Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What's your favorite 44mag load/powder?

Three main loads:

Light load: 8.5 grains Unique/ 240 or 250 LSWC

Medium load: 10 grains Unique/ 240 or 250 LSWC

Heavy load: 22 grains H110/ 240 or 300-340 LSWC or LBT wide meplat style.

These have served me well for years, all are Smith friendly.In Rugers you can safely bump up the heavy load 2 grains with no concern.


The medium load is my general purpose/all around load. Kills mule deer/pigs, whatever.

MS

I'm liking Alliant's Power Pistol for mid-range 44 Magnum rounds right now. Brian Pearce's articles have quite a bit of data for that powder. Burns cleaner than Unique, at similar velocities, in my experience.

26.0g of H110, Win brass, 180g Sierra

22.6g of H110, Win brass, Sierra 240g HP

Win mag primer in both loads

Ruger super black hawks love the above loads

New Unique burns much cleaner, but I prefer the old Unique.

24 gr W296 under about any 240 but Remington as of late.

21 gns 296 under a 300 gn gas check LBT bullet lit with a CCI-350 mag. primer.

Gunner

24 grains of Win 296 under a 250 grain SWC from an RCBS mold. Old nickeled brass with a Midway headstamp and WW large pistol primers.

Others ...

29 grains of H110 under a Remington 180 grain JHP, otherwise as above.

24.7 grains of Win 296 under a Sierra 240 grain JHC in Remington brass using Fed 155 primers.

300 grain LBT WFN GC, nickeled Midway brass, CCI 350 primer, 22.5 grains of Win 296. (Super blackhawk hunter load.)

300 grain Hornady XTP HP, WW brass, CCI 350, 20 grains of 296, seated to the front cannelure. (Win 94 trapper load.)

Unique is hard to beat!

I have been shooting 240 gr JHP 24 gr H110/W296 with heavy roll crimp 1.6" OAL for 12 years in the 44mag revolver and rifle.

range report 2007-1-31
Ruger 44 mag Deerstalker 20" Marlin 444 barrel, cut down to 44 mag, Vari-ii 4X scope,
Measured 1720, 1756 fps
Quickload predicts 1752 fps, 31401 psi

My favorite is the Keith 250 gr SWC and 20 gr 2400 with CCI 300 Primers, for hunting, and for all around use the same bullet with 9.0 or 9.5 gr of Unique and the same primer.

Now we all know H110 and 296 are the exact same powders but different lots are sent for WW 296 and Hodgdon H110. Small difference maybe but H110 was superb in the RH but 296 works better in the SBH, SRH and S&W 29. I could never explain it.
I found in all conditions the mag primer always tripled groups for me. You might want to use them with H110 but no other powder needs them. H110 does not need a mag primer in the .44.
The problem is that mag primer pressure can move a bullet out of the brass before good ignition and that changes case capacity for every shot.
Many companies have found the same thing and have reverted to standard primers and Fed told me they do not have any records of using magnum primers in the .44.
To the nitty gritty, some guns like one powder over another.