Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns .44 mag. Hardcast Ammunition Advise

And how many shot/dead pigs did you have to survey to draw this conclusion?

JJ Hack - great info - much appreciated. Interesting job you had there, with the bears!

Based on performance on mule deer, I've been carrying 240 gr JHP's at 1250 fps for my just-in-case load for black bears. Feeling pretty good about that choice now that I've read your experience. Am carrying a 5" S&W 629. Have had a .44 of one kind or another for about 25 years now. Surely like the way the S&W handles.

Buddy of mine swore off the heavy hard-cast for hunting after putting a couple of 300's through a bear and losing it. Changed to 240 JHP/JSP bullets and hasn't lost a bear since.

FWIW, Guy

I would not get too warm and fuzzy with the hollow points, JJ is definately in the minority on this one. I've had more negative experiences with "jackted" bullets than with Hard cast.

I shot a lot of animals with both and a hard cast with a meplat of at least .125" under bore diameter leaves a nice sized would channel and a meplat of .090" under bore diameter leave a huge wound channel

The wide meplat have a lot of slap when they hit home

For the op there are several options for you but find the one or two you and your weapon handle the best.To each his own,but I have a hard time calling a 500lb+ bear soft and fragile.I know you can't break both front shoulder bones of a 400lbder with a 240xtp,seen it tried twice and once tried it myself,incase your wondering from feet,you can preach all you want.And I don't give a hoot what you shoot,there is NO REPLACEMENT FOR PLACEMENT!Period.And having seen multiple bear shot,the longest distance traveled by blackies shot with hard cast has been less than 20yards.You can keep your xtps out that way cause the bear here haven't found out yet not to fall when hit with hardcast.We always have been about a decade behind the west coast.

Post a few pictures of the big blackies that you have taken of seen taken

Being behind the west coast on this one is a good thing

My exact sentiments.....

Should I or shouldn't I - awww why not

I see the 1st Church of Holy Hardcast has convened, circled their wagons, and branded as a heretic anyone who has had a bad experience with the revered lead bullets.

As I said everyone has an opinion in this one, But Hornady hired me to do this, and used my research and experience. Your mileage may vary!

As is often typical of these threads, the topic gets a bit out of whack over the course of the posts. I never implied that the hardcast was not a good or even great killer of anything. I'm simply providing data from actual real experience on the reaction and instant effect of both.

The instant effect of both is significantly different. Many MANY bears ran off as if un-hit with them. Sure they died but this original post was not in any way referenced to hunters. There is however significant difference is the reaction. The Impact reaction is by a fair margin more decisive with a softer bullet driven very fast. The hollow point loads created an impact reaction that was obvious and significant. When compared to similar sized bears in an absolute rage when I walked up on them in a snare.

I'm not talking about hunting bears here. I'm talking about a bear pumped absolutely full of adrenaline and many other high performance additives coursing thru his veins in absolute terror and aggression looking at me from 20 yards away. charging and bouncing against that cable snare in complete rage.

Shoot that bear with a hardcast through the chest and he keeps bouncing running and trying to get to you. Shoot him with a hollow point at 1250fps and he folds and bites at the wound and lets you shoot again at a non bouncing non-running stable target. This is not "guessing or theory" it's factual first hand experience lots of it over more then a decade of doing this!

When I hunted with hounds I had frequently wounded, chewed, clawed and otherwise injured hounds from the bear fights. Those dogs at times had some rather hideous injuries over the years. Ears ripped off, intestines visible in ripped abdominal walls, eye orbits crushed Missing skin with exposed tendons and bones, etc. Funny thing is those hounds were still running and fighting and blind to the damage and pain they should have been feeling. But the fight and adrenaline pumping them up kept them going way beyond what a normal calm dog would endure in the kennel.

That same dog buzzed with the shock collar would let out a yelp, getting his foot stuck in a fence would cry like he was dying. But guts or an eye hanging out in a bear fight was absolutely no problem. The point here is that the same animal eating bait and being shot, or in a meadow and being shot is quite a lot different then the one you walk up on after he's been in that snare for 18 hours or so. Not sure how many of you have seen the rage possible by snared animals, but I'll guess it equals the rage of that same animal in a self defense situation in the wild!
It's your call of course. Choose wisely!

Only from what you have told me and from the one hunt, plus 100 stories. It seems as if a pig is like a human and can go down with a poor hit or keep going forever.
The one that amazed me was the boar that refused to die after being shot with the 240 XTP. It went down but wanted to live another 100 years.
But deer without a blood trail and a good hit will just be gone. 10 seconds to go 100 yards it seems and if there is no trail and thick cover, you will lose it.
I still will forever say that 2 holes in any animal is the safest bet for recovery. I could care less about what damage the quick expanding bullets have if you can't find what you shot. I seen way too many deer shot with 7mm and .300 mags that were lost or went a mile with no blood trail to ever depend on a bullet that stays inside.
Since a pig has very dense muscle compared to a deer, I do not want a wimp boolit.
Make a lot of internal damage and 2 holes and forget the energy dump junk.
Does a pig feel more pain with a hit then a deer? How about a bear? I am not sure but I never seen any deer bite at the wound.

A friend of mine loaned me a 500 S&W to shoot. He was afraid to sight it in so he let me do it. I think I used 325 gr Hollow Points IIRC. It had a short barrel which was ported.
I don't think the recoil was as bad as my 4" 629.
I shoot the Lyman #429421 cast from Linotype. I wouldn't care to push this bullet more than 1200 fps out of the 4" 629. I loaned this to a policeman once and he shot 5 bowling pins off a table in 3.5 seconds. I haven't used it on many animals yet but it is very accurate and very portable. I don't shoot grizzlies with it so I don't need the super heavies.

And I see ole "hit 'n run" dla has showed up to preach about the virtues of jacketed expanding bullets yet offers no real substance to the discussion. Just hit, and run......

So let's hear dla, what is your prefered .44 magnum hunting load? When using a Model 29? You do have a Model 29, don't you?

dla,
When the 44 magnum got popular back when Dirty Harry first showed up in the movies, the factory load was a swagged lead bullet in some cases.
Swagged lead is nothing like linotype or #2 alloy
It has nothing to do with church, it has everything to do with nose profile and BHN.
whelennut

This alone tells me all I need to know.I just can't figure how you couldn't shoot a bear in a snare in the head.We do it on a regular basis when bayed up by hounds.And yes a bear in a rage is different but break his front shoulders,hit them in the head,if they choose to stand center punch them breaks their spine any of the above with a good cast bullet will be the end.Maybe us bunch of bush crawlers just shoot better,who knows.

Attack the messenger - good strategy! Just chill - I knew it wouldn't take much to get you religious types in a lather.

BFR, after pondering this a bit let me lay out something for your (and everyone else's) consideration.

I think you and JJH's take don't necessarily have to be in all that much conflict if one take's context into consideration.

The OP dealt with self-defense. This being the case I would humbly posit that there is no small amount of changed priorities between a hunting outcome and a SD outcome. A SD situation puts little emphasis on easily followed blood trails or, for that matter, lethality at all. Even with SD against humans I care little about if they die as a result of the shooting or blood trails or, frankly, much of anything at all...other than they cease aggression towards me.

Now, either someone (and it won't be me) is going to simply call JJ a liar or he's onto "something". As I see this being a SD discussion (as opposed to a hunting one) it really is the "reaction" that we're looking for...isn't it? If a deer or whatever runs a bit and dies, so be it. In this case it would absolutely be nice to have two holes bleeding and penetration from less-than-ideal angles afforded by heavy HC pills make them an obviously fine choice. Simply put; holes drilled through vitals make things dead.

Having said that a dead bear with an easy to follow blood trail that happens to lead away from my mangled corpse doesn't do me much good. I suppose what JJ seems to describe might be called "acute dramatic trauma" from lighter, higher velocity expanding bullets. Such wounds would be assumed to be much shallower and may not be lethal at all compared to a heavy HC bullet at the same POI...BUT what damage there is, as reported by JJ, seems to create a profound reaction. One that, IN A PURELY DEFENSIVE SITUATION, might prove more beneficial than a much more lethal shot that the furry critter found less...distracting?

I'll be honest here and say I'm not actually trying to sell anyone on the above musings. Not even myself at this point. (my current bear medicine is heavy HC) I will admit to finding the concept interesting though.

You chill. You have made a sport of showing up, attacking all things cast, and then disappearing. I'm as religious about cast bullets as you are jacketed. Now, I took two animals last year with jacketed hollow-points, and as usual I wasn't impressed. Have you taken any animals with cast bullets lately? Ever?

Now, tell me, how would you recommend loading the .44 mag for hunting?

Tells us of the kills that you have with a handgun and what bullet and caliber that was used. Any animal at all, ti doesn't have to be a bear.


This Bear apparently didn't get the memo that "hard Cast" wide meplat bullets are ineffewctive. One and done, quickly was the order of the day

Have you taken any game with a handgun? If so post a picture and give details

I've shot too many head of game with wide meplat flat point hard cast (and seen them die pronto) to buy into all of the drama that JJ and others are selling about them.

This Grizz came in on me while cleaning a Moose and the "flat point hard cast" flattened this bear at the shot

The bear and the Moose on the left fell to one shot each with a flat point hard cast

I don't trust most hollowpoints past 35 yards to expand and some of them expand way too much when closer. Many who like the expanders don't run them at any real distance where speed bleeds off and "rifle" qualities packable handguns don't have show up.

If 20 yds is the criteria, then I guess Mr. Bear needs to cooperate with that range, or 50 yards?

I've seen Smiths have some weird hiccups with heavy bullet loads, not just in 44.

I try to use 280 gr bullets or less in mine, loaded fairly light for a 44.