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Originally Posted by GeorgeSSSS
Big Z: What weight and type of bullet do you handload for bear in your 44 redhawk? I was thinking of 270 grain JSP. What's your opinion?
George SSSS
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This sums up my opnion!
-----BIG!
Your 300 grain with 19 gr of H110 is about right, I use 20.0 of H110 with my 300gr cast.
The reason for cast, hard cast bullets is that it is a solid that we don't want or expect to expand. At 44 or 45 caliber, we already have a big hole. Any expansion in a hand gun bullet, at handgun velocities, is so uncertain and also limits (stops) penetration and therefore killing power. It is far better to punch a 44 caliber hole all the way through than a 76 caliber hole a few inches. There is only so much energy available and if it is used up destroying the bullet and making wide shallow wounds it is of little use. We do not want a big bore revolver bullet to expand but just perform like a solid.
Cast Performance makes very good LBT style hard (BHN 21) cast heat treated solids. The heat treatment makes them hard but not brittle. In the old days we cast our own and to make them very hard we would add so much antimony that they would get brittle and actuall crumble around the edges at impact, almost as bad as expansion. Also Bear Tooth Bullets makes these hard cast heat treated solids. There are three basic styles, Long Flat Nose (LFN), Wide Long Nose (WLN), and Wide Flat Nose (WFN). Each having some advantage for certain application over the other. The LFN is the long range bullet (200-300 yds) and offers the best profile for long shots. The WFN gives the best terminal performance and likely the best choice for most hunting applications at normal handgun range (0-75yds) and the WLN is a compromise between the two and often the most accurate. Note, they all have flat noses. That adds to the wounding capability and impact stability for straight line penetration, hits like a hammer. Cast bullets can be had sized to .429", .430" or .431" (for the 44) as needed to fit the cylinder throats, (CP's normally come sized .430")which will give better accuracy and velocity. The WFN's have a full diameter band that loads touching the throats, if the bullets are too big you will have to push hard to get them in the cylinder. Normally throats of the cylinders will accept up .431". Only Freedom Arms makes very tight, uniform cylinders. My 5 1/2" barrel Ruger SBH will shoot the 290 gr LFN Bear Tooth into about an inch and a half at fifty yards, and that is as good as I can do with the iron sights. This load is 20.0 grains of Vihta N110, a better powder than the ball powders, and velocity is 1294 fps. That's about all I can get from the little 5 1/2" 44 Mag. I use the same powder charge for the CP 300 WFN and velocity is 1289 fps. Pressure is about 36,000 psi and it burns very clean, no smoke, no unburned powder. And the best part, same velocity at -20F or +70F.
Snowwolfe is using a solid bullet made of copper. I have very limited experience with them and can't say how well they will do, my concern is do they fit the throats of the cylinder as well as my custom cast bullets can. If Brooks made them for him I guess they could be sized to the throats of his revolver. Also a lighter bullet will not carry as much momentum so, even though energy is higher with the increased velocity, your performance may vary. I'll tip my hat to him since he has the good experience with them and I'm sure he's right about the penetration and killing power. There is a limit at which cast bullets can be driven and not break up at impact (about 1800 fps) and that limit will be higher for copper. I will say that a cast bullet is almost always faster at less pressure than a jacketed and I would think solid copper, due to the lower friction of the lead vs copper. We would have to do some checks on that, grain for grain of powder and bullet, and chronograph everything. More work!
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