2. It is a fact, pressure is irrelevant. What the .44 does with slightly higher pressure, the .45 does with more powder. Net result? The same. The pressure difference is meaningless.
I have to say that I've never heard anybody who knows anything about internal ballistics say that "pressure is irrelevant". In fact, this statement pretty much contradicts everyone I know who has any passing familiarity with internal ballistics. In other words, it's untrue, and frankly, it's dangerous. Now, if you want to follow that lunacy to its limits, that's your business (and your gun, and your hand, and your face). But don't expect to be able to write this on an open forum and expect folks to leave it unchallenged.
When it comes to heavy handguns, pressure is the demon we all have to be wary of. People like Shrapnel have learned this the hard way (hence his alias here on the 24HCF). The handloader who exceeds pressure data does so at his peril.
Sure, you can drive a 300 gr cast bullet out of a .44 to the same velocities you can with a .45, but there is a very real price to be paid, and that price is measured in pounds per square inch. An example, from Hodgdon's data: 320 gr WFN .45 Colt bullet velocity is 1330 fps, and chamber pressure is 32,400 psi; a 320 gr WFN .44 Magnum bullet at 1345 fps generates chamber pressure of 44,000 psi. Virtually identical velocity, but at a much, much higher pressure in the forty-four.
You apparently scoff at this, calling it "slightly higher" pressure. But there's nothing "slight" about a pressure difference of nearly 12,000 PSI, and that difference is going to translate into substantially sharper recoil and amplified blast experienced by the shooter, and markedly accelerated wear and tear on the gun.
Now, you can probably get away with the wear and tear on the gun if you want to. Use a solid Ruger or maybe a Magnum Research or Freedom Arms revolver, and it'll handle the pressure without much fuss. Especially if you don't shoot it much, which I can pretty much guarantee will be the case for 99.9% of shooters, because that amount of blast and recoil is noxious to an extreme.
Your assertion that "advances in bullet design" have made the .44 Magnum the equal of larger bore revolvers is utter nonsense. The fastest loads are still generated with powders in the same class, such as H110/WW296,and VV N110 (funny how VV named their heavy handgun powder with that number!) and they all still generate the same kinds of pressures (both maximum and pressure curve). If it were otherwise, we'd be seeing lower pressure numbers in the data, but we don't.
Your statement that "... the .44 does with slightly higher pressure, the .45 does with more powder" makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In the first place, as I've stated already, it ain't "slightly higher" pressure. In the second place, you cannot, by any twist of fallacious reasoning or semantics equate this very much higher pressure to the use of a few more grains of powder in the bigger .45 case. The comparison is so ludicrous, it ain't even apples to oranges... it's like comparing apples to the Dow Jones price of United Fruit stocks.
Again: I don't give a rat's ass if you personally blow yourself up with overpressure .44 loads. You wouldn't be the first nimrod I've taken care of who's blown his hand up with hot loads (I've treated 2 of them, if you must know... and the second guy now goes by the nickname "Lefty"). And I don't give a rat's ass whether I "win" an argument with you here on the 24HCF.
But I do care, and care a lot, about the guy who's reading this thread and doesn't know the difference between someone who's truly done a lot of heavy handgun shooting and hunting and successful & safe load development, like jwp475, or Whitworth, or myself, and someone who doesn't know he's playing fast and loose with explosives, like you have declared yourself to be.
