OK you hunters,,,What size handgun do you use to hunt with?

Magnum Research 45/70 BFR works on the big Russian hogs of Tenessee.

BOARHUNTER

What size you ask?... Big...

357/44 B&D mag, 44mag, 454C, 475Line, 221FB, 243win, 284win, 300wsm.

the only time i hunted anything aside from squirrel rabbit or small predators with a handgun was with an 8 inch barrel 44 mag. thats probably the minimum i would use for anything larger than a coyote, if i ever get the oportunity again. not that i think 357 mag or 357 max is incapable.

I don't hunt with handguns, but I do carry a Glock 23 or 21 in "pig country", and the Glock 21 in "bear country".

I have taken deer with 44mag, 41mag, 45ACP, 40S&W and I will probably use a 357mag for one this year.

My hunting handguns are 7.5" Super Blackhawk, scoped 9.5" Super Redhawk, scoped 14" T/C Contender all in .44 Magnum and a scoped 14" T/C Contender in 7-30 Waters.

I have not used, but are available to me a 7.5" Blackhawk and a 4" GP100, both in .357 Magnum.

By size you mean like full size, compact, etc. Then I'd be full size SA revolver with 7-1/2" barrel in 44 magnum. Never felt under gunned for anything I might encounter and am confident in unsupported shooting around 50 yards, with a steady rest 100 yards is about my self imposed limit with irons.

The only handgun I ever hunted with was a 454 Casull and it wasn't mine. We did not take any game that day but we were looking for deer.

44 mag in either my old 7.5" SBH, and more recently my 4" 629. Got 1 buck tag and 5 doe tags to fill this season and hope to take a doe with one of the 44s. Of course, while I have seen deer all over our property, they sometimes get scarce when season starts. It's like they know LOL!!!

Be well folks

HamSlamma said:

Varminterror, how hot of a load is your 44mag ammo? Close to the .454?

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Nowhere close to 454c, certainly not close to full 65kpsi specified Casull loads.

A guy has to ignore the many watered down factory loads on the market like the Winchester Super-X or Federal Fusion which are in the 1,000ft.lb. ballpark, and barely more than Tier 3 45colt loads. Many manufactures are only loading to 50,000psi, or what I suspect is even less in some loads. These are really the only loads where a .44mag can push past a .454c, and for a factory ammo shooter, that might be a valid consideration - pretty easy to win a race when the competition never shifts out of first gear. But when a guy looks at the Swift 300grn load pushing up over 1700fps, or the Grizzly, Buffalo Bore, and Hornady loadings which are full 65kpsi, the .44mag gets left in the dust.

You won't find this data in any manual. These charges exceed published data and are provided for informational purposes only, not as recommendations - proceed at your own risk. By seating to the second cannelure in the 300grn XTP, I get less pressure signs with 22grn H110/W296 than with the published max's of 19.9grn. It's a mild pressure load, respectively, but it pushes the 300 XTP over 1300fps. I have pushed on this bullet until I get pressure signs, which puts me up over 1400fps, but it's a very mean load.

Alternatively, 1,400fps with the 454c is a starting load for the 300 XTP, and I run mine over 32.0grn H110/W296 which yields a touch over 1650fps in my 7.5" SRH's, a touch under 1600 in my Toklats. This is pretty standard fare stuff, I have hot-rodded the .454c in the past, but usually I just end up with stuck cases and jumped crimps, and not much gain in velocity. Getting the 300xtp over 1700 sounds cool, but that 50fps doesn't buy me anything. Jumping from 1300fps in the 44 to 1650fps in the 454 DOES gain me something.

There's a big gap in pressure between the two, which I don't care to close without a carpenter steel cylinder, and the case capacity gap will always leave the 44mag a long ways behind the Casull, even if a guy chose to load to similar pressures.

I don't do any real handgun hunting and I suppose if I did I would get something a little bit bigger, though I still maintain I don't have any use for anything larger than a .44 Mag. I have had a couple opportunities to harvest deer inside 50 yards with my Glock 20. The 200 gr XTP performs admirably.

My favorite is a TC Contender in .30-30 Winchester firing a 150 Nosler BT at 2050 fps. I have a 2x taper dot reticle LER scope on it.

I have taken several deer with the 357 mag in a 4" Security six and 6" GP100. The GP has a red dot and gets a handload of 180 XTP's over a stout charge of H110. Played with a Blackhawk 45LC one year and took a couple with it. Then I got a hankerin for a Contender. Found a Super 14 in 7mm TCU. Loaded 120gr Nosler BT's and it was nasty on bambis out to 150 yards. You just had to have them broadside or you would make a mess.

Here's my current deer hunting revolver. A 7.5" BH in .45colt.

Covers a range from .22 lr to hot .45 colt.

"Hunt" as in carry with ratshot loads, for venomous snakes?
A .44 MAG with a six inch barrel.

7.5” stainless Redhawk in 44 mag.
XD45.
RIA Tac II 5” in 10mm.
S&W 686+ in 357.

HamSlamma, I imagine that most guys figure that if the .44 Maggie will do the job, why add a bunch of recoil?

While I've never deliberately been a handgun hunter, I always carried a Redhawk when quail-hunting in my back-country desert area. I wanted to be able to defend myself against an irate mule deer buck.

If I was a hundgun hunter I'd say my Ruger Redhawk .44 Mag.& S&W .44 Mag. both 4".

HamSlamma said:

Thanks for all the replys!

I don't reload Varminterror, But I understand what your talking about. What I don't understand is why so many guys chose the .44mag over the .454 when it comes to hunting.......Price of ammo?

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Price of ammo is part of it. Pain of recoil is another. Both of which are balanced by the necessity dictated by the application. For whitetails out to 100yrds, the 454C doesn't do anything other than kick harder, cost more, bang louder, and dig a bigger hole in the dirt than the 44mag. Dead is dead. The 44mag is to the revolver hunter kinda like what the 30-06 is to the rifle hunter - it's that do-all cartridge which will knock down anything in North America with a smile on its face, but yet not so over powered it can't be managed by the average shooter.

It's kinda like how the F-150 is America's top selling truck - it suits the application demands of the average American who needs a truck. An F-350 is a more powerful truck, the F-450 even moreso, and a Peterbilt even moreso still... I need a pick-up for towing a 3 horse slant from time to time, picking up a load of fill dirt or gravel, pulling a hay rack, hauling a seed Qbit... But I don't need a 29,000lb empty weight Peterbilt, I just need an F-150... Or I don't need a 338Lapua magnum or 50 BMG to kill whitetails at 200yrds or less, a 7-08 does that job just fine. I don't really need a 454C to kill deer at 100yrds, a 44mag will do it at 150 just fine.

Not many guys actually hunt with handguns, and certainly fewer still hunt anything bigger than whitetails, so not many guys need anything bigger than a 44mag.

Armored farmer said:

Here's my current deer hunting revolver. A 7.5" BH in .45colt.View attachment 764262

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How you like those FTX's? They might catch a lot of flack from the hard core big bore guys since they don't have the penetration performance like hardcast or copper solids/FMJ's, like ANY expanding jacketed lead core bullet, but for the mundane task of taking whitetail deer, they do the job well.

Here's one I recovered, not a 45colt like yours, but a 44mag:



Another FTX bullet I recovered from a whitetail buck the processor said would have walked at 315-325lbs, killed at 250rds with a 45-70. Some guys might look at that retention as "bullet failure," but when the buck crumples within 15yrds of impact, when the bullet is only flying ~1150fps at range, I'll say I'm satisfied with the results:

They printed well on paper, but I haven't tested them on flesh and bone. I had just bought that box when I took the picture.
I am a hollow point (xtp) fan.
The 44mag in your picture looks like it performed perfectly.

Imho, you're asking for trouble if you shoot a big whitetail with a Hardcast or fmj. You had better be a good tracker.