44 mag rifle reloads.

[jmarriott]

I took my first deer this year with my handloads. Hopefully another in the next few days.

Close shot at a deer maybe 20 yards max but more like 10. Perfect heart lung and I got that great big back leg kick. Thing is the 130 pound field dressed doe ran a good 60 yards after the hit. Not a huge blood trail but some and almost all the blood inside the deer chest cavity mot on the ground. I am not complaining about the load or the effect it has had and I find that this is normal for my gun with a chest shot that deer is running dead with my handloads and winchester white box.

I guess my question would be should I look at the XTP hollow points for more put down power and a bigger blood trail. I mean I am punching a 44 cal hole in something. I figured at 20 yards the shock would knock em down on the spot. I also understand they are running dead and if I wanted to keep them from running i could take out both front shoulders. Maybe a little more knockdown power and a bigger exit hole.

doing 24 grain of h110 and a 240 JSP bullet with WLP mag primers. Basically a little faster WWB load. It shoots very well with these group wise. I am thinking that maybe the XTP is good as most folks go ape over this bullet in the 44 mag. Just that big old hole in the front of it seems like a big old wind channel and would make them less stable. OR should I go up in powder chage a bit. 24 grains seems to be the sweet spot for accuracy. I worked up in .5 grains from 23 to 25 and the 24 seemed to group at 75 best. Yet i saw little differance after 23.5 to 25. 23 was the worst ones.

[dovehunter]

I have only shot one deer with a .44 mag. - four times with one of the old Ruger carbines. Believe it or not, it got away. I know absolutely that I hit the deer too. After that I was not impressed with the .44 mag. as a deer round. I sold my loading dies and traded off the rifle for an electric trolling motor.

[Jack]

The 44 magnum in a rifle. . . it's always been my observation, based on zero empirical evidence, that 44 magnum bullets are designed to work best at handgun velocities, just because most 44 magnum firearms are handguns, and bullet designers have to accomodate that. Since rifles shoot the same bullet 3-400 fps faster than the typical revolver, bullets open faster and farther from a rifle, and therefore penetrate less.
I have one of the old Ruger 44 auto loaders. Mine works fine. I use Speer 240 soft points in mine, thinking the soft points will not expand as much as a similar hollow point. I can't say I've killed enough deer with it to make any solid conclusions, but I can say I've gotten an exit wound. Hodgdon says 24 grains of H110 is a maximum load for the 240 grain bullet, and it definitely is in my rifle- I use a bit less.
For deeper penetration in the 44 magnum, you might try a cast bullet, or a heavier jacketed one, like Hornady's 265 that's designed for the 444 Marlin. I expect that bullet will penetrate, but I don't know how much it would expand. Nosler makes a 250 grain Partition, too- I'm sure that would expand, and penetrate.
I think another thing to keep in mind is, while the 44 magnum might be a rip roaring handgun cartridge, compared to most rifle cartridges, the 44 is not super powerful. Clearly, the 44 is enough to kill a deer, but it doesn't deliver the wallop that a 308 or 270 does.

[jmarriott]

I know it is not the most powerful round ever, I always get exit wounds and have even shot deer from front to back with exit. I just figured that at 10-20 yards I would have knocked the deer down right where she stood. No deer has ran more than 60 yards when shot with it. It always kills them quick, but the lack of the blood trail gets me. A drop or two but open up the chest cavity and all the blood is inside (this could be because I am making good shots of the deer right in the heart) I have seen deer on tv take a hit with a 308 and still run 50 yards or so and then drop.


. I have been using remington JSP bullets. My old reloading manual said I could max out at 25 grains of h110, the newer one said 24 grains.

Dad has shot 3 with his and get this each one has traveled less than a single step. Now his is a 20 inch barrel and mine is a 16 inch. I will just get me some XTP's and see if I can get them to shoot as well as the JSP. The bigger bullets start to tumble. Anything over 265 tumbles very quickly and I think the 265's will also tumble wuicker than the 240 as I have seen a few key holed shot with the 265 grain bullets.

[jmarriott]

I think the XTP's are going to work well. It opens up the group a little over the JSP's but only a little.

I worked up from 22 grains of h110 to 24 and Jack was right seems 23.5 is a sweet spot.

For some fun we shot at an old truck door at the dump at my uncles. The JSP went right through and opened up one the second metal inside just a bit. The XTP's went through both door panels and on the second one it looked as if you could stick a screwdriver handle in the hole. about twice the exit wound size compaired to the JSP's.

That should make a better blood trail. When i opened up the last few deer i have shot with it all the blood from the whole system seemed to be inside the cavity of the chest. Now with a bigger exit hole maybe a little will hit the ground.

[bounce]

I like my 45 LC at 1700 ft/sec at 120 yds or less, beyond that a differant rifle is addvisable.

[jmarriott]

We have weird game laws in Indiana. so the 44 mag is a good choice of what we can shoot without a big expense of custom reamers dies and such. Now I can shoot a 300 win mag in a pistol and be legal but not even a 243 in a rifle.

I had worked on a 1.8 inch brass 35 rem but my old marlin 336 did not respond real well to trimming the brass or the neck was just to short to hold the bullet correctly. Even with lee factory crimp dies. I think with the 35 rem being a semi auto round and the marlin 336 being a rimmed 30-30 rifle when the 2 are mixed you can get light primer strikes as the 35 rem rests on the shoulder and the 30-30 on the rim. I got 2 rounds that would not fire in the 336 but did fire in my contender so I kind of gave up on the indiana legal 1.8 inch 35 rem. At least in a repeater. then again in the last 10 years I only had to shoot a deer twice just one time. That was to keep it on the right side of a property line.

I can not remember the last time where I hunt that any shot over 120 yards was normal. I have an afternoon stand that is open fields and a few years ago we had one big buck that loved to lay down on a small hill in the middle of a cut 1 mile square field.

Of the last 15 deer I have shot only one was over 100 yards. I would bet with last years fog doe the average was 30 yards or less since that one was about 10 yards away. The fog was so thick that at 12 yards it would have dissapeared away.

[bounce]

A 45-70 is only a 150 yard max so 120 is pretty darn good for a long colt realy. Mine has 3 deer to it's creadit sence I have had it. The Tauraus colt copy pump.

[jmarriott]

I looked at the 45 long colt 1894 ss limited marlin when I bought my 44 mag version. For one time in my life I should have broke out the credit card and bought all 3 rifles my local gun pusher had. He got one each of the 357, 45 colt and 44 mag limited stainless steel marlin rifles. The 16 inch shorties now go for over 1300 each and they made 251 of each. I paid 539 plus tax for the 44 mag and could have bought all for 500 each.

The 45 colt has a better twist rate then the one in thrity eight 44 mag. At the time I did not have a reloading setup so I bought the 44 mag for the better factory ammo than the 45 clt and bigger hole in the deer than the 357. If I had known now that the handloading whould do so much for the 45 colt round and I could shoot the bigger weight bullets I think my mind whould have changed.

The only other time I should have used the Credit Card was to get my lifetime hunting tag here in Indiana.

I hate CC debit. I should have gone all in on those riffles and the tag for life.