You read enough about penetration being the goal of SD ammo and pretty soon you forget about overpenetration. I settled on a .44 Spl Keith style bullet for SD -- Buffalo Bore 255 gr hard cast 'Keith' LSWC advertised at 1000 fps -- and a guy in a gun store yesterday said they would like zip on through the average BG. This surprised me. I'm convinced of the efficacy of the LSWC design, but what velocity do I need to be reliable without being too reliable?

Got any ballistic gelatin?

It's gonna depend on your gun, your load and your target...

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Now go make God proud...

OK. I don't have gelatin. Was just wingin' it -- heavy big bore bullet moving fastish; can't predict target. Could always a BG to turn sideways. ; )

I believe that your LGS guy is correct. Google "240gr SWC .44 Special for hunting" and you will find more that one account of 6.0gr of Unique (slower than Buffalo bore) completely penetrating deer and elk.

The title of this thread scared me.

I load 7 grs of Unique with a 240 gr cswc at about 800 fps I really would not want less than that.

Pretty much any load that will work well on a human has the potential to 'overpenetrate' on things like wallboard, paneling, and sometimes on humans themselves. For my 4in .44Spl, I am partial to the BB loading of a 190gr LSWHP at around 1000-1100 fps.

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Run Fast, Bite Hard!

Reminds me of the UCMJ poster in boot camp: "penetration, however slight, is grounds for prosecution..."

Thanks. I looked around BB and saw that load. Don't know why I didn't notice it before.

It was a big step for me to go from JHP to LSWC for SD, but I buy the logic of a broad frontal area, and BB's 255 gr Keith design (now we have weight on our side too) strikes me as ideal. I knew that .44 Spl tended to be underloaded generally -- 750-850 fps in most commercial loads -- so when I saw 1000 fps, I thought I had my magic bullet. Then I met the LGS guy and learned I had too much of a good thing.

It may or may not be funny at the judgment to answer (jk) for all the times I worried about what was in a gun I never pulled. I blame Peterson Publishing for making all this matter for 40 years.

You don't need 1000 fps: 800-900 is sufficient with that bullet.

As in many things, just because you can do it, doesn't make it a good idea.

Just my opinion, of course.

For reference, my brother took my 4" 624 to Alaska and carried it as a bear gun while fishing in coastal grizzly habitat. He used the same load.

I hear and read that during the course of the average gun fight 50% of the bullets fired miss the human being (you know, "BG", "target", "perp", or the other cool euphemisms) being shot at. There is no need to be obsessed about over-penetration. More important is knowing who and what is beside and behind the guy you are planning to shoot.

Personally, I would want all the power and penetration available to me at that moment.

So it seems to me, but then I haven't shot all that many people lately.

Google/Bing the old FBI document "Handgun Wounding Factors And Effectiveness".

They call "fear of over penetration" to be "clearly exaggerated".

Groo here
I sometimes think we get too hung up by speed.
1000fps is a good mark for Hp's.
But a RN , Rnfp, swc, or wc will drive deep at lower speeds.
The English used the 455 , a 45cal medium weight bullet at 600ish
and were most happy.
The English believed you could drive a bullet TOO fast.

Spot on. I heard the number was close to 75% of all rounds fired missed the mark.

Over penetration is an oxymoron.

Like White House Intelligence kinda.

This thread concerns 44 special but I've heard more of WHAT I CONSIDER to be good sense on velocities for any SD bullets here. I do believe, however, that over penetration CAN be a problem with fast bullets that are not designed to expand, or fail to expand.

I do not own a .44 magnum, but I would tend to think it would be a bad choice for self defense for several reasons. Over penetration, recoil, muzzle jump, muzzle flash just for some. I would think that if you have a 29 or 629 that you wanted to use for SD, the .44 Special would be a great choice. Even moving at 750 - 800 fps a heavy weight .44 Special is no slouch of a defense round!

Hence my post: "I settled on a .44 Spl Keith style bullet for SD -- Buffalo Bore 255 gr hard cast 'Keith' LSWC advertised at 1000 fps"

Anyway, there are better choices than that load, apparently. I had just bought into the LSWC mantra and 1000 fps strikes me as tame (compared to 1200, 1400, 1500) so I thought I was on to something, but I guess not.

I settled on Speer Glod Dot SB in .44 mag for populated areas, a 200 gr JHP at 1075. But if I'm fired on by cartel weed farmers in the Hood National Forest, they're getting the Keith!