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 .