Have you fired a .44mag that made you giggle like an idiot?

Pre-teen girls "giggle".

Not gonna lie, I don't enjoy shooting a .44 mag. I have an original Anaconda 6" I inherited from my grandpa with rubber grips (he never shot it) and frankly I can't get much past a cylinder or two before I start to flinch with regular factory loads (200 and 240 grain). For whatever reason a small steel frame .357 snubbie like an sp101 or k6s doesn't bother me even with wood grips, but something about that .44 mag hurts my hand eventually.

Now I did giggle once shooting it. I have a Birchwood Casey steel spinner target that says it's good for up to .44 mag. I've shot it thousands of times over the years with everything from .22lr up to .357mag and it's been great. Well one day I decided to take a poke at it with the .44 mag. It spun so rapidly I thought it was going to lift off!! And when I went to investigate, the once-flat disc was now cupped to a saucer shape. OK for .44 mag my @$$!!

Targa said:

Well I guess that’s because your a real man Bob, I’m still working on it but am slowly getting there.

Click to expand...

I'm a real man? God made me a male, my Dad made me a man.

Bob Wright

Hi...
I don't giggle either.
But shooting big bore handguns does make me smile.
I actually laughed out loud after shooting a belt fed machine gun, a BAR, a Thompson submachine gun and a few other full automatic weapons at Knob Creek a few years ago. Shredding a junk car with an automatic weapon is great fun.

Targa said:

My standard full power loads are the same as yours and they are enough. I quickly decided if I want to go that hard with my revolvers I will stick with my .454 Casull or .475 Linebaugh. But yes, it was fun!!

Click to expand...

Do you do a lot of big game hunting with a handgun past 50 yards?

Other than that, I don't see the point of those bigger calibers, esp. from a handgun. IIRC, 454 Casull is 4X the energy of 44 Mag. I don't want to do that to myself, especially from a handgun.

No.

No giggle but I smile after a good session with my SBH Hunter with 240gr pills and H110 on the 50 yd line. I load 50 and shoot darn near the whole box and load some more. Same with the Henry and same loads. Both accurate. Learning to shoot big bores will cure any flinching issues...

BobWright said:

I don't "giggle." When I was a youngster in grade school there was a boy who was very effeminate and giggled at the drop of a hat. I detested that so much I vowed at that early age to never be like him.

Bob Wright

Click to expand...

I'm with Bob.

Men don't giggle. We may chuckle, chortle and occasionally guffaw, but gigging? That's for sissies!

Made me giggle like an idiot? No, but idiot was certainly a component of my first experience.
Long, long ago my first .44 was a S&W 629. Wood target grips, 6 or 6.5" barrel. I took it out to the Badlands here in SD. I took up a sitting position; two hand hold using one knee for support. BANG. The lower edge of the wood target grip caught me right under the knee cap. !$&%(*#@%!! I rolled backward hitting my head on a rock. !$&%(*#@%!! At that point I rolled onto my left side and, in trying to stand up, put my hand on a cactus. !$&%(*#@%!!
Giggle like an idiot? Feeling like an idiot? You bet.

I read some of these posts to my son, he giggled too. His favorite gun of mine to shoot is one of my 500 S&W’s with the 460 XVR close behind it. But, he’s only 12 now (will be 13 in less than a week) and quickly catching up to me. He wears shoes bigger than I do, I’m a 13, he’s still growing. He is more of a recoil junkie than I am!

I giggle every time I shoot something with a suppressor attached.

Yes, 180gr Hornady XTPs over 31gr of WW296 out of my 4" Ruger Redhawk. The orange flash can be seen reflecting off of the target, the concrete floor and everyone who's watching's glasses. They somehow make your teeth hurt, explain that one...

UncleEd said:

If you giggle like an idiot shooting the
.44, is that because you are an idiot
in the first place?

Or did you giggle because the .44
makes you an idiot?

Click to expand...

The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive, speaking for myself

But when last I walked into an NRA convention in rural Hicksville dressed in a tutu, Wayne LaPierre did say - "...never question a manly man who openly chooses to do that."

Full power 240 gr hand loaded ammo through a 16” contender barrel with pistol grip. Not so much that I giggled, but everybody not behind the trigger giggled. That barrel left for a reason. I wish I had it back now as it would be a great carbine setup for my girls with some ammo in it that is more sensible.

And all of us idiots took turns. Nobody walked away without some wrist and palm pain. One of the guys has a 45-70 barrel for his contender and said that my 44 loads felt just like his factory 45-70 loads and that he won’t shoot his 45-70 barrel anymore.

Nope, never once giggled....... About anything....... Laughed but not giggled........

Speedo66 said:

Someone a few booths down from me at an indoor range started shooting .50AE, he literally rocked the range. And me...

He shoot an entire box and left the brass on the floor. I picked one up, dwarfed a .45acp case.

Click to expand...

It's funny the 50 AE is nearly identical to the bottom 2" of my 300 WSM cases, minus the bottleneck. I think about shooting my 300 WSM in a 5 lb handgun, and add about 200 grains to the bullet weight.....yeah, no thanks.

I've shot a lot of "Ruger Only" .45 Colt loads -- Pasta Fazoola, dat's a spicy meat ball!

I never shot a 44 mag, so I haven't experienced anything like that. But I still recall the pain when I shot full load 357 mag in my 11oz S&W 360 PD J frame. And I wasn't giggling.

most notable giggle and ha ha shooting my SRH 44 mag was having a witnessed hit (having an audience is what made it fun) at 225yrds on a steel 10" gong on my 2nd shot out of the cylinder with 240 gr SWC. there were only 2-3 shooters on the range with an equal number of range officers. it made a nice thunk. everybody was suitably impressed but I owned up to the fact that i was shooting for the gong on the other arm of the hanger. one of the range officers said "If you were Frank( another range officer) you'd just tell us that was what you were shooting at." i was able to walk the rounds in to the right target the next cylinder. on sandbags, of course.

I might have giggled when I shot a friends MP5 fully suppresed with an Eotech on it. If not giggle I at least laughed because it was so stupid easy to get hits with on burst. Been a few years though. Also ....Those bump fire stocks kind of had me laughing because they worked so well. Same friend had a very nice aluminum one on a rifle.

First time I shot a 44magnum was a 629 magna classic when they initially hit the scene. After all the hoopla about how much they recoiled I was kind of like....thats it? Same with the 454 in a Raging bull. I had a death grip on that Taurus revolver thinking it was going to be a challenge to control. Im not a bodybuilder either.

Heavy... Ported... And a real pussycat to shoot full power loads. My 110# daughter handles it well and is very accurate.
Bought it about 30 years ago after shooting my BILs ported 4" Dan Wesson. So I've actually never fired an UNported .44 mag.

Smaug said:

Do you do a lot of big game hunting with a handgun past 50 yards?

Other than that, I don't see the point of those bigger calibers, esp. from a handgun. IIRC, 454 Casull is 4X the energy of 44 Mag. I don't want to do that to myself, especially from a handgun.

Click to expand...

Do you have to see the point? Does there even have to be a point?

Not much different than "do you really need 700hp to get to the Dairy Queen?"
No you don't... But it's a thrill to control all that power.

Yes... 340 HCGC under the max load of H110, if memory serves; through a trusted friends Super Redhawk w/ ~9" barrel (?). Exquisite... pooping soda cans at 75yds with ease.