Always wondered what a fmj 44 mag round would do to a bear in the short term. Carried some overloaded loads that I bought at Gary King's.
I am more convinced by either a hardcast wide meplat-type bullet, or a tough, limited expansion jacketed bullet. Jacketed bullets which come to mind are the Sierra 300 grain SP or the 300 Speer Uni-Cor. Mostly, full jacketed type handgun bullets seem to be too 'slippery' and less-than-ideal for creating effective holes. I don't care about finding a well-preserved bullet but I don't want the target to be left intact. I also don't want to use most handgun bullets which you can count on for decent expansion. I believe a better bullet in a handgun is one which has a decent frontal shape without expansion to begin with. If any expansion takes place I want it to be well controlled so the bullet doesn't come apart violently.
You�re right Klikitarik based on what little I know. There is compelling data showing that the wide flat-nosed HC bullets penetrate more reliably than any other type of bullet of the same weight and velocity on large game. One reason is that the flat-nosed hard (non-deforming) bullets are less likely to yaw after impact than expanding, pointed, or round-nosed bullets. The reason that high-velocity rifle bullets don�t avail themselves of that benefit is that they are designed to fly great distances without slowing down or dropping any more than necessary. So they do the next best thing: they fly through the air with a pointed highly aerodynamic shape (i.e., high B.C.) and then expand when hitting tissue and making some kind of mushroom shape. That shape works fairly well, but does not work as well as a wide flat-nosed (nearly cylindrical) shape of a non-deforming bullet of the same weight at the same speed. So, a good rifle bullet compromises. It flies much better through the air for long distances, but, to do so, has a somewhat less-perfect expanding shape for impact, tissue destruction, and penetration as would a flat-nosed non-deforming bullet. For a handgun shooting only out to 100 yards or so, a wide flat-nosed HC bullet has a sufficient trajectory and velocity retention to take advantage of that ideal shape. It�s not trying to be able to go hundreds of yards without slowing way down or dropping feet from the line of sight; so it�s better to keep the better-penetrating and more-destructive wide flat-nosed shape for closer-in work.
The wide flat-nosed bullet entering at reasonable speed on an animal keeps going. By doing that, the tissue in front of the bullet must move (is pushed, splattered (hydrodynamic pressure)) out of the way. That creates significant destruction outside of the linear path of the bullet�creating a wider range of carnage outside of the bullet path. As above, that type of bullet also tends to stay online, which makes it penetrate more than a bullet that tilts/yaws after impact.
