Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 180g xtp .44 mag performance

Just got into handgun shooing this year so this is all fairly new. Shoot my first whitetail broadside, 75 yards center of shoulder. Deer went 30 yards. No blood, no exit. Should a go heavier, different style bullet or is this the type of performance I should expect?

I always used the 240gr XTP's when I hunted with the handgun and still do today when using the rifle. They work great for me.

Based on no personal experience beyond range time, I would favor the 240's or heavier in a .44 magnum.

Way too light a bullet IMHO.

Agreed! Even a 240 XTP can fail the same. They open too fast. Not that they don't kill but the lack of blood on the ground should tell the tale.

We�re talking small deer now - under 150 lbs - so keep this experience relevant;

As a close comparison, I�ve killed a few deer with a 170 gr JHP loaded to 1550 fps in a .41 Magnum that kills �em pretty good, but I�ve stayed away from bad angles and big bones when using these lighter bullets. Several have been instant kills with not so much as a kick after they hit the ground. Unless a hit disrupts the CNS, I never get that kind of reaction from a 210 gr JHP at 1300 fps.

That being said, heavier bullets certainly provide more reliable penetration from my experience, but they will not necessarily yield a better reaction from the deer, i.e. a short run with a minimal blood trail.

Let me preface this with the observation that there are members here who have vast amounts of experience with the .44 on game. I am not one of them. With that being said, I feel that the benefits of a light bullet are outweighed by the detriments. Certainly a 180gr load will kill a deer, and I would not criticize anyone for choosing one, but I prefer the 240�s.

If a 240gr and 180gr both get the job done nearly as well in the best of circumstances, and a 240gr load does the job better in the worst of circumstances, why not choose the 240gr loading? I suppose the 180gr crowd uses them because a perfect shot might have a more dramatic effect on a deer, and they flatten trajectory. Both are valid points. Although I have not used 180�s on game, my time at the range with them suggests they have more blast and the recoil is sharper and less comfortable than the heavier loads.

When handgun hunting, I feel that it is hard to guarantee a �perfect� shot. Besides, the heavier loads work just fine with a perfect shot. If you are hunting groundhogs or something, I guess I can see using the lighter loads to flatten trajectory a bit.

Years ago I shot a deer in the neck with a factory 240gr XTP load out of a 6.5� Smith. It fragmented and did not exit, and was found under the skin on the far side of the neck. I have also used the 300gr XTP as well. These days if I head afield with a .44 I carry either the 250gr Winchester Platinum Tip (which is now replaced with their Dual Bond bullet), or the plain old Winchester White Box 240gr soft point. To tell you the truth, my hunch is the White Box load is as good as anything else out there.

It is all I hunt, just deer. I must have at this time, close to 430 deer, maybe more, could be close to 450, with everything that can be shot at them. I shot 6 this season with 3 revolvers, the .500 JRH, .475 and .44 mag. The .44 with 310 gr Lee boolits left the largest amount of blood all over the place and 30 yards before dropping. The .475 can't be evaluated because both dropped without a kick. The .500 was something else again. I shot one in front of the left shoulder, out behind the right shoulder at 120 yards, he ran towards me 100 yards and dropped. The other was 50 yards. Neither had a blood trail at all when I backtracked. The big 440 gr slug never slowed in them.
For this season the .44 had the best blood trail even though I did not need it. Hard, heavy boolits. Now the .44 worked fine with 240 gr XTP's. Here are all three that I used.
These deer were hit behind the shoulders and no bone hit. None made it through and there was zero blood on the ground. See what scared me off?
You were lucky and if you had to track in the thick, you could lose the deer. I have no experience with the .41 but I would still choose a good heavy boolit.
You can not track a deer here without blood. You might take one step between tracks and trails.
I use the 310 gr Lee, the 320 LBT and my 330 gr from the .44 and they kill the fastest and leave the most blood of all the guns.
The .475 is super. I shot this deer in the neck at 67 yards, just below the chin. I found the exit at the ham. DRT!

Then a deer shot with a hard 330 gr boolit in the shoulder.
See why I use the right boolits?

Thanks for all the info. I will be sure to up my bullet before next season.

Keep working. It is not easy and only what you shoot will make you think. Never, ever depend on just a kill until you look hard at what the boolit did.
I will never quit learning because I will never admit what works 100% of the time. I just can't do that.
There is a place where stuff comes together, not blowing up a deer, less meat loss, a blood trail, a quick kill. Things to put together from more experience. I am not done by a long shot and each season teaches more.
I will tell you that a revolver can totally destroy a deer or have it get away with the same hit depending on your choice of bullet/boolit.

That's what bothered me about the 240gr XTP. Everyone talks about how tough it is and the one time I used it it it fragmented and didn't exit the neck. Granted, that has the capability of making a DRT stop most of the time, but I wonder how it would have done if I had put it through the shoulder. That's why I made the switch to the 240gr SJSP as a deeper penetrator.