I very much appreciate all the advice.
The 9.5gr Universal load has been good but maybe a bit light. That said, I'm shooting it in a 3" 629 with the original style wood grips (smaller than magnas) so I don't want a barn burner 44 MAG load. I'm going to step it up to 10.5gr next time to see how it affects follow up shots. The plan is to figure out the max that I personally can shoot
well from my fairly small 44 MAG with concealment grips on it. The way I figure it, while it may not be the max for a 44 MAG load, a 180gr bullet at 1200fps is plenty hot to ruin a bad guy's day.
Sadly, I can't get Alliant powders locally, but on a whim I bought a lb of BE86 when I was home last year, so maybe I'll dig it out and work up some light 44 MAG loads.
