I had an opportunity to get out and sight in my handguns, which was quite important due to the fact that gun season opens in the morning. I know, I know, I'm a procrastinator, but hey, I got it done, right?

Anyway, I took out the two handguns I'd like to attempt to use this year: my T/C Encore with a 15" MGM 460 S&W barrel, and a 7.5" barreled Ruger Super Redhawk 44 Magnum. Having acquired two boxes of the brand new Hornady Handgun Hunter line of ammo for each caliber, I decided to go through a whole box to get a good reading on their velocity and accuracy.

Long story short:

460 S&W - Average velocity 2,493 fps, 18 fps standard deviation. This was a modestly accurate load, capable of sub 1.5 MOA 3-shot groups.

44 Magnum - Average velocity 1,488 fps, 21 fps standard deviation. I didn't exactly shoot for groups, being an open sight gun, but I managed to dial it in at 20 and 30 yards.

Both loads were a bit more mildly recoiling than comparable loads. The 460 in particular will shoot the same weight 200 grain FTX factory loads to ~2,700 fps. This isn't too surprising if you think about it. Being solid copper bullets, the Monoflex bullets probably take up a lot more powder capacity than their lead counterparts. Still, it'll be interesting to see if I couldn't improve on their accuracy and velocity once the bullets become available as components. I imagine seating the bullet out further and pushing it with a healthy charge of Accurate No. 9 would be a notable improvement.

Thats great. Nothing like having the barrels warmed up for the next days hunt.
I have been looking around for some of the Hornady ammo but can only find it in 10MM around here. My Encore 15" is shooting the 200 grain XTB Barnes and is very accurate. I hope to take a deer with it this year. Been seeing a lot of deer, doe, small bucks and a couple of large bucks on cameras around my stands in the last month. Going after them tomorrow and all next week. I'm carrying my longbow I just built and the .460 if then don't want to get in close.
Good luck on your hunt.
Mike

I hoped to shoot one with my 12" Encore, but no dice. I did take a big Doe yesterday with my 20 gauge Encore.

My 5" SRH averaged about 1270, and my 12" Encore averaged 1590 with the HHH ammo.

Sounds like the way things were going for me. I changed scopes and had a Brake installed on the wife's 30-30AI at the last minute. I took off 20 minutes early Friday before season started to get it zeroed.

My Polarus Ranger is in the hospital waiting parts, and I had the water pump go out on my old farm truck. The garage I normally use was in carpenter mode fixing a wind damaged roof. I did get the truck back up and running at a different garage.

I built a new and improved (much stronger) Fackler Water Box to test bullets in. I guess I will do my testing after season. I did not have time before season to do it. Seems like this year I have been busier than normal.

Bob R

That's interesting. I would have thought you'd see greater velocity gain than that out of the Encore, but then again these don't seem to be the hottest loaded factory ammo out there.

320 FPS increase is about right in my opinion