I would like some input on a good deer size .44 handload for a ruger revolver. Most of our deer in Iowa are good size 200-300 pounds. Any input would be great. Shrades

I think this is a great question Iowa Hunter! Could you do me one favor and tell us weather you reload or not. I know nothing of factory ammo. IF you are talking handloads I would say I like a 240 or 300 XTP with 2400in the SBH because it is much more user friendly to the shooter compared to H110 or 296!

my redhawk likes 21.0gr of 2400 with a 240gr xtp. a 240gr should be plenty for any deer walkin.

Yes I do reload, and I have been shooting 240gr. semi wad cutter. Other info is written down on my reloading bench.
Thanks

That is pretty much my load. My gun and hands both like it!

My groups tend to go south when I go over 20gr of 2400 on the 240 XTP.

my smith likes a 310lee cast with gas check with 2400 pushing it.

14gr of Blue Dot under a Rem 240gr SJHP at 1,300 fps would be great deer medicine. My SRH likes that load. The 240 SJHP will take any deer you encounter.

I am a big fan of the 240 gr R-P HP in the 44 Magnum, but I prefer it over 24.0 gr of H-110, which generates 1447 fps from my 629 Classic DX. This is a book load, but it is close to maximum, so work up for your gun. I have used this same bullet for almost 40 years with great success. Long before I became a handgun hunter, I used it in a Ruger .44 Carbine to slay whitetails in the Louisiana hills. IMHO, it is just about the perfect deer bullet for the 44 Magnum, and disgustingly cheap in larger quantities.

AT THE RISK OF OFFENDING. LIGHT JACKETED BULLETS DON'T ALWAYS EXIT. HAL SWIGGET SAID IT BEST. "LOSE BULLETS FIND GAME" HARD CAST 300 GR FLAT POINTS DO IT ALL. TO MY FELLOW IOWA HUNTER MY SBH FROM MAG-NA-PORT SPITS THEM OUT IN TIGHT LITTLE GROUPS. FROM CAST PERFORMANCE. WORK UP YOUR OWN LOAD & NEVER LOOK BACK. IF IT HAS TO BE JACKETED USE FLATS OR PARTITIONS. I'VE HAD 300 GR XTP'S FAIL TO EXIT SMALL DEER. UNACCEPTABLE!

Taking a whitetail with the SBH is in my plans for this coming hunting season. I have failed miserably on several occasions because of accuracy issues, I think, and probably not bullet performance issues. The longer barreled 44s are a different animal as compared to what us short barreled folks are confronted with. Even scoping the hunting shortbarreled handgun has it's difficulties. An accurate load from the bench at your hunting distance with your hand cannon of choice is a must and is not always an easy task. If you decide on shooting hard cast the process becomes even more daunting. Now add the fact that you will be hunting and not shooting from the bench and the task takes on another demension.

Accuracy and speed with the XTPs will be your variables. You need to push these rascals to get the performance down range on game.

With hard cast the velocity factor is only a factor for accuracy downrange. The performance of the bullet only requires that it go through the intended game. That can be accomplished on deer at very low velocities.

The soft swagged bullets like the ones from Hornady do not have the wide meplat that is needed for hunting but are accurate in most guns and probably would hold together on deer size game at distances that are reasonable. These can't be pushed at the higher velocities without excessive leading.

All this is overwhelming till you hit a succesful combination in which you become confident in. That is where I am. Until the rubber meets the road the jury is out for me.

I have my load for this year, I think and if my "in tree" accuracy is up to the task, we will see what the hard cast Beartooth 250 gr LFNGC will do.

I know what they do out of the 20 inch Marlin 1894 at about 1500 fps at the muzzel. Devistating. They will shoot through any deer stem to stern even if it hits every bone in its body.

I SECOND CHIEF'S THAUGHTS. MINUS THE TERMINOLOGY THE FAT FLAT CAST BULLETS HAVE ALWAYS WORKED BEST FOR ME. I REPEATEDLY GET PASS THROUGHS LENGTH WISE ON DEER WITH 300'S FROM CPB CO. I AM RATHER NARROW IN EXPERIMENTATION THOUGH. I'VE USED CPB 300'S 44 & 250 (IN 41MAG), SSK 320'S, SPEER 270 GOLD DOT, CORBON BC 280, & SIERRA 300 FP'S. ALL GOOD. 300 XTP'S, REM 240 HP'S, & REM 275 HP'S. ALL BAD. THE HOLLOW POINTS WERE AT THE BEGINNING OF MY EXPERIMENTS. NEVER LIKED THE RESULTS. STARTED READING UP ON TAFFIN, SWIGGET, & OTHERS I LEARNED BETTER.

Bingo, I remember using the 300gr XTP in my handload for my FA`s 454 that was running at 1450 FPS. A real nice buck was feeding at the treeline at 93yds (rangefinder). I could tell he was ready to leave when the only shot was a quarter away at the rear of the right rib cage. I took the shot and wathched him run off.
Had a smoke and looked not finding any blood. About 20yds away the deer struggled to get up when I finished with a shot through the lungs.The point I`am trying to make is that if this deer did not lay up only 20yds away I might have lost him because the bullet stopped under the skin of the left shoulder without complete penetration thereby not leaving a blood trail. When that "less then perfect" shot presents itself on a trophy animal
I want complete pentration for that blood trail.Hal Swigget knows what he`s talking about....Good hunting, James

I have a 445 sm 14" barrel. You think the hard cast bullet with gas check would work? whatwould you suggest.

You are not offending but it have to ask two questions. First what did the bullet look like and what did the deer do. I shot a deer with a 7-30 Waters at 20 yards. The load was a 140 Nosler with 33.3 of H335. The bullet never exited. BUT it did its job. The bullet when it the top right chest cavity, note that I was in a tree shooting down, and I found this right above his groin. The deer sat down and never moved.

The bullet mushroomed too soon & penetrated too little. It was the doe's shoulder quartering toward me right to left about 21 paces. 7 1/2" SBH. She hunched, bucked, & ran like hell. Good thing for the snow & a buddy near by. There was blood, hair, & bone fragments every where. She went a good 400-500 yards bleeding inside. Very little blood trail with no exit. However your 7-30 which I have & love! Is a rifle cartridge w/rifle bullets at similar velocities. There is a "shock" quantity with those cartridges that pistol rounds just don't have. They need penetration for a clean kill. I leen toward big bore revolvers just because I like them. No other good reason. When I mentioned light jacketed bullets I meant under 250 gr in the .41-.45 category in revolvers. I should have been more specific. That said I hope to get an old Marlin converted to 7-30 for my daughter when she's old enough to hunt. Mine is a T/C.

That was exactly the reason I was asking. I know just enough about the performance of big bore revolvers to get me in trouble. Something I want to fix this fall. LOL! I am use too a 54 Flintlock shooting a 232gr round ball. It is funny, I don’t get much expansion but 99% of the time the deer just fall over. In short, the reason I am asking questions is because I have learned to care what the bullet did and not what it looked like when all was said and done.

By the way, WELCOME to the sight.

Many of us have our opinions on these matters and they are based on our personal experiences with different bullets & types. For non-rifle type cartridges I certainly agree that a cast bullet will penetrate better than an HP but will add that when using a hard-cast bullet it works the best when you shoot into a shoulder bone and hopefully break the shoulder. A high shoulder shot with a cast or other non-expanding bullet can quickly turn into a lost animal unless the spine is disrupted. Be particularly attentive to animals that drop on the spot. Sometimes they are only very temporarily paralyzed and if they get back on their feet and you haven't gotten another shot into them you may well have a very long day ahead.

I've shot game with cast bullets and yes they penetrated completely but I've also had a number of those shots leave very little or no blood trail because the exit hole has effectively closed up and is the diameter of the slug. Cast bullets don't do as much internal damage as will an expanding bullet. Really there is no perfect bullet for all situations and you simply have to decide what you're more comfortable with.

Personally, for deer and similar sized game, I prefer a bullet that is expanding and consider the Nosler Partition HG or the Swift A-Frame to be about the best of both worlds. They are also very accurate in my guns. If I'm shooting something larger, then I would use either a hard-cast bullet or a JSP depending on what I intend to shoot. For some reason a JSP bullet doesn't seem to get much press these days; all of the discussions seem to be hard-cast vs. JHP.

I've had XTP's do some funny things when you start driving them fast. The only explanation I can come up with is that perhaps they were designed to expand well at muzzle velocities of 12-1300 (44 Mag. velocities) and when you start getting away from that too much then they may not perform as desired.

your right on about that high shot Gary, I lost a nice 3x3 muley a few years ago. I had a BFR running 440gr CP's @ 1660fps but I hit just behind the shoulder and high, the deer buckled and I saw a nickle sized spot where the bullet hit but then he took off. We looked for 3 hours until dark and found no blood and I lost his tracks. We went back the next morning and looked for another 3 or 4 hours and found absolutely nothing. Point to all that is that I could have taken an elephant with that load but because my shot was off by a couple inches it failed to drop a 200lb deer. That day was the biggest confidence crushing day in my hunting career and is why I've had a problem just leaving my rifles at home. To this day I'm paranoid of making a bad shot with my revolvers and losing another animal.

Thanks for the welcome TCman. My second big bore was a T/C frame w/Bulberry Barrel in 44mag. I know I'm oppinionated Gary I do try to keep it in check. I've used the 260 Nosler PGH once in a 454 Raging Bull & witnessed it several times in it's owners hands. He swears by that load & it got me my second largest deer ever. I've used & seen another friend use the 270 Gold Dot many times. It's his only load. In short it works every time. It's those JHP's I care very little for on deer size critters. The only other game I've shot w/my cast bullets are hogs (hawgs?) & javelina. I agree w/you Gary. My standard deer load in my Mod 83 454 is a 260 JSP. I wanted to go bigger but it worked so well I never changed it. Change is bad! But, I feel the 454 & now the 460/500mags really are diferent animals from the 44 in some ways.

Sorry Patch we left you hanging. It should work. We know hard casts work in the 44 & 454 etc. It's just a real fast 44 as I understand it. A lot of old salts used them in Dan Wessons. No offense to those uh more experienced than I. I shot a 445 on a friends contender once it was cool.

Rod,

Losing one like that can happen with any caliber if the bullet is too hard. I had a problem with an aoudad once that I shot with a 270 gr. .375 bullet. I did recover it but it took several hours and a couple more shots; I was fortunate.

That is interesting about the XTP bullets. It is funny that Hornady has the 44 XTP bullet listed at velocities of 1000-2400. I also know there has to be an optimum velocity somewhere in that spectrum. But I also can’t complain about a 300 XTP bullet that is shooting a 2in group at 100 yards in my SRH.

The XTP's typically shoot very well and I would lean towards the heavier versions for whitetails or hogs. I wouldn't use them on anything bigger especially at the higher velocities.

Well, that makes me feel better that I am at least shooting the 300 grain! LOL. Thanks Gary!

Sierra used to make a .4295 300gr flat nose jacketed. Could be the best of both worlds if your gun likes it. All I've ever used was
H110. Pressure gets out of control too fast with 2400. 296 is close but never performed as well as H110 for me at least. I tried playing with hard cast in the 454 but have not achieved the accuracy I have with jacketed bullets. I have not put as much into developement as I did the jacketed bullets I might add.

I haven't used them but I've been thinking for quite a while now about trying the Hawk bullets. The cost is in line with other premium bullets like the partition but you can order the same caliber and weight bullet with different jacket thickness to match the velocity of your gun and the type of animal being hunted. I've particularly been looking at a .410 caliber bullet they have listed in their rifle section, it's a 235gr flat nose soft point I'm looking at for my 410GNR because everything I find from the standard manufactures are hollow points unless I go hard cast. They have a neat website with information on handgun hunting and an article on terminal ballistics that's worth reading. http://www.hawkbullets.com

I just worked up a load for my .460 for whitetail this hunting season. 48.0 gr. of H110 with a 240 gr. Hornady XTP. Hope this works .

Any thaughts on how fast that thing will go? Doe's Hornady recomend it? That rocket launcher of yours may be too much for it! Years ago a lot of jacketed bullets couldn't be used in a 454 because the pressures & velocities were just too much. It could melt on reentry.

The Hornady max load for the 260gr Partition is only about 2gr less than that with H110 and it was the most accurate load my 460 had, it would shoot moa at 2000fps

I use 300 XTPs sitting on top of 18.5 gr of 296 for black bears and wouldn't hesitate to use them on Brownies. I use to use lead and it worked, sometimes. I found that the cast bullets would penetrate like no ones business but did not do as much damage as the XTPs. I guess I like my bullets to expand like the XTPs. Note the Hornady webpage does tell you that the XTPs are designed for certain speeds. Shoot straight.

here is the info off their website and in fact it shows the difference between the mag and the standard xtp which is something I've brought up before because there seemed to be some confusion over their being two variations of the XTP.

XTP™ - Controlled expansion with deep penetration.

Recommended muzzle velocity range: 700 to 1500 fps

XTP MAG™ - Controlled expansion with deep penetration at higher velocities than the original XTP.

Recommended muzzle velocity range: 1200 to 2300 fps

Not a handgun but of the 4 deer I have shot using cast bullets (45/70 using a 405 grain Cast Performance WLN bullet), 2 ran, leaving no blood trail and were never recovered, 1 ran 30 yards and laid down (no blood trail) and 1 dropped immediately due to a neck shot.

Using same gun with a 300 grain Hornady HP last year, I am 1 for 1 on a doe that ran ~ 30 yards but left a substantial blood trail.

This is just my opinion, but given the anatomy of a whitetail and the selection of quality expanding bullets there is really no need to use a cast bullet on deer. With that said, I usually shoot a couple every year with a cast bullet. The best case for a a cast bullet is when you need deep penetration — if you don't then use a bullet that will expand.