Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Is the 44 mag a novelty for a nonhunter?

I would prefer the 45 ACP in the plastic pistol format to any .357 Mag revolver. Less blast and better or at least equal killing effect.

Hard to beat the S&W M&P or Glock or 1911 in 45 ACP as a wilderness defensive gun when loaded to the gills.

Yup...

The 45 ACP is not in the same league as the 357 Magnum full throttle. Glock or not. Mine are 1911's. A 10MM perhaps. Again, what is it you want to do, and what can you shoot well. I have never had a revolver jam, or for that part fail to fire. Can't say that about an Semi auto.

44 mag is the base line for a hunting handgun.

A load that mimics 44 special is awesome and quite lethal as well for hunting deer.

It's no more expensive to shoot then smaller guns when you reload.

Cast bullets are not in short supply, three day delivery with parcel post shipping included is the norm.

Primers seem in good supply, powder is still tough at times but at 7000 grains per pound finding a couple pounds is a lot of ammo!

I suppose I see this in its simplest form. You can always use a 44 red hawk as lower powered fun to shoot gun, or ....... You can load that beast up and kill anything alive.

Good info here! A question I have is, "What about the S&W 329PD for backcountry carry?" Is it just too light to be useful? I've not shot one but the recoil has got to hurt. I sold my super redhawk because it was too heavy but I also don't want to replace it for "too light" either.

Are we talking on paper or meat?

The 45 Auto, 45 Schofield or the 45 Colt, all in original ballistic form, will do what the 357 tries to do without bullet expansion/range parameters and blast, with just attention to meplat and sedate velocity. The 44's do too, for the most part.

I have a personal bit of trust in the wheelgun over a contraption, but a failure with a 1911 would be ignoring 100 years of understanding and the designer to boot.

Here's where I devolve into my stubborness: a handgun is not a rifle, rifle concepts do not apply; noise, racket and recoil hide the main attribute of frontal area.
Getting a smaller caliber to do the work of larger ones requires all three, plus the continual diddling of expanding bullets with narrow working parameters and 57 Hail Marys when the solution is a cork in and a cork out, without going deaf.

I do not own a 329, but have shot them. They are a bit of a handful with full power loads. It comes down to how much do you shoot a backup gun? I settled on a 357PD, the 41 magnum version of the 329PD. I am for what ever reason recoil tolerant. The 41 to me is easier to shoot with full power loads than a 629 4". The weight difference is almost a pound between them. I got tired of carrying the 629 on the belt after a week of hunting, the 357PD I often forget it is there. There are "Light Magnum" loads especially for the 329, for the 357PD I run them at 1350 to 1400 with a jacketed 210.

45 ACP vrs 357 magnum.. Hit by a Volkswagen at 100MPH or a semi truck at 50mph???? That debate will go on forever.

Unfortunately the ability of 357 bullet to "get fatter" wanes a lot quicker, even with "modern" bullets, than a 45's ability to make a .357 hole...

I'm talking for hunting purposes.

On game I am going to have to give the edge to the 45 ACP +P. Having shot quite a few steers with the .45 ACP, for me, the .357 is too much blast for to little effect.

It undoubtedly works but not quite as well as the the .45.

We all roll the dice and take our chances. I likes the .45 chances.

You've obviously been corrupted by a mentor....

And found out he knew what he was selling....

I'd also put the 10 em em above the .357 as well, so long as the bullets remain apples/apples...

I will be honest, I have never used a 45ACP for hunting, one time did do the coup degas on a White tail with a 357 mag. I do not really consider either that good for hunting. To me the 45ACP is a 50 yard weapon, the 357 Mag 75 yards. I have hit the steel plates with regularity with both beyond that however. Does not mean to me at least that they are good for hunting (deer)

With the proper bullets both the 357 and the 45 ACP will take deer cleanly as long as the shooter can place his shoots into the vital area. The same as with any cartridge in my experience. Yes I have taken game with both including deer and hogs and they work

I agree the 45 is higher on the food chain

Good topic.

Too bad I am a bit late to the party

As far as being a novelty, it depends on perspective and other uses. I have been shooting and have owned a .44 since I was a teenager.

I learned a long time ago that there is no real good reason to run the .44 (or any other caliber ) full throttle all the time. I match the load to the job.

As I have posted before, I have 3 loads that I primarily handload for, essentially a light, medium and heavy. Then I just load those in volume. Every once in a while I will load some specialty load if I am just goofing off, such as a 180 full wadcutter load.

I don't do specialty loads too often simply for the fact that I hate fiddling with my press/dies. My free time is at a premium due to work and family, so when I reload, I want to crank out a bunch of cartridges.

The beauty of the .44 is that it can be loaded down to levels that a child who is strong enough to hold up a Redhawk and get a good sight picture, can also shoot as much as they want without developing a flinch.

As a note, everything here also applies to the .45 Colt. That being said, quite often I have noted that .45 cal guns have to be fiddled with to find appropriate sized bullets to match, or they require cylinder throats reamed, forcing cones chamfered, etc. This is not always the case, but it is often enough that reamers are commonly mailed back and forth among handgunners.

For whatever reason, it has been my experience that it is hard to get a .44 Magnum from Ruger or S&W that is not accurate.

Now with all of that, in order to take full advantage of the .44, one either needs to have deep pockets, or be a handloader.

Besides using the .44 for hunting, I personally use the .44 for a number of other reasons. In the past, when I was young, I could not afford a bunch of different handguns, so my Super BlackHawk did most of all my outdoors chores. I know I killed one hell of a lot of ground squirrels with a .44!

I worked around a lot of large stock animals when I got out of the Army, including working on an outfitter and guide ranch in the Frank Church Wilderness area of Idaho.

That gun was usually fairly close by, except when I was working a shovel or irrigating, which I did a whole lot of as the lowest man on the totem pole.

Later when working as a Trooper I ended up shooting a good number of injured or vehicle struck animals. when I say that, people always assume the animals were just laying there. Most often that was simply not the case. Often they would have one busted leg, or have some guts hanging out of them.

The majority of them were VERY mobile and required precise placement of projectiles.

The reason I bring this up is that I was issued a Glock 21, .45 and 230 grain Hydra Shoks at first, then later, 230 grain Gold Dots. Both rounds will put down deer, elk and cattle with authority if you can place your rounds in the right spot.

That is the tricky part. Trying to get within 25 yards or so of a semi mobile animal before they run back onto a road and collide with a fast moving vehicle can be a dangerous game of chance. 90+% of the time I tried for brain pan shots into the ear. When you put one there, they drop like turning off a switch.

Unfortunately I watched the results of an injured cow that ran onto the interstate and collided with a fast moving car. The man bled out and died from internal injuries while I held onto him and talked to him.

Another LEO had called and asked permission to put down the animals and was denied. I saw the cow running for the road, but it was far enough away that even if we had permission I doubt I could have made a difference and shooting towards the road would have presented a whole other set of issues.

In regards to .45 vs .357. Personally I will take the .45 every time myself. My experience has shown it is not as noisy, and easier to shoot well. Plus few things stand up to the big bullets.

I also have found that my old duty loads the Hydra Shoks would flat out hammer mule deer.

Speaking of hammering deer. If you really want to turn a .45 ACP into a whole other animal, try this bullet:

The bullet on the right is a 260 grain cast flat point. The bullet on the left is a standard 230 grain FMJ for comparison.







When loaded with a heavy dose of Unique and a heavier spring in a 1911, it turns your auto into a stomper of man or beast!

I have yet to see anything that will take a hit from it and move far.



I won't post the powder charge. I know it is good to go in my guns, but I cannot say so in others. You need to re-spring your gun with a heavier spring. There are numerous threads on the net about this and similar loads,

This is a heavy load so Caveat Emptor, so to speak.

Anyways, back onto the original topic, if I am only going to have one revolver for all my handgunning/outdoors needs, without question a .44 would be it.

Something in an "all around", belt portable, practical size such as a 5" N Frame or 4 or 5.5" Redhawk would do nicely as well.

Purely personal tastes, I prefer the 4" Redhawk myself over the 5.5". My dad ended up with my 5.5" gun. I just liked the balance of the 4" gun a bit better. Though I find 5" barrels to be ideal as far as length goes for "all around" guns.

If you like the Redhawk you have and it balances nicely for you, roll with that and don't look back. Pick up a bunch of Starline brass, grab some cast bullets and fire up the press!

No way would I consider the 44 mag a novelty. Does too much, too well.



Travis

I can vouch that a magna-ported nickel 29 leveled at a ne'er-do-wells noggin will cause them to stop their shenanigans, murmur "OH GOD NO!," and wet their drawers.

Good, non-novelty, non-hunter application.

OH now that is funny! The "ne'er-do-well" comment.

I used that term not too long ago at a morning meeting. My supervisor had no idea what it meant..

I had to explain to him the meaning of the term.

Then, not 24 hours later, I was talking to a Doc friend who asked me if had pointed my pistol at any ne'er-do-wells lately.

I just started laughing and told him that apparently not too many people used that term any more.

I'm sure it reaches back even further, but circa 1994, when part-timers had to bring their own heat, it described a guy who appeared to be beating up someone in the back seat of his car.

The flashing lights got his attention. The felony stop protocol brought him closer to God.

Turns out he was just refusing to take "no" for an answer from the intoxicated minor he was with, so ne'er-do-well fit regardless...

For the bi-curious, 240gr factory hydra-shoks.

I remember Skeeter Skelton's writings where he said after shooting the .44 Magnum nearly exclusively after it came out, he eventually reacquired a couple of .44 Specials after he decided they were more practical for everyday use. He still felt the .44 Magnum was a better pure hunting revolver. He loaded his .44 Specials to 950 fps, if I recall correctly, and carried both Smith and custom Ruger revolvers in .44 spl. I have a Flattop in .44 Spl, load it with just enough Power Pistol to hit 900 fps, and find it both easier to shoot than my old .357 Blackhawk (it's quieter!) and that it hits harder. Also, my .357 leaded like crazy with cast bullets, but the .44 spl barely leads at all.