Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 44 magnum reloading question

Lots of good info and advice! Thank you everyone! Should have the last bit of reloading components wrapped up fairly soon. The expense was a bit more than anticipated but I'm looking forward to my first reloading session.

My only reservation is the shortage of pistol gun powder, especially unique.

Wanted to start off reloading with pistol cartridges due to fact that I have access to range. Rifle ranges are bit more difficult to come by here.

Leo,
If you load 8.0 gr. of Unique behind a 240 gr. or so bullet, you'll get 875 rounds to play with. Unless you do a lot of shooting, that's gonna last a little while. Maybe more Unique or one of the other powders mentioned here will show up by then......

there is some good advice on here, some not so good. I have quite a few of the big bore revolvers. Some capable of "rock your boat" performance. I find very little need for that most of the time:
Isn't as pleasant to shoot
costs more
and for the majority of things isn't really needed.
My opinion only, but there are very few things that a 250 to 300grain whatever at about 1000fps won't take care of.
Lets see, isn't that kind of describing the .45colt since the 1800's.
I don't have a problem with recoil, or shooting the heavy stuff, just don't find in the majority of cases any need to do so.
I also remember reading somewhere that you should use .44special loads in .44special brass. Not in .44magnum brass. If loading .44magnum brass use the load data for that casing. I haven't always followed that in the past, and still have both hands, but I do now.
I don't hardly shoot anything other than my own cast bullets. And size diameter to bore is a lot more important than soft cast or hard cast. Wheelweights up to that 1000fps level properly sized to the gun and you will have no leading issues. I might add leading isn't a particular problem if you are aware of it and know how to clean the gun properly.

as lastround mentioned, 8 grains of Unique pushing a 240 grain LSWC, has been my favorite .44 Mag round for probably 30 years now.
I have boxes and boxes of them loaded and stacked up in the ammo locker. I probably shoot more of this load than any other.

These threads always go comical...

Buying a 44 mag and then shooting it as a 45acp is silly. Guys who do that simply want to brag that they have a 44 mag even though they are too wussy to use it as such. The fact that they bought it and then downloaded it is proof that they made a purchase mistake in the first place.

If you want a lesser power cartridge then buy the appropriate firearm.

That makes sense.

I'm eating nothing but triple cheeseburgers, everytime, all the time....

Less wear on the gun, less component cost, familiarity with the same gun, power on reserve aren't bad things.

Makes more sense to some people (who aren't handgun junkies) to cover a lot of ground with one gun.

Besides, everyone knows there are few reasons to shoot nothing but full power 44 loads. Getting jacketed hollowpoints to work right, shooting very large animals, long range, silhouette, or just because you want to all come to mind.

Some guys simply want to brag/argue about how they have a handgun for every 100 fps. and 10 grs. of bullet...Go figure.

thats silly. Some of us just don't have the funds or desire to buy a handgun so they can say they have one of every cartridge, for every color, or every variation.

As long as it is my money that buys my handguns, it is my choice how I load and shoot those handguns. Not interested in opinions of those who are internet trolling for an argument. Have a nice day.

So you're gonna run out and buy 500S&W and then download it to 38spl-level?

well in a way, i kinda just did that. I bought a redhawk in .45colt purposely for the ability to load hot .45colt loads in it that i didn't want to beat up some of the others with. Now most likely 99% of the stuff fired in it will be the 270grain rcbs slug with about 8 1/2grains of unique.
Infuriating isn't it?

I believe to take advantage of the 44mag's versatility one needs to be handloader/reloader. Otherwise, I'd give the nod to the 357mag if one had to chose factory ammo.

Revolvers seem to be a little more flexible in their power level and bullet choices compare to semi-auto pistols.

If I could only have one revolver it'd be an N-Frame 44 mag. They do everything well with the exception being carrying concealed.

If you don't reload, buy a bunch of Specials.



Travis

For several years the only handgun I owned was my SBH .44, college, marriage, buying a home, kids all were more pressing than amassing a collection of handguns. Redhawks hadn't been invented, 29's were very hard to find & were 4 times as much, the Ruger was an obvious choice for me. While in college I had an RCBS Jr press in my dorm room & the dorm director kept the Ruger, I managed to shoot every week, a lot with Special level loads and learned to shoot rather well. A couple of times I thought I might have to use it for serious business, it didn't come down to that, but I was quite confident my 1000 fps SWC's would have worked just fine. If I had it to do all over I'd do it exactly the same. The .44 Magnum is indeed a most versatile cartridge.

My best accuracy out of several S&W Model 29s has been with a stout load of 2400. This powder burns easily, doesn't require a magnum primer, but works best at real maximum velocities. 240-50 gr hard cast bullets like 20 grains or a bit more 2400; much less will push a bullet, but not so accurately in my experience.

I wore out a Model 29-2 in the late '70s with Keith's load of 22/2400 and a hard cast 429421 bullet. It was astoundingly accurate to about 15,000 rounds, then went pretty sour. That load is way too hot with the modern version of 2400, such that this is about 10% or so over max today.

I then got my first Model 57, sold the M29s, never looked back...but that is another story.

Do you get in your car and put the gas pedal to the floor every time?

If not, is it because you are "too wussy" to drive it as fast as it will go?

Having a 44 gives you the OPTION of loading it up or down to suit any purpose you like

The talk about being "too wussy" says more about YOU and your maturity (or lack therof) than about those who know what gun they want, and what loads they want to use at any given time.

Thank you everyone who's replied!

I've tumbled my first 100 pieces of 44mag brass. I saved the brass from the Winchester white box that I bought.

I left the primers in for tumble. BTW, they didn't come really clean after two hours or tumbling.

Should I have left them in longer? I'm going to deprime them this weekend.

Pick up some rifle powder at my LGS and ask the guy about reloading hardcast bullet and he said just use load data for the jacketed bullets. Which sounds about right from what I heard here, about 9 to 10 grains of Unique.

I've got some 45acp brass tumbling now and some 223rem lake city once fired brass after that.

the .44 Mag is so damn versatile, there are millions of loads out there....just go to HOdgdon Data Center, Accurate, Alliant etc, and have at it!

In regards to leaving them in longer, you can certainly get them shinier, but just for reloading purposes, I would not sweat it.

Size
Deprime
Reprime
Powder
Seat a cast bullet
Crimp

Smile.

Except for round ball loads, which were mediocre for me, it's easy to get a .44 to shoot well, with a variety of loads - mild to wild.