I have always thought that soft lead HP's in 44 special would make a great defensive load. I know I read hoptob's post on using them in 38's. So I decided to look to see if Rim Rock had 44 in stock.

Yeppers. Pricey but 500 of the 185gr are on the way. Shud be here early next week.

Talking to Frank and I find that they have most in stock. The hard to find are out but less common are available.

__________________
Slim, U.S. Army, Ret.

Nearly any .44 caliber bullet at Special velocities will make a good defensive load. I never cared for "light for caliber bullets and I prefer heavier bullets for my .44s (Magnums and Specials) and my favorite for now is a 250 gr, RNFP at around 1000 fps (although it would be very effective at 800 fps too!). I believe hollow points need a higher velocity (1,000+ fps) to preform reliably and always go with solids, either round nose flat points with a large meplat or semi-wadcutters...

I'm with you slim. I always felt that the ammo makers missed the mark by not producing a standard weight lead hollow point (41 cal 210-220 44 cal 240-250) using the same blend and specs (hollow point size vs cal) as the 38 Spec 158 LSWCHP and pushed at 900 to 950 fps just like the very effective 38HP.
But hey what do I know I'm just a guy who loves to shoot Smiths.
And to those who use the won't expand excuse for why they use solid SWCs please just remember a 240 grain 44 cal SWCHP at any speed that does not expand is still a 240 grain 44cal SWC at any speed just like what you prefer.
Chip King

IIRC Federal used to load a .44 Special 200 grain LSWC HP.

Yes they did. Too light and the hollow point was tiny. But a step in the right direction. Since discontinued I believe.
Chip King

From the pic, the hole in this bullet is almost as large as a GDHP. Pretty good size. Shud work pretty good.

I will see next week

__________________
Slim, U.S. Army, Ret.

Midway still lists that Federal load, but it's not in stock..........

__________________
dd884
JMHO-YMMV

The 240 semi jacketed hollow points are an old school idea that still works today. Just about anything works in a 44 .

Another bullet I like is the 210 Winchester SliverTips. It is a great 44 round that you buy or load your own.

When I am carrying my 3" 44mag in the woods, I carry heavy cup points or LFP. When I get back to town, I just swap out a 250grLHP @ 900fps, it will certainly get the job done. These are the cup points, but the deeper 250gr HP expands more.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

I bought several boxes of these about a year ago from Sportsman guide.....b-4 everything went bonker's.......I carry them in my 24 RB 3"......I too, had thought them discontinued...perhaps they are now.....I also agree about full weight lead HP SWC's for mid range loads in the 41, 44's and 45's.....they would be very useful loaded around 900-1000fps.....

Tell me more, about that HP bullet. Do you cast your own with that gizmo?

__________________
Slim, U.S. Army, Ret.

That is the 44 Devastator hollow point mold from Lyman.

Does anybody have any input on the Hornady Critical Defense .44 special 165gr FTX?
It shows it to be 1150 fps at muzzle, 1020 fps at 50 yards,
and 935 fps at 100 yards.

__________________
NRA Benefactor/Cert Instructor

The 240 grain Hornady XTP expands just fine in wet newspaper with a 10 grain charge of Unique. When I say wet newspaper, I mean I had a stack of newspaper soaking/floating in a trash can. The bullet performed nicely out of my 3" 629.

If I could get my hands on some .429 Gold Dots, I'd prefer them, but I don't feel at a disadvantage with my XTP load. 10 grns of Unique doesn't kick much either. For the woods, I pack a 240 SWC hard cast with 18.5 grains of AA #9.

The trouble with the light and fast bullets in this caliber, are they shoot much lower because of reduced dwell time in the barrel and lower recoil. You likely will not be able to raise the handgun sights enough. This in really meant to be self defense ammo so velocity at 50 & 100 is irrelevant IMHO since in a gunfight at that range you should be getting out of Dodge. I think this is aimed at lighter carry guns for reduced recoil, but the factories don't tune the sights for light for caliber bullets.

The 185 and lighter bullets in this caliber are indeed prone to shooting way low. Need to compensate for it.

For my money the best factory rounds in .44 are the Speer 200 GDHP .44 Spl. or the Speer 200 GDHP Short Barrel in .44 Mag. The Win. 200 Silvertip is OK but not as good.

__________________
USAF, 69-92
Vietnam, 72-73

Depends what you are going to do with the load. Hunting or self-defense? And what are you hunting or defending against? In my Charter Bulldogs, I use 200 grain hand loads, either full hard cast wadcutter (Rimrock) at 800 fps or Gold Dot HP at 885 fps. The guns are lightweight and recoil becomes and issue for self-defense against crooks. The wadcutter is a light-recoiling load with a full diameter crush area, and the Gold Dot will most definitely expand well at 885 fps. The do shoot low - even at 15 yards - out of fixed sight guns, so I had to file the front sight to bring the POI up. I like my guns of serious calibre to shoot POA at 25 yards. Those that think you'd never have to use deadly force past arms length, need to get out and see the world more.

The problem with the Rimrock 240 grain cast HP with gas check is that it is cast to BNH 15 which is rather hard and probably needs over 1000 fps to expand… great for .44 Mag but a bit much in the .44 Special. It's more of a deer hunting bullet than a self-defense bullet. The 185 grain Rimrock HP bullet is cast to BNH 12 and has no gas check, so perhaps ok to expand at 900 fps… and it will shoot very low in fixed sight guns.

Rimrock has some bullet designs no one else has, but yes they are overpriced. You could almost buy jacketed bullets for the price and not deal with lead exposure, barrel leading and expansion issues.

It's the Lyman devestator mold. A single cav, gas check design, but I had the gc removed & an extra shallow cup point pin made for hunting (shown). It's slow casting, about 200/hr, but I don't shoot a lot of them. Cast hard they expand less, cast soft, the 250gr can hit 1" in dia @ just 900fps.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

"It's the Lyman devestator mold. A single cav, gas check design."

I cast the same one but mine come out at 265 gr using Lyman # II alloy.

I don't care if they expand, there big.....
I call them Rat stopper's and it dose not matter how many legs the rat has....

__________________
Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

I bore my own molds.
you could get away with less point depth than that.
Seems like you only need enough cavity to get the expansion started, and control the rate with lead hardness.
Coatings can let you use pure soft lead at full magnum glory.
Food for thought.

__________________
it just needs more voltage

That particular cup point is really shallow. The pin that came with the mold throws a 250gr bullet cast 20-1. The cup point goes 272gr w/ the Same alloy. I can run that at 1250fps, no appreciable leading & it shoots thru any deer from any angle. It's accurate too, 3" groups at 100 from my rbhbh & 2x scope, benched.
You are right, cast it harder, it just deforms the nose & penetration goes way up. It's my backpacking load in a 3" m629.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

The ammo makers don't, but you can.

http://www.mattsbullets.com/index.ph...baf97b2b3fa466


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It depends on the velocities I can get/put on the hp being used. My snub nosed 44spl bulldog produces allot lower velocity than it's 6 1/2" bbl'd 624 44spl cousin. I perfer to use/shoot 240g/260g hp's in the 6 1/2" bbl's 44spl and 200g/220g hp's in the snub nosed 44spl.

Some 250g hp's cast from a "keith" clone swc mold, penta point hp's/large round hp's & small round hp's. Cast from soft alloys (40 to 1) the penta & large hp are devastating at slower speeds (900+fps). While the small hp is for more in the 1100+fps range.



These do extremely well in the snub nosed 44spl when cast soft (40 to 1) & pushed with full house loads of power pistol or 2400. A "thompson style" 200g swc hp with gc.



Another excellent hp for the 44spl, a 220g hbwc. These are cast with a 40 to 1 alloy and like there 148g 38spl hbwc's cousins, will make a huge hp that expands at slower speeds. These were shot from a snub nosed 44spl revolver with a full house load of power pistol (800fps).



At the other end of the spectrum, it's hard to beat some sp's (spire points)in a 44spl when slower speeds are involved. These bullets (200g sp's) give extreme penetration at low speeds (800+fps).



Plain old wc's will work also, the flat nose puts a smack on anything it get's a hold of. Some 200g wc's



With any hp, check to see what the mfg's recommendation for speeds/expansion is. Cast bullets (lead) should be soft:
8bhn in the 800fps range
10bhn in the 1000fps range
12bhn in the 1200fps range

Actual testing and even better is testing with a chronograph is highly recommended. A link that I use for reference to give me a general idea for perspective velocities from published data IE manual has data from 10" test bbl/I'm using a 2 1/2" bbl.

BBTI - Ballistics by the Inch :: Results

Another link that has allot of useful tests/info

Brass Fetcher Ballistic Testing

Thanks for the link. Not the cheapest prices but huge selection.

I picked up some Winchester Silvertips in .44 Special for my 629. I love the platform, but over the years the full boat .44MAG loads are getting to be a handful. I also have the same revolver in .45LC, and I found some Silvertips for that too. Pricey, but a nice round.

Thanks for the link. Might have to try some out in my .44 Specials.

Brian Pearce in Handloader claims that the Hornady 240gr swaged lead SWC/HP's expand reliably at 750 fps or so. I load em for 850fps and do get good accuracy with bit of bore leading. I have never tried a expansion test though.

__________________
Stay safe people!

An excellent, soft bullet for expansion at 44 spl velocities if you don't cast your own. I tried them, and found if you apply a little "Bore Butter" (Muzzleloader lube) to the bullet before loading, it virtually eliminates the leading issue when fired at reasonable velocities.

Larry

That's a good idea about the additional lube on the Hornady's. I'm just getting used to casting good solid nose bullets and haven't advanced to the cast hollow points quite yet! I use SPG for a bullet lube, its real soft and I just may use some of it on the Hornady's and see what happens.

__________________
Stay safe people!

The other optionis Alox from Lee, even some aste wax will help.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO