I have a few thoughts and theories on handgun bullets, and my handguns I mean straighwall cased rounds pushing bullets of sd's from .18-.25 at 1200-1500 fps. Unlike centerfire rifle rounds, in most cases with such rounds you can either have sufficient penetration to get consistant exits from all shot angles, or you can get bullets that expand. In general you can't have both.

So the question is, what is better, more internal damage with no exit, or an entrance or exit wound? The answer with all things is, it depends. In some situations a shallower more dramatic would will result in the animal dropping at the spot, or only covering a small stetch before expiring. In other cases the animal covers a fair bit of ground and the entrance and exit provides a better blood trail for tracking. I'm in the camp that prefers deeper penetration as IMHO I'll trade off the bullet that requires everything to go right, for the bullet that is more likely to work when some things go wrong.

The followup is, if you choose to go with a cast bullet for deeper penetration, what designs are the most effective killers? Nearly a century of use seems to show that a cast bullet with a meplat of 70-80% of bullet diameter provides both good penetration and a reasonably large permanent wound channel. As far as caliber and bullet weight, it seems that on the low end a 44 or 45 with a 240-250 gr @ 1000 fps is that point where more good things happen than bad things. Size does matter, and if you can handle the recoil, bigger is better.

I've found the 480 to have the perfect balance of power and recoil. I've lost track of how many rounds I've fired from my 480 but I'm sure it's well over 5000. All cast handloads. As much as I like the 480, I can't imagine having one and not handloading. It is the most accurate revolver I've ever owned and very easy to load for. My target loads of 310 gr cast over 9.7 gr of Unique clock right at 1000 fps and are more accurate than I can shoot, likely moa as I've shot a 1 1/2" 100 yd group with them. More than likely such a load would easily take any deer. My working load is a 400 gr cast over 21.0 gr of H-110 lit off with a CCI 350 for 1200 fps. I've tried that powder charge over 1/2 dozen different cast bullet designs and every one has grouped five shots into 1" at 50 yds. The Lee 400 gr shoots just as well as custom molds from LBT, Ballisticast, Mountain Molds, NEI, RCBS and MP.

As far as "hardcast" I've found straight wheel weight alloy or equivalent either air cooled or water quenched seems to be the ideal hardness to hold the engraving forces of the rifling and resist leading and yet be maleable enough not to shatter when hitting bone.