44 mag bullet

[James W. Miner]

I made my mold to try and match the LBT 320 gr that worked so well on deer but it was 330 gr since I matched the ogive as close as I could to my forcing cone. 11°. It has done 1/2" at 50 and I shot it at 200 yards to measure drop. Got a 1-5/16" group.

 

[James W. Miner]

Drop is huge but look at my loaded round to see case tension and only a normal roll crimp. Looks like a snake that ate a pig.
I would never use a HP in the .44 for game. I shot three with 240 XTP's when i started. I recovered all three inside the deer and had no blood trails. I seen them fall at over 60 yards but much cover here means a leap of a deer is out of sight. No blood, no deer.
No bullet has killed more deer faster with a huge blood trail then mine or the 310 Lee.
Energy dump is a myth. I never want to find a bullet in a deer.

 

[Brad]

Shot some of the Lee group buy 429421, sized .4315 today. Over H110 they did quite well.
22.5 grains seemed to shoot a little better for me than 23 gr. I used bullets cast from range scrap that were heat treated at 425 F.
I didn't take photos of the targets, I was sharing the range and I hate slowing other peoples shooting.
Groups weren't great but I did learn some of the reasons why I get wide shots at times. I need to focus as much on how and where I rest the gun as i do grip. A small change in downward or forward pressure on the rest leads to high or low shots.

 

[Brad]

These are recovered from the berm at 100 yards.

 

[James W. Miner]

Very true with a rest. I do different then most, I rest near the muzzle on a small bag and put the butt on a firm bag. The rear bag must have as close as the same tension, shot to shot.
Many rest the frame but I can't hold still at all.
You just can't move all through the trigger break. The front bag means nothing as the barrel will leave it too fast.
Now about a wad cutter. They depend on the little shoulder in the forcing cone to align the cylinder. The ogive does nothing so the shoulder can wipe off. Cylinders must have some play in all directions so the boolit pulls it into alignment. The best is a WLN, WFN or RNFP like the Lee 310. The ogive will center in the cone.
If you stick a Keith in the muzzle, notice the nose does not touch, only the shoulder. The cone is larger so the nose hangs in the air. So you have a wad cutter with a nose on it. The shoulder does not touch meat on an animal either. It was made to cut paper only.
The Keith will shoot from a perfect revolver and in 1956 I shot to over 400 yards with them. Perfect is hard to find. It is why cylinders move. The worst are revolvers so tight that the throats wore oblong and cones and rifling wore away on one side. Sorry, Freedom was the worst and I fixed one. I had to ream throats and cut the cone. Still had spots in the throats the reamer never touched. But I got it to shoot after making some play by working on the cylinder stop.
Left was before and right was after at 50 yards. Freedom owners hate me. These are PB boolits at 50 yards from my .475 BFR, left was a sight in and I had 5 in almost one hole at 50 yards.
First shots from a .500 JRH, Bfr at 50 testing loads.

 

[James W. Miner]

View attachment 800
These are recovered from the berm at 100 yards.

Notice the shoulders are gone from slump, then grooves are larger at the front from skid. Bases are not even. Kind of ragged. Need harder boolits.

 

[Rick]

I doubt Brad needs harder bullets, he's not to far from diamonds now. Considering the hard clay he shoots into those bullets hung together pretty well.

Not true, I do not hate you.

 

[Brad]

It doesn't help that the berm I shot these into is at a shallow angle. It is the base of a sharp drop but the bottom, where these hit, is around a 30 degree slope. The bullets hit hard on one side then cut a groove rather than I pactng on the nose and boring a hole.
Almost every bullet I recover shows a distinct flow of metal to one side of the nose due to impact.

 

[James W. Miner]

Hard is a funny term and BHN is also. I use water dropped WW metal about 20-22 BHN and no harder unless strictly for target. I found the .44 Keith came in at 28 to 30 BHN.
I prefer tough to BHN. I have hard alloys that measure less BHN then WW's.
But looking at the recovered boolits, I see the shoulders are gone, not concerned with impact damage. Might be some slump. Also the rifling grooves. They seem large. SKID?
I have a picture of a soft Keith compared to a new one. You can see the slump.
Now slumping the nose might be good for a better fit to the cone since it is now a WFN or WLN. However if the skid does not stop before the base you will open gas channels and lead your barrel. Any leading is the indication something is wrong. If none, good to go.
I shoot PB from revolvers up to the .500 JRH that skid the first bands but stop before the base band and I go over three years without cleaning the barrels. It is important to keep the cylinder pin and hole clean to lube and STP oil treatment is the best for the pin and ratchet. Your gun will not wear with proper lube. Never, ever shoot a dry gun. You will make a rattle trap out of it. Yes even a DA needs it. Too many S&W's have been shot loose from lack of lube with blame on the gun.
One other thing, very fast powders do more damage to a boolit then slower because of instant pressure rise. Sounds like low pressure loads but not so.
Then someone will say to use a GC but it as far from the truth you can get. True they allow a softer lead but once skid is too much, the check will not take the spin either. The check is a spin stop, nothing else.

Here are some that failed and are leaded up like they were soldered.

 

[James W. Miner]

I have been a part time gunsmith forever and it took years to learn the revolver. They CAN out shoot many rifles at 100 yards and I shot them to 500 meters. (547 yards). I have more 1" and even 1/2" groups at 100 then I can count.
Bad shooting is not usually YOU, it is how you load and the brass. Most of you are great shots but if bullets do not go to the sights, no amount of practice will help. First is accuracy and I can make it so.
Had a few challenges so I set 5 shotgun shells on their sides at 50 yards, shot them all in the base with my .500 JRH with a scope, only found 3 in the weeds. 3/4" targets with all centered. Then a shotgun shell at 100 yards, same gun with an Ultra Dot 4 minute dot. Missed by 1/2" right the first shot, got it with the second shot.
I will help you. I have no secrets, just plain hard work.
I want you all to love a revolver as much as I do. Many are here from Cast Boolits and know me. Great guys. You are in good company and sound like good people. This is me with one of 180 revolver deer kills, shot on a dead run through the thick. Make fun of my hat and you will have trouble!

 

[9.3X62AL]

OK, 180 revolver harvests on deer is a remarkable and comprehensive resume'. I stay low--keep dark--and listen up to history like this.

 

[James W. Miner]

My average for 30 years is 7 a season but a few with bows, ml's and a rifle. I much prefer the revolver.
I always used a hard boolit in the .44 and .475 BFR, the .475 dropping 99% in their tracks, the .44 maybe a 30 yard run with a great blood trail. Once I got out to around 100 yards, the .44 was less effective with deer going farther but I always found them.
I shot some with my 45-70 BFR but it is too fast with a hard boolit and I was poking a clean hole, lost 2 and ones I found made 200 yards with little blood to follow, pink lungs with just a hole. I then went to a softer boolit, HP and destroyed half a deer.
I went to the .500 JRH and deer were making 100-120 yards with no blood trail. I cured that by casting half the nose from a softer lead. This is what the 45-70 needs. It will also make the .44 a little better.
I had to stop with 5 last season since we can only take 3 doe now. I had 2 big bucks and 3 doe. The .500 dropped 4 on the spot and the last made 20 yards. No meat loss. In 2 days I had 4 since we can take 2 a day. I would drop a doe, sit tight and get a nice buck very soon.
Yes we have a lot of deer. My 8 point was shot walking fast through the trees and brush at 55 yards, dropped at the shot.
I keep 2 and give meat to the ladies that let me hunt, I gave the 8 point to my hunting friend. He brought me back the antlers. I never liked buck meat.
Been deer hunting about 58 years, archery mostly back then and shot 3 my first year with a recurve. Ohio, PA and MI. Back then the archer took 17 years for a kill.
Then I got into damage control at many orchards and farms with unlimited tags, we fed a lot of poor people.
As close as I can figure I have taken about 550 deer. I have a friend that still takes 17 a year,rifle and crossbow. I have known him 30 years so he must have over 500. He feeds many. Deer are so thick in his county they have extended the season into April.
Anyway the .44 was my work horse once I could use it for deer. I would not be without one. I got the first in 1956.

 

[James W. Miner]

I was known in Ohio back then. I was hunting Salt Fork with my flint lock, cocked the hammer and the mainspring broke. I went to the store and bought a pack of rubber bands, put a bunch over the hammer and stretched them up the barrel to tape them. I shot a doe and met another hunter, did not know him but he seen my gun.
I got home to northern Ohio and went to the archery club. All my friends came up to me and said "I hear you were hunting with a slingshot."

 

[Dale53]

James;
I am thoroughly enjoying the thread! My deer hunting experience cannot compare to your experience, but I have certainly enjoyed my revolver deer hunting. I used the .44 Magnum with a 250 gr home cast Keith exclusively and cannot complain at all. I grew up on a farm and credit my ability to stalk a deer (sometimes to within just a few yards) to my time as a little youngster stalking squirrels, ground hogs, and crows (along with the ever present cottontail) that honed my skills. I practically lived in the woods at a very early age. My father bought me my first gun for my 9th Christmas (a .22/.410 over/under). I was so small, I had to cock it with the heel of my left hand.

Keep it up, my friend!

FWIW
Dale

 

[Rick]

I don't have anywhere near that much experience seeking Bambi but will probably be out trying again in a couple of weeks. Will I be using a revolver? hehe . . . What a silly question.

 

[James W. Miner]

I will not hunt my woods anymore, haven't for a few years. I will have my little dog out and a few deer will come across the yard to my apple tree, within 10 yards of us. My little one just sits and looks. the deer will hop away a little so I pick some apples and toss to the deer, they will come very close to eat them. I could hand feed them in a short time. I shake a few more from the tree and pick my dog up, walk right past the deer and they go to the tree. I talk to them and my other dogs in the pen bark but they don't care.
I can't shoot them! I have to go down the road and back in the woods to hunt.
I learned deer the first season and have had 17 feeding all around me, I can walk around, kneel down, nock an arrow and shoot one. I have made deer come over 100 yards to me.
If you confront deer and she stamps her foot, do NOT freeze, scares hell out of them. Lightly stamp your foot, it is a recognition signal and if you don't answer, they run behind brush and watch you. IT IS NOT A DANGER SIGNAL with a danger scent. Make all the same moves the deer does to you, if she raises her head up and down, do the same. I have actually had a deer 2' from me, little one ran out of the herd I was playing with, ran behind me like a nut and came right next to me to look at the rest of the deer.
I booted a big doe from a bed, played with her and she came back and laid down again, only 10 yards away. She licked her side and never looked at me as I looked for squirrels and acorns. I was not hunting, just scouting. I had to go to work so I walked past her, she jumped up and I said "ha ha, I fooled you."
Just act like a deer. I know everything about them and why they do some things.
Camo, never wear dark camo. I have worn snow camo in archery season or just a white "T" shirt. Blaze Orange is one of the very best.
Deer know every rock, branch and stump so if you wear dark stuff, you will be spotted right quick.
Don't buy all that special scent killer junk, you waste your money. Deer and fox get along fine and even play with each other, you can draw in a deer with fox pee. They hate skunk with a passion. Doe in season pee is great. Bottled stuff from Wall Mart is a money maker from fools.
The most I do is use Sports Wash to kill the ultra violet glow. Don't wash in laundry soap.
The noise that scares them are high frequency sounds. You can make all kinds of natural noises, break branches, etc. I was up a tree once making a place for a stand. I was tearing hell out of it, looked to the apple tree 20 yards away to see deer feeding. Many bows will make a deer leave before the arrow reaches them. It is not what you hear, it is what they hear. It is like driving a dog nuts with a silent dog whistle.
When you can walk into the center of a herd, you are there.
It is far easier to fool deer then to stalk them. You can't hide so become another deer.

 

[James W. Miner]

SRH is one of the most accurate you can get and those boolits work fine. I would lean to the 265 but a Ruger can take heavier with no problems.
Mt 330 gr might be close to the limit of the rifling giving enough spin. They just need velocity, can't shoot heavy slow. We tried some of the funny over 400 gr boolits and they turn sideways at 50 yards.