Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 44 mag whitetail load

Looking for a little help. Just trying to get into the sport of hunting whitetail with a handgun. I bought a 12 inch scoped encore barrel in 44 mag and now I need a load that would be easy to shoot and effective on whitetail.

H110
Hornady 240gr XTP

Never hunted anything with a .44 Magnum but I would look no further than a 200 to mid 200's grain Hornady XTP.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a 240 gr. JHP in a .44 Magnum for whitetails. I have shot several with the Remington version and it kills well and has always exited for me so far. I use 24.0 grs. H110 with that bullet.

If ya handload 22 grs WW-296 and the Hornady 265 gr jacketed flat point is mucho tough and accurate.

Gunner

The 240-250 gr slugs are usually great for hunting deer in the 44 maggie. One problem to watch out for is, your velocity in that TC barrel will be much higher than in a sixgun & might not give you the penetration you need. A 300 gr slug might prove to be a better choice. I personally would not use the lighter 200 gr slugs.
I've taken many, many deer with 44 magnums, mostly with cast slugs with great results, but always with revolvers, your gun will be more accurate & again, you will have a lot more velocity unless you load it down. The Hornady XTP's are great, as is the Speer 270 gr Gold Dot, I've taken elk with the latter.

Dick

At handgun velocities I'd recommend something a bit softer like Remington's 240 gr SJHP. At rifle velocities I'd probably opt for the 240 XTP.

I've read accounts of the XTP being a bit slow to expand on deer sized game at pistol velocities and a buddy of mine has experienced the same, firsthand.

One of the accounts I read was published in Varmint Hunter in the early 90's. The hunter was after pronghorn with his .44 mag 629 with 8 3/8" barrel. He stalked a nice buck and put an angling away shot through the lungs and the buck ran off. He stalked back within range and put another 240 XTP through the lungs from the other side with an angling shot. Buck ran off again. A third, broadside shot put the buck down after another stalking session. Hunter stated that there was no noticeable expansion from the XTP that was pushed by a max load of AA9, a powder that I used a good bit back in those days. AA9 pushes 240's from a .44 to just about the same velocity as today's most popular .44 mag powder, H110.

FWIW, I get about 300fps more from my .44 mag rifles than from my 7 1/2" Redhawk, with 240s running just about 1,800 fps from my 18 1/2" barreled Ruger. That's enough difference in velocity to make a noticeable difference in expansion.

I've recovered a few 265 Hornady bullets out of a Ruger Redhawk as fast as they can be pushed. They have come out of Bears mostly but a couple cow elk as well.

I have never seen one opened up to any degree. Some were very much like recovering a solid. At the time I was just doing some work for Hornady when the XTP was in development. I asked about this to engineering. The reply was obvious, it's a rifle bullet, not intended for a handgun so it's a bit harder then needed for the 1100-1400fps velocities of even a short barreled TC. It's intent was for the 444 marlin.

Deer are soft and have little will to live if left to run and lay down to die. A 200-240 XTP at 1100-1300fps will crumple any deer alive, and just about any other living thing as well with a proper chest shot.

You could look at the Hornandy gummy tips, they should open up. A lot of guys use the Winchester white box, although from rifles. Then there is the gold dots.

If I was going I would be using my XTP load, which is powered by 22 grains of the old 2400.

A bullet I'm trying now is the Speer Plinker 240 grain JSP. Don't be fooled by the name, it is of UniCor construction. My experience with UniCors in my .45-70 make me think that this might be a good, deep-burrowing expanding bullet.

I'm running them at mid-lower 1700s out of my Ruger 77/44.

XTP's make good deer medicine; but I picked up a bunch of Remington 240 gr. JSP's from Graf's in bulk that shoot real nice out of my scoped 7.5" Redhawk. With 24.5 gr. of H-110 and a CCI #350 L.P. Mag. primer they're steppin out at about 1453 fps with good accuracy. If I didn't handload I'd probably go with the Winchester "white box" 240 gr. JSP's. They run 1414 fps out of the Redhawk and are very accurate. Either of these would really be cookin' even more out of a 12" Encore barrel.

I borrowed a dillion a few years ago and loaded 2000 of those Remington bulk 240 grain bullets over a weekend. I'm still shooting them!

They have simply clobbered everything I've hit with them and left nothing to complain about. Granted it's a .44 magnum so not much to complain about is the foundation of the cartridge. However, even with the background with the XTP bullets I have had, those cheapie bulk Remington bullets are brilliant.

The Majority of them have been for screwing around. When hunting I have often loaded in XTP's instead. But the truth is, the internal damage is indistinguishable.

Keith Hard Cast 250 gr SWC with 20 gr of 2400.

Bob,

Which Ruger are you holding?

Doc

Yep.

I've shot a few deers with the 44. I like about any 240 jacketed over 22-24 grs 296/H110. Like JJ, I bought a bunch of Rem 240's and loaded them over 296 and still have several hundred.

They kill deer with aplomb.

Couldn't resist.............

I kill white tails with the Speer 270 grain GDSP, over a good dose of H110.
This is my Marlin 1894 load, but it works well in my Smith Mountain Gun also.

Have you managed to recover a 270 shot from from the mountain gun? I pack my S&W mtn gun more then anything I own and use it a lot.

I've not had good luck getting bullets bigger then the 240 grain HP to expand properly. The 4" barrel and the recoil from a hot load just does not work well IMO with the heavy bullets.

I have shot a pile of Randy Garretts bullets too, but WOW they are a handful in that little Mountain gun. Of course they do not expand at all, and penetrate with amazing ease through just about any living thing. Not the best choice for deer though.

The most devastating internal trauma I have seen using the Mtn Gun has come from 180-200 grain XTP's driven as fast as possible. They open completely and really fold up the game. With the RedHawk the bigger bullets can be driven faster with the 7.5" barrel. The 240 and up weights are much better with the additional velocity. The Garrett Bullets are like a freaking cannon ball out of that revolver!

The Super Blackhawk 44 mag SS 43/4 inch barrel

Nice revolver and grips Bea, had an old Bud with one of those 10.5" barreled stainless SB in 44 mag, IIRC it was some sort of factory target gun.

Anyway, he used to push to 180 gr XTP's to near 1900 fps with AA #9, he used to knock the mortal piss outta any deer that got within range.

Gunner