I work at a sports store and we have had the federal guys there for the past couple of days. they where showing me there 300 grain 44 mag castcore bullet. I was looking at there chart and at a hundred 100yrds the energy is 700ft/lbs and at that distance 1050 ft/sec. I ask them if it would expand at that distance on whitail deer only...My question is what do you all look at for as energy for deer. I know there is a lot more, accuracy is one but all other things ok. will it be ok at 100+ yrds????

Hey Gene,

I've actually shot those bullets quite a bit and it will be fine at 100 yards. They shot very well in my Ruger SBH Hunter and I would get groups about 2.5" at 100 and they left the muzzle at 1275 fps. A cast bullet isn't meant to really expand as compared to the way a jacketed bullet expands. The primary benefit to shooting a cast bullet is the penetration that comes with a heavy slug moving a what are relatively slow velocities compared to rifles. The wide meplat (the font face of the bullet) will help to create a larger wound channel than a non-expanding pointy bullet, like a silhouette bullet, for example. The used to be loaded with a Cast Performance Bullet but I haven't shot them in probably 7-8 years so I'm not sure if they still are or not.

If they are still around you should talk to them about the Vital-Shok loaded with the Swift's too.

Muzzle energy is a marketing tool, with no bearing on real performance on game. High ME figures help ammo manufacturers sell ammo. The castcore wasn't designed to expand, but to penetrate deeply as Gary pointed out. Cast Performance bullets are still being used in that line of ammunition. It's good ammo.

they said that I needed to shoot the shoulder or it would just punch a whole. also they said the swift a-frame at 280gr. It looks like a corelock to me. I have a smith performance center 7.5" 44 with a 4x leo.I am shooting winchester 240gr right now and they are grouping about 3" or less at a 100. So they are doing ok. I was going to try the federal to see how they would group, but If I have to worry about shooting the shoulder, which I try to do any way. sometimes that don't happen. I guess I just need to try the cast and some other brands....I do like a heavier bullet. Any suggestion???
Gary remeber the doe I shot up northern va. with the 7mm08 with a federal fusion and she almost got away and that was at around 125yrds. I think you had left before we recovered her. You went with george homan with the wheelin' Sportsmen.

I have killed a lot of game with wide meplat hard cast bullets and they worked very well. The wide mepalt creates a very good wound channel and kills very well.

Forget FPE as that is a rather poor indicator of terminal performance

I have had lots of luck with Double Tap's 320 grain WFN load. Accurate out of my guns and killed well. I've shot a few hogs with this load. Plus, they are priced well at about $45.00 a box of 50.

Oh yes - I remember. I was a bit disappointed in that hunt that there weren't more opportunities for you guys.

They are right and the best cast bullet performance on game is if you break a shoulder or both if you can. The newer Vital-Shok is a Swift bullet and it's very much like the Nosler Partition HG but with a different profile. They are excellent quality bullets.

Or just move up in diameter......

The gun writers are always using "foot pounds of energy" when they spin their yarns about the big magnum rifles. One of the oldest statements they make is that you need a minimum of 2,000 ft lbs of energy for elk hunting, which can weigh in the neighborhood of 1000 lbs, if thats true then we must need about 4,000 ft lbs for a large Alaskan moose, which is about twice the size of an elk, moving on up the ladder this would suggest 24,000 ft lbs for a 12,000 lb elephant & the shooter would need the weapon of choice mounted on turrent because the recoil would kill both the shooter & the shootie!
Rifles kill by extreme high velocity & bullets constructed to expand rapidly & hopefully penetrate to the vitals, most will do this if the angle isn't too bad, rifle bullets have came a long way & there's some very good one's out there.
Large caliber handguns work a little different, the wide, flatnose delivers a tremendous amount of shock all the way through usually & also leaves an exit wound, so you have 2 holes.
Jacketed handgun bullets have also came a long way in the last 10-15 years, we now have bullets that will give some expansion & most times penetrate deeply, again you have to be careful not to take steep angled "raking" shots on really big game but many large animals have been taken with some of the better jacketed slugs such as Hornady XTP's & the Barnes X line of bullets.
For me at least the very best big bore bullets for big game are cast slugs, I'll get 2 holes everytime from any angle, I'll take that steep angled shot that others have to pass on & my bullet will hit the vitals if I do my part. The expansion is built in, the bullets are around 1/2" in diameter already & will produce a wound channel 1 1/2- 2 times that & do it from end to end. Do I need expansion.... I'll take it if I get it but its not needed, I've been taking big game for over 40 years, I've never, once recovered a cast slug.
I've taken deer, elk, moose, bears, antelope, mountain lion & African game, very few went 50 yds, most went less than 10 yds. The ft lbs of energy from any of them compared to a rifle is very low, yet they still work their magic....everytime.
It will always come down to putting a good bullet in the right place, that and PENETRATION will work 100% of the time.
The Keith slugs, the wonderful LBT style slugs, either LFN (long flat nose) or the WFN (wide flat nose) are great game bullets, equal to any jacketed slug on the market. Run them anywhere from 1000 fps up to 1400 fps & the only limitation is the shooter.
99% of my big game has been taken with big cast bullets at about 1100 fps, others will shoot them much faster, no argument from me, just remember when big bullets start out fast they slow down quite fast until they reach about 1050 fps (read Brian Pearce's article in Handloader) then the velocity loss is much less over distance.
Here's another example of the ft lbs myth. A 223 rifle delivers about 800 ft lbs of energy at 200 yds! A 44 magnum delivers less than 1000 ft lbs of energy at the muzzle, would you use a 223 on elk or bear?

Dick

Amen, Dick!

Dick, what issue of Handloader was that? I don't get them all. Can you give me the short version of his findings?

Hey guys,

thanks that is some good info and you have convinced me to try the cast bullets. I always like a pass thru also and i don't like bad angles, but they happen and that is when you really need a good bullet to do the job. so i guess i will throw some of the heavy weight stuff at them as soon as i can get some. it will be on order. thanks again

Good post, Dick; kinda puts it all in a nutshell.

Nice Job.

Gregg

I have looked over several formulas over the years. Most all have issues. Foot Pounds of Energy does not equate out to any real world performance numbers. I like the TKO formula for Revolvers, however it does not take bullet expansion into account.
Another factor is what game animal you are hunting. A 150 pound deer is not real hard to kill. A large Bull Elk or Large Bear takes a little more performance.

For the Revolver Hunter I think most of the experts on this site will agree that the main requirement is a good size hole in and a good size hole out the other side, at pretty much any angle. With that goal in mind a deer can be shot completely through with about any Magnum 41 and larger. Expanding bullets will get the job done with no problem on all but end to end shots.
Now move up to a large Elk. This side to side shot at any angle will require more horse power than required for a deer. In this case expansion limits penetration. Thus an expanding bullet might not make the required exit hole.
The next issue is using what one would consider enough gun. While most handgun hunters on this site could probably get by with a 41 Magnum loaded with the correct bullet for the application on about any game animal. Most feel more confident with something larger for game of a larger size than deer. Experiance has shown them that a larger hole, and heavier weight bullets will perform better on large game.

If a formula will not relate to performance on game what do we need to consider?
01. Will the bullet go completely through from any angle we are likely to encounter. (Hollow Point, Soft Point or Cast) If it won't pick another bullet.
02. Wound diameter in and out. (Bigger is always better for internal organ damage, and a good blood trail)
03. Can we accurately shoot the Revolver with the power level required to get complete penetration on the game animal we are hunting?
Unfortunately no formula will give you this information. That brings us to ask the experts who have been their and done that. If you are on this site, you have came to the right place to get this information.

Not very scientific.

All of us that play this handgun game have been told over & over again how the mighty 44 magnum has less "power" than the 30/30 & if you live in the world of RIFLE POWER & knockdown & ft lbs of energy then the rifle boys can make us look pretty bad. Problem is there's a whole lot more going on than knockdown power or ft lbs or kinetic energy or what ever fancy term you want to attach to killing a big animal cleanly with an handgun or a rifle.
Look at the 30/06, one of the old time greatest hunting rifles both here & abroad but what happens when you use military hardball ammo in that old 06 & try to take an elk with it, what just happened to your "energy". Yes, military ammo can be quite effective if the full jacketed bullet happens to hit a rib or some other bone & starts to tumble, then it can create quite a wound channel....but if it simply goes through soft tissue you most likely have a wounded & lost elk, no matter what the reloading manuals say, or what some gun writer puts in an article trying to convince us that you need 300 magnums & bigger to take anything bigger than a jackrabbit.
Those of us who are dedicated handgunners threw those paper energy tables away a long time ago & decided that those deer & elk we put in the freezer every fall is all the proof we need that our "underpowered" handguns can go toe to toe with any of the rifle boys hot rock magnums.

Vance: In a nut shell we work with blunt, stubby bullets compared to the rifle boys, our bullets have very low ballistic coefficients & there's not much we can do about it. Even though they start out quite slow they hold their velocity quite well once they drop down to around 1050 fps, this can easily be proven with a chronograph...it isn't hearsay.
In Brian Pearce's article (Handloader #228, April 2004) he makes some comparisons between the 44 magnum with a muzzle velocity of 1400 fps compared to a 44 special that starts at only 1200 fps, here's the clincher, they don't slow down at the same rate, the faster 44 magnum also slows down faster, again this can be proven with anyone's chronograph.
First the 44 magnum at 1400 fps: at 100 yds its slowed down to 1140 fps, the 44 special that started at 1200 fps has only slowed down to 1030 fps at 100 yds...or a difference of about 100 fps, interesting, even though the difference at the muzzle was 200 fps in favor of the mangum.
He states that once these big, heavy bullets slow down to around 1050 fps they then slow down much slower than most people think. What does all this mean, it means that for all that initial speed we get & all that additional recoil we put up with it isn't really helping us as much as most of us might think.
The bullet that he's using is the classic Keith #429421, the most popular 44 bullet of all time. Here's one last interesting note, if you start this 44 magnum bullet at 1050 fps its velocity at 100 yds is about 940 fps, if you start that same bullet at 1400 fps its velocity at 100 yds is the above mentioned 1140 fps, so what startes out as a 350 fps advantage for the magnum has dropped to only a 200 fps advantage at 100 yds!

Dick

I took this Bull with 1 shot that penetrated completely through (exited) muzzle velocity was only 1100 FPS. Yes the bullet was a WLFN hard cast

You still are ahead if you start the bullet out faster; no denying that!

Ahead how? In recoil? Muzzle blast? We will never get anywhere near rifle velocities with our revolvers, but if you start your bullet out fast, they do scrub off speed faster. At moderate velocities they do not at nearly the same rate.

Well there is a tipping point here with handguns and velocity, beyond that level performance drops off but it is not a ballistic tipping point it is a shooter point. We all have a recoil management level where we shoot well, going beyond that point only creates flinching and our accuracy falls off dramatically. We are all far better off shooting a mild load well rather than a fire breathing load poorly.

I run my hunting guns in the 1050fps to 1100fps level, if I want more power I go to a bigger gun not more speed. If I had a long barreled scoped gun where I might be able to take advantage of some increased velocity and flatter trajectory I would probably run that gun harder, maybe. For iron sighted guns at 100 yards or less the trajectory gain you would get from faster bullets would be hidden within the groups you could hold. Heck John Linebaugh has proven time and time again that going faster than 1200fps actually reduces penetration with cast bullets so even that is working against you on game.

Animals die from shock from damaged internal organs not energy, look how effective arrows are at killing big game and they have almost no energy to speak of. Penetration is king...

Over the years at the Linebaugh seminars the penetration tests have shown that the bullets started out at 14-1,500 fps don't penetrate any better than the ones started at 11-1,200 fps. Which I found interesting as that somewhat negates the need for the 475 and 500 Maximum Linebaugh cartridges. The standard Linbaugh cartridges are more than plenty to do the job. In a sensible world this equates to faster follow up shots, less shooter fatigue, and more practice to be a better marksman. It's all good.

One way of looking at this is if you are going to get hit with a tractor trailer in an accident does it really matter if the truck is going 60 miles an hour or 45, the VW bug is not going to know the difference. SPLAT!

I guess we were typing at the same time Fowler.....LOL<LOL

Tigg, in agreement with what you are saying, & taking it a step further yet, if I have read & understood correctly (and my memory is working... Always questionable) Mr. Linebaugh's personal loads in his 475 are basicaly sub max. 480 Ruger level loads. After reading that I definetly got out of the mindset of trying to push my 7.5" SRH 480 to the max & decided on a comfortable 1150fps 400gr hardcast bullet load. Ohhh the freedom!!!
Hopefully I'll get to try it on a moose or brown bear one day...

Amen!

I wouldn't push my .475 to 1,350 if it wasn't so accurate. I am used to the recoil level (I have several revolvers that kick considerably harder anyhow), but more importantly I am really well acquainetd with that load and how it shoots at the ranges I limit myself to. I am afraid to mess with a good thing. That said, my .500 Linebaugh load of choice at the moment, lumbers out of the barrel at 1,100 fps.......

I think John runs his at about 1050fps, I know Dustin runs his 475 with a 425gr LFNGC at 1200fps and says he wished he had picked a milder load when he started out with is Bisley Vaquero 15 or 20 years ago but he is so married to the load after all of these years his shooting falls off when he tries other loads now. Dustin told me a 425gr bullet at 1050fps will kill anything in North America with ease.

i don't need a rifle's velocity to get a flatter trajectory that makes it worth my time. if you practice and can handle the recoil velocity helps in several ways, especially with expandable monometals and xtps. that said, you don't need it. hell a .45 colt with a 310 bullet at 1200fps will kill anything in north america. so will a 300 grain .44 mag bullet