Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 44 Magnum pic and discussion thread.

Bought my first scoped handgun this fall.. a Blackhawk Hunter with a 2x Burris.. While I mostly agree with Elmer a pistol is a weapon of opportunity.. I wanted to try this.. For the first time I feel entirely comfortable shooting big game with a 6 gun..
For fun I will stick with irons..

You can whack somebody pretty good with those long barrels, too.

That's exactly what I think compensating means in this instance

The last couple of years I have been doing something that could be construed as "compensating", if one would like.

One can make more money, buy more stuff, but a man can never get back time. I was gone, doing things I felt driven to do, as many here know. Part of the cost of that was not being able to enjoy time/recreational opportunities with friends and family.

Now I "compensate" by trying to do such things more than ever before. I try to be a better dad, be involved as best I can with my oldest daughter's mounted shooting, shoot with friends, and generally enjoy life.

I try to compensate for the time I can never get back, count my blessings that I am here for my family, mostly in one piece, and feel fortunate that I have the opportunity to get out and do stuff like launch chunks of lead at steel plates with great people for the pure enjoyment of it.

Life is not easy, but I compensate for it.

Well said.

We should all have that posted on our wall.. Well stated Mackay..

Well said. it's easy to forget how short of a time we are here.

Very well stated. Life's a gift, and we should treat it as such. Owning some nice handguns is just the icing.

The long barrels can hunt too.

Mackay,

I might have missed it, but what load/bullet were you shooting at distance with RJM?



Travis

Your dog does a good pig impression.



Travis

Travis,

I was shooting my mild plinking load. I figured since we were going to be doing high volume shooting, it would be appropriate.

8.5 Unique and a 240 Laser cast SWC.

Even at 500 yards it was plugging right along.

Next time out I will run the 10 grain Unique load.

When hitting the steel up on a hill we could get a good audible report back to us.

I intend to file one of my Patridge sights and create some horizontal bars for easier aiming references.

Small refinements.

Cheers!

Oh Heck,

I almost forgot Travis..

GFY Buddy!

that's the best one i've read in the past week!

I would like to share a thought on the .44 magnum I do not read in threads, and have never seen in a magazine, or professed by the "experts"

The tendency in America is bigger - faster - stronger. Having lived and gone to school in RSA this was something I was teased about frequently being an American in a foreign country.

I guess I could have gotten defensive about this, but there is a lot of truth to that statement. Over time I could see the way things worked and began to understand that cartridges like the 375HH were "just right" they did not need to become the 378 weatherby, or the the 375 ultra-mag. They were fine as they were, even better truth be told!

I find this so much the same with the 44 magnum. There was a time when I had my 7.5 inch redhawk that I continued to build up the loads and bullet weights, until I was wondering where the self destruction of this gun would occur! Thinking back I was a complete idiot loading that revolver to levels that were just stupid on many levels.

Then some time and additional maturity crept back into my life. I found that in reality the bears I was responsible to handle for my job really did not know the difference between the monstrous overloads, and a factory load equivalent.

The real beauty of the .44 mag when used on big animals is that it's really great with a plain old .44 mag loading. Anything more is fine, but un-necassary. I got caught up in the "power" and took it to the limits. All I did was waste a lot of gun powder and stress my shooting skills.

I bought a .44 S&W Mtn gun. It was like a toy, I was thinking it was no way gonna hold up and function with proper .44 mag loads. It's was puny and scary small. It does however work just fine, shoots any load I want, and has power a-plenty with simple .44 mag loads. The recoil with heavy loads is severe, but this is a good idea actually. It keeps folks from pounding them to bits. It's brilliant to carry. I could not likely ever go back to the 7.5" RedHawk having packed this for a decade or more now.

So the bottom line here is that the .44 mag is a brilliant and comfortable design which is fantastic with really powerful .44 special loads, and factory level Magnum loads. It does however have the range to go into the realm of stupid power for those who have to do this.

I have had good luck with that bullet as well.

I like that load (that's what she said) but I settled on 9.5 in the mag case some years back. Kinda does it all as I'm sure you've found. I was shooting at 110yds yesterday with the same Laser Cast bullet out of my Special. It was doing pretty well but the wind was kicking my ass.

I like the file idea. I've been thinking of dipping some ultra thin string in paint and trying to put some visible lines on my front ramp. If it works, I'll post it up. If it doesn't, GFY.


Travis

I did up a front sight this afternoon.

I took one of my spare red ramp sights and filed on it a bit. Then I swiped some of the wife's nail polish and clear coat stuff. It is not exactly Turbull quality, but after installing it on the 5" 29, I like the different horizontal aiming references.

I will do a refined version on the version 2.0, but for now I want to go shoot this one. I will try to get pics up after a bit.

I had one of those for a little while. Unfortunately, I had the rear sight bottomed out with 240s and couldn't get it to sight in with the 270 (speer) and 300s (all) that I wanted to hunt with.

I sold it and got a Bisley Hunter. I had a little bit of adjustment left in the rear sight with it with 240s. I've replaced the red ramp sight with a plain black one for a Redhawk which is a small amount taller according to my caliper, but I haven't shot it since ... too busy abusing a .45 Colt blackhawk 7-1/2 inch. (Sux to be me, eh?)

Tom

While shooting, when the light is from various angles. I can't always see the lines however crisp they are.

But The more I practice at distance the more it seems I can get a feel for how much front blade needs to pillar the rear sight.

Getting close to doing Fluffy's front sight again.

Quick story?
Honest truth here:
Was at a lady-friends place in Blackhawk Colorado. (omen 1)
And this gal has a few cats. One in particular, a huge huge nuttered tom-cat was just adoring my SBH. (omen 2?)

This was strange.
My SBH did not have a name. Now sometimes I am not too bright, and I can prove it.

I gets this idea in my head to name my .44 what ever this big ol cat's name is?
Should be safe, this big ol cat has the scares and only one eye!

So I ask 'what's that ones name?, serves me right when it comes back "Fluffy" !



Little load research: 210 grain Laser Hard Cast.

3: 13.5 Longshot 1475fps , mild report and recoil.

4: 14.0 Longshot 1510fps, getting woke up, a little.

5: 15.75 Longshot 1545fps, seems a nice load.

7: 27.5 H-110 1708fps, and seems like coffee brewed in Red Bull

8: 28.5 H-110 1806fps, and this seems what it would be like to talk to God!

#8 has some definite signs of pressure. But to me not excessive.

A question if I may?
No accuracy test done yet, planed...

28.50 of H-110 under a 210 grain hard-cast a long term no-no in a SBH named Fluffy?

K,

You kind of lost me there. What was your question?