Ramjet-SS]

Funny I hunted with and still do have many molds for WFN bullets but have lately been changing over to heavier HP at medium velocity with outstanding resuls. My line of thinking? The best of both worlds penetration and tremendous disruption of critical tissue.

[Hickory]

The 44 Devastator is exactly that, a devastating boolit. Alloyed at 16/1 lead/tin at around 1150-1200 fps. it does very well out to 50 yards and does not destroy much meat.
But, at closer ranges and at a higher velocity it earns its name, "Devastator."