Home Forums Lever Action Central Lever Actions - General 44mag deer round

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I'm curious on thoughts of .44 mag as a whitetail round. I just read Ed Hall's article in Fur, Fish & Game's Jan. issue on this topic.His ballistic info is very impressive. I never considered this round for deer, but as a hunter in a mountain area where shots are seldom more than 30-70 yards and the weight of a rifle of schlepping over mountains and beaver flows for a week or more adds up the thought of a 5 pound carbine in .44 mag suddenly makes sense. So my question is, is this a viable round for whitetail in close, quick shot areas? I know it all comes down to shot placement, but the way we hunt here in the Adirondacks, it's usually bump and shoot or track and quick shots through the mountains. Thaks for any feed back.

It'll flatten them. There are many who think it is a more effective round than the .30-30, within the parameters you mentioned.

Pick a good bullet for deer, starting at 240 grains, and go given 'em heck.

I have had a great deal of fun with an old Ruger tube fed auto carbine. Frankly the round has surprised me. I am getting extremely decent accuracy to 150 yards and in fact felt the need to scope the little fellow with an old 3X Weaver with post. With the top of the post sighted for 100 yards the intersection of post and cross-hairs will hit the 6" 200 yard gong every time at the range.

For good wound channels I think 125 yards is a good limit and within that you should get very reliable performance. That being said I have taken caribou at 200 yards and they run for a bit as there is limited bullet expansion at long range but pile up in a hundred yards or so. The bullet will exit and you will have a blood trail.

Lil Gun has been a great performer. I use 250 Nosler Partitions but they are discontinued. Most 240 grain bullets work fine. The Hornady's shoot well and seem to hang together and expand.

FWIW, 7 of the 8 deer hunters in my annual Maine hunting party have been dropping deer like acorns over the last 35 years with .44 Ruger Auto Carbines.

The 8th hunter uses a .44 Mag Marlin 1894 levergun to do the same thing.

All our shots @ deer usually run from 15 to 125 yards - with most about 70yds or so.

.

Thanks for the feed back guys. Rangr44, does your crew use scopes? North61 says he does and reaches out pretty far. Like I stated before, most of my shots are in thick cover and quick close up shots and I would probably lean towards iron sights for close shots and weight purposes. Of course I'm always easily swayed with a good argument.

What bullets are they using? I've got a little Marlin 1894 that I've been tempted to try on deer. It is very accurate with the Hornady 240 XTP.

That would be a good bullet.

Not Rangr but:
The carbine is way handier with irons. However I keep putting the scope back on. Not so much for increasing range but because I am old enough that shooting with irons is a focus challenge. If I was younger I'd go irons with a 44. Now I go with the 3X scope and am pretty happy with the results. Of course I recently put an old 1X Weaver scope on my 12 Gauge Slug gun for the same reason!

I put a reciever sight on my 1894 . Just use it as a ghost ring , it is very handy to carry and point and click to fire.
Never felt undergunned with the winchester white box 240 JSPs .
I like the JSPs over hollow points because I feel that they would penetrate better if I had a good shot at a bear. That thicker hide and 4-6 inches of fat before getting to any vitals and all that.

I had the same question until I took it to the range. I have a Browning model 92, it is the lightest, handiest lever gun I have ever pulled the trigger on. I ran a box of Winchester white box 240 JSP's over the chrony and they averaged 1725 FPS, I think that is plenty for shots inside 150 yards. You will do well with it.

I also use an older ruger semi auto .44mag and have bee shooting winchester 240grn jsp. I plan on using 240-270grn hollowpoints the next time I buy ammo. I'm also thinking about going with a quick detatch scope ring set up. I don't take the gun out unless I'm sure shots will be 70yrds or less, and don't really need a scope for those ranges. My wife loves shooting it with the scope though.

It is a fine deer cartridge out to 125yrds, imo.

I've put lots of venison in the freezer with a 240 grain XTP. I load them for my marlin and also shot a lot of them out of my muzzle loader. Never had one do anything but expand,penetrate, and kill.

I'll vouch for the 200gr edition.

My son and I have been using 44 mags for deer hunting, here in Indiana since the fall of 2008 His is a H&R handi rifle, and mine was a 1894 marlin leveraction. I sold the lever gun last year and bought a CVA Scout 44 mag. We have both used the Hornady LE ammo, since the beginning and have taken around 18-20 deer with the 44 mag and that ammo.


maddog

I have shot elk with a 44 mag carbine. Std 240 gr Speer semi jacketed soft point.Sure as heck ought to kil a whitetail.

You guys have sold me, I'm shopping for a .44 mag carbine this winter. Thanks for all the responses.

I have killed a bunch of deer with the .44 mag in pistol form.

Ive shot them from 180 grainers up to the 300 grain cast cores.

I liked the 250 grain partitions the best.

Hunting is similar (minus the mtns.) here in South AR. My choice, because we also have a good many hogs, is the Hornady 265g for my Ruger Carbine. I put a Leupy 1.75x6 on mine. A buddy tried the Leverevolution in his carbine with good results.

In the mid 90's the #1 deer round in NJ muzzleloader season had to be a 50 cal sabot shooting 240 grain XTP (w/green sabot) over 80 grains of pyrodex.

Later more guys moved to 2 pellets (100 grains) and then to specialty ML ammo, but that 240/80 grain load was a standard for a while.

Mountains of deer were killed with this load.

I found mine to be outstandingly effective in the 30-75 ish range, and effective out to 150- yards.

I dont know velocities, but I'd imagine its in the 44 mag rifle range. Deer dont know smokeless from pyro...

Anecdotal: I had one or 2 instances of the bullet following shoulder blade instead of plowing through at further range (125+ yds) and my dad recently had one instance of the bullet not penetrating ("blowing up") under higher velocity at close range (30 yardsish) on a big shoulder.

Really, if I KNEW i'd be shooting sub 100 yards as a rule I'd figure a 44 mag auto with 240-300 grainers would be tough to beat. 7/8 of those Mainers know their stuff!

Buddy of mine has a Marlin 1894 that has killed a couple of tons of deer, mostly with a 240 gr JHP and a stiff load of Unique(yes Unique). Last year his 8 year old grandaughter took her first with it, about a hundred yds, bang-flop. Yeah, a .44 mag is a good deer round.