Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Has Brian Pearce published loads for the GP100 .44 Specials?

Yeah, I shot various .44 Magnums for over 25 years and it finally dawned on me that full power loads kick. My standard blastin'/fun/jackrabbit load was a Lyman 429215 (215 gr. SWC) at right about 1000 fps which was extremely accurate and a powder puff to shoot from a SBH or Redhawk. Before I got out of .44s and the .45 Colt altogether my standard .44 Special load in a Blackhawk Flattop was a 200 RNF from a Lee mold at about 950-1000 fps.

To my original question, Google and ye shall find, mostly. Ran across this blurb from a post on castboolits.gunloads.com from poster DougGuy who seems to know whereof he speaks:

"I had another thread asking for cylinder measurements and we got to the point where the 5 shot GP100-44 cylinder is actually thicker than the 6 shot Flattop Blackhawk 44 Special so going by the fact that a Flattop Blackhawk, medium framed Blackhawk in 45 Colt is good to 23kpsi (45 ACP+P pressure) and the 44 Special is slightly smaller so cylinder measurements are slightly thicker for the 44 as compared to the 45, it would seem that the 44 Special in the flattop would be good to 25kpsi, and if the GP100-44 cylinder walls are actually thicker, then I would say 250gr @ 1200fps from a 5 1/2" barrel would be doable and still under the 25kpsi pressure ceiling".

I was thinking 1200 fps as an absolute top end load, which I would stay a good 100-200 fps under. My only concern would be the safety of such loads and, so far, it appears the 5 shot GP100 has plenty of safety built in.

I'd still like to see Mr. Pearce do his thing with this new revolver, either the 3" or 5", as our philosophies seem to be similarly aligned and I absolutely trust his data.


FWIW, Elmer's goal with the .44 Special was his 429421 at 1200 fps as he figured that was good for any game he would likely shoot up to and including big elk. When Remington gave him the .44 Magnum capable of 1400+ I can see why he was ecstatic with it.