ruger 44 mag.

[redriverhunter]

hello all,

I have not started casting yet, although i did order the book, taking the reloading approach on casting as i will read up on it before i start buying equipment.

I am wanting to get a ruger 44 mag for hunting and need some advice from those who know more than I do.

I like the black hawk 5 1/2 barrel.

any pro and cons thanks for the help

[leadeye]

Fine revolver, I have a 5 1/2 stainless. Tough to beat any 240-265 grain gas checked boolit on top of 2400. Different guns will like different combinations better but I have found that you can't go wrong with these.

[kingstrider]

+1

I also use a similar load in my .44s and it works well. The 5-1/2" barrel would also be my choice for the .44 Blackhawk. You'll find they are built like tanks and do quite well for the handloader.

[targetshootr]

A Ruger Bisley in 44 or 45 is hard to beat. Try Universal too. It's almost identical to Unique but burns cleaner and you get more for your buck with 9 or 10 gr per shot.

[Thumbcocker]

Keith style boolit over 18.5 of 2400 or 22 grns of IMR 4227 will shoot through a deer longways at any range you can hit them. Exit hole is about the size of a golf ball. A good practice/utility load is the same boolit over 6.5 of red dot. Good accuracy and over 1000 shots per pound of powder. My .44 Bisley 5.5 ain't for sale and neither is her .45 colt sister.

The .44 is the gun in my avitar.

[Dale53]

I get excellent results with .44 Specials, .44 Magnum, .45 Colt all with plain base lead bullets. Excellent on paper as well as big game (large whitetail deer). I have NEVER had an accuracy problem nor a leading problem with well designed plain base lead bullets.

Dale53

[EDK]

Almost all of my 357 and 44 Rugers are 5.5 inch barrels...VAQUEROS/BISLEY VAQUEROS and some adjustable sight siblings. I cowboy shoot a little and woods walk a lot. The 5.5 inch guns carry well and perform better than 4 5/8 inch guns for me. I have fairly large hands and switch the grip frames to either HUNTER/DRAGOON or BISLEY configurations. You can get by on the XR3-RED grip frame by using flat bottom grips like EAGLE GRIPS Gunfighter model.

A stainless gun is a bit heavier, but carries well and maintenance is a lot easier. All you need is better grips and a trigger job by a knowledgable gunsmith, although installing a BOWEN TARGET rear sight really helped my shooting.

A 44 stainless BISLEY is another option, but they are limited editions and a little more expensive. BUT they're worth it.

:Fire::cbpour::redneck:

[freedom475]

I would strongly suggest the Super Black Hawk in the 44 caliber. The BH is just a little tough to shoot well with the smaller grip frame. Just my opinion but I have both and the SBH is a lot easier to shoot...

If hunting is what you have in mind I would also suggest the 7 1/2 in barrel. The 5 1/2 is great for packing or horseback but the 7 1/2 sure makes long distance work a lot easier. It's also a little easier on the ears:mrgreen: still deafning!

[jack19512]

I am wanting to get a ruger 44 mag for hunting and need some advice from those who know more than I do.






Well, I am pretty sure that excludes me. But I did buy one of the 50th anniversary 44 mag's and I planned on deer hunting with it this year. It may not be the best pick but I think it will do just fine. That is if I ever get it back from Ruger and if it does better than it did before I sent it back to them. :(

[Whitworth]

redriverhunter -- what do you intend to hunt, if I may ask?

[Shuz]

I don't pretend to know more than you do!!!
I have been using the .44 mag with cast boolits on deer since 1963. My favorite bbl length is 5 to 5-1/2"s. I have a Ruger KS45N and several S&W 629 Classics in 5". My favorite cast boolits are 429421 and it's clones,429640, and 429215. I have found that 2400 is an easy powder to get good groups with. I use a std Rem 2-1/2 primer with 2400. Another good powder is WC820, but it's supply seems to be drying up. I use CCI350Mag primers with it. WW296 and H-110 have also been used successfully down thru the years. Have fun with your new handgun!

[redriverhunter]

thanks for all the replies
I will hunt deer and pigs with it

[44man]

For the primary hunting gun, get the 7-1/2". For backup, the shorter barrel is OK.
I use the 10" for deer but you need practice to hold it up. Short barrels are harder to shoot and will limit range. I have no problem dropping deer to 100 yd's.
If it is your hunting gun, don't worry about a longer barrel.
It takes a very experienced shooter to shoot a short barrel at the longer ranges.

[acsteve]

love the 5 1/2" stainless SBH. The 7 1/2 is a slight bit easier to shoot well. If you are going to cast pick up a lee 200 gr for plinking, 265 Ranch dog boolit or maybe a LBT type if you dont mind spending +$100. Beartooth sells a really nice looking wfn in many weights for the 44 so you can determine the style you like best. I think that the Ranch dog is hard to beat for the $$. Not sure if you really need more than 1000ft/s or so for deer. ???

[Heavy lead]

I started hunting deer with a 44 in the early 80's. Dad had a 29 with a 10 5/8 barrel with the front 4 position silhouette sight. Great handgun to get started with. Always shot j-bullets until I grew up in my mid 20's and decided cast shot just as well. Then I really grew up in my mid 30's and started casting. Went through all sorts of boolit designs and all sorts of H 110 and WW 296 with 300 gas checks. Have now settled on the old fashioned Keith 250 grain (Lyman's latest version 4 banger, but really prefer the RCBS 250K. All these are shot with the plain old 9.5 grains of Unique at about 1050 fps out of a 5.5" Redhawk or SBH cut down to 5.5" seems to kill deer just fine out to 75 yards. I'm not good enough to hit them longer without a scope, I envy the guys who can, but I can't. The last two years I've been using the one ragged hole peep sights for most of my adjustable sighted Rugers and love them. My recommendation if I could only have one handgun to hunt with would be the SBH Bisley Hunter (I love the Bisley frame) with a 2 power Leupold you could pop off and use the open sights if you chose. But this is a 7.5" barrel, and is much harder to carry. For WIW that's MO.

[big dale]

Great choice!

I have had either a Ruger 41 Mag or a Ruger 44 Mag every weekend except for one since 1966. I started casting and reloading for them after I shot my first two boxes of shells. I have tried just about every load for them that you could imagine except for the 310 grain boolits and I have bought a mold for them. I would suggest getting one mold for a Keith style bullet weighing between 240 and 260 grains and just shoot the hell out of it. Work up two loads, one for hunting which will be a full load for just as much noise and recoil as you can stand along with great accuracy. The other load should be the same boolit and with some powder that gives you a very comfortable load to shoot that is somewhere between 900 and 1100 fps and gives excellent accuracy. It is a lot simpler to leave the dies and the sights adjusted for one bullet weight. I like using Herco for this load, but there are probably a half dozen powders that are suitable for this. This is the load you will shoot about 95% of the time if you are anything like me. You will find that once you put about 50 thousand of these thru your Ruger that it has one of the smoothest triggers that you can possibly imagine and long before then you will find a big ole grin on your face each time you pick up the gun.

I will give you another tip free of charge and that is that when flinchitus sets in after shooting too many full loads, load a cylinder from time to time with a couple of full loads and the rest with normal loads, but leave one chamber empty and spin the cylinder before you shoot them. Sometimes when you go to the gravel pit to shoot with some friends, you can do this to each other, and you may cuss each other, but all will learn to shoot better.

Why don't you shoot both a Blackhawk and a Superblackhawk before you buy the gun? I find that the Superblackhawk fits my hand better.

You could do a lot worst than going ahead and get in on MMA's 44 Keith SWC buy that is going on now and getting a six cavity mold for that gun. It should take Lee about 9 months to build them and I bet you will be ready for it by then.

If I was restricted to only one handgun it would be a Superblackhawk. My current one has had the barrel shortened to 4 5/8 inch. I plan to wander around a gun show this weekend to look for another old model Superblackhawk that I will leave an 7.5 inch barrel. It don't bother me to keep the hammer down on an empty chamber...If five rounds of 44 arn't enough then they can just go ahead and call the coroner.

Go ahead and spend the bucks for a good holster for this gun. I am still using one I had made for me back in 1966. I guess that means it has cost me about a buck a year to use it for over 40 years now.

I have enjoyed thousands of hours walking thru the woods wearing this rig and shooting at dirt clods.

As always, have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

[big dale]

Great choice!

I have had either a Ruger 41 Mag or a Ruger 44 Mag every weekend except for one since 1966. I started casting and reloading for them after I shot my first two boxes of shells. I have tried just about every load for them that you could imagine except for the 310 grain boolits and I have bought a mold for them. I would suggest getting one mold for a Keith style bullet weighing between 240 and 260 grains and just shoot the hell out of it. Work up two loads, one for hunting which will be a full load for just as much noise and recoil as you can stand along with great accuracy. The other load should be the same boolit and with some powder that gives you a very comfortable load to shoot that is somewhere between 900 and 1100 fps and gives excellent accuracy. It is a lot simpler to leave the dies and the sights adjusted for one bullet weight. I like using Herco for this load, but there are probably a half dozen powders that are suitable for this. This is the load you will shoot about 95% of the time if you are anything like me. You will find that once you put about 50 thousand of these thru your Ruger that it has one of the smoothest triggers that you can possibly imagine and long before then you will find a big ole grin on your face each time you pick up the gun.

I will give you another tip free of charge and that is that when flinchitus sets in after shooting too many full loads, load a cylinder from time to time with a couple of full loads and the rest with normal loads, but leave one chamber empty and spin the cylinder before you shoot them. Sometimes when you go to the gravel pit to shoot with some friends, you can do this to each other, and you may cuss each other, but all will learn to shoot better.

Why don't you shoot both a Blackhawk and a Superblackhawk before you buy the gun? I find that the Superblackhawk fits my hand better.

You could do a lot worst than going ahead and get in on MMA's 44 Keith SWC buy that is going on now and getting a six cavity mold for that gun. It should take Lee about 9 months to build them and I bet you will be ready for it by then.

If I was restricted to only one handgun it would be a Superblackhawk. My current one has had the barrel shortened to 4 5/8 inch. I plan to wander around a gun show this weekend to look for another old model Superblackhawk that I will leave an 7.5 inch barrel. It don't bother me to keep the hammer down on an empty chamber...If five rounds of 44 arn't enough then they can just go ahead and call the coroner.

Go ahead and spend the bucks for a good holster for this gun. I am still using one I had made for me back in 1966. I guess that means it has cost me about a buck a year to use it for over 40 years now.

I have enjoyed thousands of hours walking thru the woods wearing this rig and shooting at dirt clods.

As always, have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

[44man]

Hey guys, carry this one! :Fire:

[44man]

I found my cannon will fit in an Uncle Mikes shoulder holster made for the 14" scoped TC. $33 from Midsouth.
I also use the 6' utility sling on a stud in the butt. I can carry it at my side with my hand on the grip and the weight is hanging from the sling.
Works great from a tree stand too so when I doze, the gun can't fall.
Definitely not a back up gun! Just a one hand rifle! :mrgreen:

[jhalcott]

Maryland limits handgun barrel length to AT LEAST 6 inches for hunting! So mine is the 7 1/2inch version. I have used shorter barrel AND longer,too. I find the 6 to 8 inch barrel best for all around use. The short barrel ,less than 6", is easier to get on target quickly. The long barrel, 8"+, makes quite long shots easier due to the sight length. I use 240 grain bullets for deer and even ground hogs.