.44 special in magnum case - official data?

I personally never really saw much point in shooting a .44Mag with other than max mag loads but it is yours so shoot what you want to out of it.

With cast bullets, 3 cents of Titegroup and 5 cents for a primer you've got a plinking load you can shoot all day that about the same price or less than .22 LR. I suppose brass cost should be in there but with light loads like that they effectively last forever.
 
My son sold me his S&W 29-5 five inch .44 magnum, I'm not sure if he needed money or didn't like the factory ammunition recoil. But the majority of what I shoot in this S&W .44 magnum are reduced loads using .44 magnum brass and Trail Boss. I use Trail Boss to ensure I do not have any double charges and better loading density.

My son came home and he shot my reduced loads and now wants the S&W 29 back and wants me to load up some reduced loads for him. My son wore me down and he is going to trade a new Ruger GP100 .44 special for the S&W 29.

Below a S&W 29 cylinder

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And below the Ruger GP 100 .44 special 5 shot cylinder with its thicker cylinder walls.

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Bottom line, with the Ruger I can still shoot the lighter loads with .44 Special brass and if I want I can load up some "warmer" Elmer Kieth loads.

Below, all I have is a photo of my new Ruger .44 Special, my son told me he needs to "test" the Ruger before we trade.

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But the majority of what I shoot in this S&W .44 magnum are reduced loads using .44 magnum brass and Trail Boss. I use Trail Boss to ensure I do not have any double charges and better loading density.

I use TrailBoss for the same reasons.

And it makes a mild accurate round with a heavy semi-wadcutter.

I use the magnum brass.
 
I'll give another vote for trail boss in magnum cases,the loads for my 7.5" Rugers are 7.4gr with 240gr swc and 7.5gr with 200gr rnfp. The 240s punch nice yogurt little holes in paper and have no problems knocking down pigs(steel) at 100m.
 
6gr of titegroup or 7gr of 231 with either 200gr or 240gr lead bullets are my go-to plinking loads in 44mag.
Forgot the velocities but pretty mild.

I also used to load 7 grains of W231 under a 240 grain lead bullet in my .44 Trapper carbine. Until I took it out for some fun shooting in the winter one cold day. You could see the bullets blooping out of the muzzle and hitting the snow about 50m out.

Ever since then I've loaded 8 grains of W231 for that purpose.
 
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