Hey sw282, NEVER too old! Got pics of that PC Hunter? I love some of the PC 44s!

http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/s...playErrorView_Y


Here it is Vance....The Reddot is a Leepers l think..From the factory...$36 @ midwayUSA....My first experience with a reddot of any kind..After 260rds thru the gun it has not moved...My wife got me a little Bushnell 25 for Christmas.. The optics are MUCH clearer thru the Bushnell..l just cant understand why the factory put such a cheap site on it.. Kinda like putting a Tasco on a Jarrett Rifle

Beautiful gun! You do a
have to wonder on their red dot selection! But, hey it's working :-)

I've always had good penetration with LBT style bullets. For deer I'm sure the controlled expansion JHP's would work well, but where I hunt you also have the chance for black bear, so I just stick with my hard cast LBT's just in case I run into a large bear. For the pigs here, the 320gr hard cast LBT style bullets at 1150 fps punched through both shoulders of both pigs and went right out the other side, 2 shots and 2 hogs. Both pigs went down in < 20 yds of where shot. Photo is about 10 years old, I don't have a good photo of any more recent pigs with my handgun.


Big Bore Sixgun For Hogs by Mr. McPorkchop!, on Flickr

Hard cast! I've no problem w/most JFP's. I've used Sierra 300, Speer 270 & 300, Cor-bon Bonded Core(all of them), Nosler Partition Gold (not really a flat point). The problem is they don't do anything any better than a hard cast. Hollow points I've used XTP's, Remington 275's, & Winchester 265's. The XTP failed & I'll never use them again. If I had to use jacketed for deer it would be the Sierra 300. Never used the Swift A-Frames but they should be like the Partitions. Hard cast work predictably every time, every angle. Years ago this debate was taken up in an article between Sheriff Jim Wilson & Dick Metcalf. Metcalf advocated jacketed but I never liked him.

I've seen gel tests and real world animal tests, and you can get 36"s of penetration with a hard cast in a .44mag at pistol velocities. It kind of negates arguing which JHP will penetrate further than another JHP. If you use an appropriate weight JHP it will likely penetrate as much as you would need it to, while opening up some and killing your intended game. But when you are presented with a less than ideal shot angle, or when you are potentially shooting at a mean nasty animal that is coming for you, its nice to know you can just about figure double the JHP penetration with a hard cast bullet, and don't have to worry about jacket separation or what will happen if you center a large bone. My 320gr hard cast bullets in my .45 Colt will penetrate a deer length wise if they will punch .452" diameter holes through both shoulders of a hog and still be buried 18"s into the dirt bank behind the pigs. If all I shot were deer, then yeah an appropriate weight JHP will work fine. But its nice to have one load that will stop deer, pigs, bears, with reliable penetration from any angle.

Living in bear country I use HC for everything,why take a chance.