Biggest game you would hunt with a .44 Magnum Rifle?
- Thread starter Heydaddy
- Start date
texted a guy selling a 1974 used Marlin .44 with factory iron sites on it ...asked him if it was a good shooter...he said he got two black bears with it at 200 yds!!...I decided to pass
Should have asked him to show you his version of 200yds.
What fps you getting? My 240s r just plunkers with TB 900fps, shooting into spruce blocks, a bnl of 25 I'm sure I could run em through a size & lube DIY and shoot them again. Been thinking of cranking them up should get close to 1700fps with a 12" barrel, save some money on buying jacketed.
That could be whole other post, a friend once stepped off 200yds range finder said 160.
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texted a guy selling a 1974 used Marlin .44 with factory iron sites on it ...asked him if it was a good shooter...he said he got two black bears with it at 200 yds!!...I decided to pass
You are a fool then, you passed on a good rifle
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
Probably wouldn't be a priority for me to carry one, but out East in our deer woods I'd be confident out to 50-100 yards on undisturbed game and iron sights.
A few years ago I helped a young shooter dial in his scope - which was mounted on a H&R single shot rifle in 44 Mag. I managed to shoot it several times as we both found the scope settings to be dialed in. I haven't hunted with a 44 Mag but if given the opportunity, I do have an interest in using one on a deer hunt. It would be good to see the results.
I usually discount everything said by a fisherman by 1/3. 10 pounders are usually 6 1/2.
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I wonder sometimes why big,hard cast non expanding,heavy and invariably blunt bullets in handgun calibers are considered such good killers when bigger, heavier and faster solids in African level cartridges are so pathetic that they are illegal for hunting practically everywhere?
It’s not keeping my awake at night yet; but still………….
It’s not keeping my awake at night yet; but still………….
I haven’t found the flat nosed worked any better on soft targets, which is just about everything. I’ve used quite a few CEB Safari Solids which is a truncated cone design on buffalo. Those were the king of the internet penetrators for awhile, I still have a few boxes of those in case I ever do another elephant hunt but otherwise they’re paper weights. Its like shooting a pig with a pellet gun.
With my 24" Barreled Rossi, 265 gr sp and a full load of H110 I was getting a smidge above 1700fps. It's a load I would use on game up to Moose at 100 yards. I wouldn't hesitate to use a wide Meplat RNFP hardcat bullet on deer sized game at a reasonable distance, on lower lung heart shots in a caliber as big as .44. A heck of a lot of deer were killed with lead .44-40.
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
Probably two reasons. First, because those big heavy pistol caliber bullets were used to shoot comparatively soft game. Yes, I said what I said. Grizzlies, Moose, Elk, even Bison...soft game. You really don't need much bullet on a broadside shot to get to the vitals and, once you do, they die without much fanfare. Contrast that with things like buffalo, rhino, hippo, and elephant. These start in weight where North America leaves off. They are significantly tougher and more densely muscled as well as thicker skinned. The reason that a jacketed, or monometal, solid works so well there is that you have to penetrate significantly and it is preferred to do so in a straight line from where the bullet impacts through to the important bit that you're hoping to pierce. I'm fairly confident that a hard cast 500gr bullet from a 45-70 will almost universally fail to penetrate to an elephant's brain on a frontal shot, and possibly on a side shot. Similarly, I don't want to try to break a hippo's shoulder to get to the heart with any cast bullet, regardless what it is fired from. There's a reason for the cartoonishly large guns of the blackpowder era that fired bullets that were a quarter of a pound or heavier out of rifles ranging from 13lb to 25lb...and were essentially unshootable for most people. Even Samuel Baker described his 2 bore rifle as "far too severe and I very seldom fired it", even going so far as to say I was afraid to use it". And for good reason. "Baby", with it's 3500 grain bullet at 1500 fps in a 24lb rifle would have recoiled somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1000ft lbs of recoil. Once the Europeans discovered metal cased solid bullets, things changed. A 500gr bullet of 45 caliber at 2100fps could shoot through many of those previously semi-bulletproof animals, and could reach the vitals from less than perfect angles. But does that bullet "suck" for hunting" I wouldn't say so. I shot an impala with a 300gr .375" solid. Bullet went in the left ham as he looked back over his shoulder at me, penetrated all the way forward and broke his neck as it exited. I wouldn't hesitate to use a bullet like that in any caliber over 35 to shoot North American big game. Sure, an expanded 180gr Partition could be up around .40" and will cause more damage, but I've seen people killed with all manner of items and the common thread there is they either took something through the brain, or the wound caused them to bleed out. So a .375" hole through the heart or neck should be just as effective, regardless of the hemisphere, even if they aren't ideal.
What's the second reason, you ask? Well it's simple...American Exceptionalism. Our gun rags come from South of the 49th. There is still, though it is fading, some amount of extra credibility given to the cowboy types. That's why you get people still banging on about Elmer Keith, a man born over 120 years ago and dead for 40, and people like Brian Pearce trying to emulate him. Never mind that neither one would crack a Top 50 of gun writing. The need of people to cling to the beliefs of people whom they admire for other reasons is problematic, but they are 100% the reason that people will argue about how good cast bullets are, when they clearly are less than ideal..
Nostalgia for Keith? I could buy that. Keith, somehow the champion of big and slow; who none-the-less tried to make everything he touched go faster. I remember an old article of his where he thought the 300 H&H was the best all-round cartrdge. The Win wasn’t even out yet, Weatherby probably was.
Taylor gets trotted out by the big and slow crowd, yet he claimed the 300 H&H was the fastest killing thing he’d even seen in his life. A stick of dynamite with a trigger is how he described it. He mentioned there was a faster American loading though he hadn’t seen one. I always thought he was speculating on the Weatherby; but maybe there was a hotter 300 H&H loading. Dunno. He also seemed to wax eloquently on the wonders of the 275 H&H. Odd that these magical cartridges just happened to be the fastest 30 and 7mm he’d gotten his mitts on, but there you have it.
Taylor gets trotted out by the big and slow crowd, yet he claimed the 300 H&H was the fastest killing thing he’d even seen in his life. A stick of dynamite with a trigger is how he described it. He mentioned there was a faster American loading though he hadn’t seen one. I always thought he was speculating on the Weatherby; but maybe there was a hotter 300 H&H loading. Dunno. He also seemed to wax eloquently on the wonders of the 275 H&H. Odd that these magical cartridges just happened to be the fastest 30 and 7mm he’d gotten his mitts on, but there you have it.
