the 300 is significantly better than the 240 in the .44 mag realm, but if ya jump to the 454 the 240 xtp mags have held together and expanded well for me as well, nothing as good as the barnes imho on penetration or integrity, no expandable matches them that i have used.
I can agree with that, the mag XTP is a good bullet but they don't make a mag for the .44. I really like the 240 XTP for it's accuracy and expected more penetration on a behind the shoulder shot but I found all 3 bullets. They killed very, very well and fast. I was where I could see them go down but what worried me was when I back tracked them to where they were hit. I found almost no blood at all. Many places I hunt, the deer are out of sight in seconds and it is worse when they are shot at the last minutes of daylight and it gets dark when you look for them.
The 240 was designed to start to open at low velocities, even in the .44 special. Speed it up and it balloons quick into a perfect mushroom but that stops penetration. I would not want to hit big bones with it. Now I don't know what it does at 1700 FPS as far as being shot from a short rifle (TC pistol) but the added velocity should add to penetration. So we again get into comparing apples to oranges by bringing in different guns and different size animals.
Anyway I went to the 320 gr LBT for the .44 and never looked back. Blood starts at impact and you can run on the trail, the deer will be empty in 30 yards or less. Hit the shoulders and they drop. I hate to buy them so I made a mold and it came out 330 gr. It works the same. So does the 310 gr Lee and 300 gr LBT's and the RD 265 gr should be good.
Yes, hard works fine with lung shots from a .44 revolver but if you take the velocity real high with hard, shoot the shoulders.
I have been an archer all my life and it is hard to change where I shoot, you don't shoot arrows into shoulders. After over 250 deer with a bow, aim and shot is ingrown to behind the shoulder.
You see, it works two ways with high velocity and hard , over and above my hard boolit limit. Lung shots can fail so shoot the shoulders. Make the boolit expand and it is good in lungs. But maybe you don't want a shoulder hit with them!
This can happen from a revolver at high velocity and the perfect lung boolit if it hits a shoulder. I took the shoulder off and it was destroyed, you can see what it did to the rest of the carcass.
Now a shoulder shot with a hard boolit from the .475 at the velocity that works no matter where you shoot a deer.
