44mag vs 357 carbine

[WVRJ]

I have a 44 lever gun and a 357 lever gun.I also have single action revolvers that go with each.I just finished working up a 44 load using the 225 grain Hornady FTX that both the revolver and the lever gun will shoot well.I bought a beautiful 3 screw Blackhawk yesterday to do the same thing with my Marlin 357 lever action.I use 180 grain Nosler Partition pistol bullets in the 1894 for deer with very good results,but now I'm going to drop back to the 140 grain FTX and see if I can get something that both guns will do well with.I don't see much sense in having a rifle and a revolver in the same caliber that have to shoot different ammunition.The 44 will certainly outshine the 357 for hunting.There's no replacement for displacement so to speak.In my younger days(around 1980),I got into shooting my 8 3/8 S&W Model 29 with full throttle 240 grain loads at longer and longer range as my skill improved.I spent that summer shooting very little else,and I got pretty good.The first deer I took with the big revolver was 200 yards away.I knew the range,I had a good rest and I had good conditions.Bang,flop,meat in the pot.A couple weeks later my Grandfather told me to go get a nice fat doe for my aunt.I grabbed my 44 and started out the door when he said very sternly"For God's sake take something you can kill a deer with".My only reply was a hard look back at him and I said I'd be back in an hour or so.And I was back-with a nice fat doe shot in the head at 25 yards or so.Longish,difficult shots can be made with such guns,but it takes a lot of skill and practice.I consider a 357 Mag handgun to be the bottom of the scale for deer.The power increase of the carbine is dramatic,and it's easily a 125 yard deer cartridge,maybe even farther in the right hands.The 44 in a carbine will go to 200 yards with a skilled operator,and will make critters dead faster at shorter ranges than the 357 will.Shooter,bullet and animal all being equal,the 44 is just plain better,and will work on larger game as well,where the 357 at its best is a deer cartridge.

 

[someguy2800]

We've covered the point pretty well at this point so perhaps I'm beating a dead horse, but in my opinion .357" is a small enough diameter where you either need good expansion or at least lots of velocity to produce the result I desire. .429 has proven to be big enough not to require either as evidenced by people taking very large game with hard cast bullets at pretty low impact velocities.

 

[Scooter22]

The same way I manage trajectory at 1000yrds with 6 creed - just a matter of putting the right, knowledge, skills, and gear together.

When my eyes were younger and so capable:

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These days, with failing eyesight, it looks more like this (but really, any scope I can dial past 3 mils works fine).

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Wanting to reach farther than either the 44 or 357 mags, I also let nature take its course in the reloading bench and made a couple of these:

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Just caught this thread. The .44 has it over the .357 obviously. It can handle heavier bullets around the same velocity. Whats the middle round, 357 B&D?

 

[Varminterror]

Whats the middle round, 357 B&D?

Yup. 357/44 B&D mag. 44mag case necked down to .357” bullets. Pictured, I have loaded a 180grn Speer HotCor, drawn from .358” to .357”. The HotCor offers tolerance to the high velocities I can achieve with the much larger 44mag case, but still expands at relatively low velocities. It also offers a slight BC boost over conventional blunt revolver bullets, but most importantly, it has a quite short bearing surface compared to conventional revolver bullets, such I can get ~2.5 more grains of H110 under it (more, really) with less pressure indicators (read: perceived lower pressure) than even lighter 158grn revolver bullets like the XTP… which means I can pick up more than 200fps at lower pressure, and much greater impact velocity downrange. Of course, I’m picking up higher velocity, better BC, and better sectional density than a 180grn 44cal bullet in 44mag as well, and certainly higher velocity than attainable than 357mag cases can deliver… so it’s a win-win for deer sized game. Not quite the same impact potential of a 300grn 44mag, but I don’t need that big of hammer for deer. Of course, that particular load IS too long to fit into a levergun, unfortunately.

 

[Scooter22]

Thought so. Pretty hot number. I remember when it came out. There was a interesting story on using it in revolvers. There was a nylon collar to install on the case neck to keep them from backing out and jamming the cylinder. Never took off for that but great in single shots or lever actions if loaded to fit.

 

[CraigC]

Energy has NOTHING to do with it. Energy is a marketing tool for selling velocity. It was never a viable measure of a cartridge's terminal effectiveness.

I would put it this way, the .357 is a perfectly fine cartridge for deer sized game but I'd shoot nothing bigger with it given a choice. The .44Mag has taken all of the Africa Big Six, out of a revolver. I've personally taken three critters in the 1500-2000lb range with it and it handled them just fine. It all begins and ends with the bullet. Therein lies the rub. In revolvers, the limitation is the cylinder length. In heavy duty guns like the Ruger Super Blackhawk, Redhawk and Super Redhawk, some mighty heavy cast bullets can be used, up to 405gr. In the SRH, I've pushed 330's to 1450fps and 355's to 1350fps at 50,000psi. In rifles, most are limited by both their twist rate and the cartridge overall length that they will feed. Marlin is notorious for their 1-38" twist and limitation of about 300gr. The various 1892's are usually 1-30". One could conceivably take one of the new 1-20" twist Taylor's 1892's, tune it to feed my heavy handloads and have a 6lb leveraction carbine capable of taking elephant. Literally. Though copper/bronze solids are a better choice for that sort of thing.

 

[Varminterror]

Thought so. Pretty hot number. I remember when it came out. There was a interesting story on using it in revolvers. There was a nylon collar to install on the case neck to keep them from backing out and jamming the cylinder. Never took off for that but great in single shots or lever actions if loaded to fit.

The collars were actually for the 357/44 Bobcat magnum, a different wildcat with the same idea, but the polycarbonate collars allowed the use of 44magnum cylinders to simply be dropped into 357mag revolvers - or 357 mag barrels threaded onto 44mag revolvers. I found a Bobcat magnum around 2004, absolutely hated the collars, and wouldn’t use them ever again. I actually found out about the B&D version only about 10yrs ago, reamed a Blackhawk myself, then had my Redhawk done by B&D’s gunshop before they sold, then eventually closed. I’ve been searching for the “ideal long range deer hunting revolver” for around 20yrs, and think the B&D in a rebarreled Super Redhawk might be the exact thing I’m seeking, so I’m planning to build one with a Bowen GP44 type nose job (super GP100 in modern language) with a 10-12” barrel with a Bayside FrankenRuger shroud and a transplant Redhawk cylinder, but until then, my convertible 7.5” Redhawk in 357/44 B&D will have to do.

 

[Mosin77]

To me a levergun, especially a 92 clone, means open sights. Which means shooting stuff at a range you can clearly identify the target and make an ethical shot. Which, to me, means that it doesn’t matter if it’s a .454 Casull, or .30-30, 150-200 yards is going to be the longest practical range. Maybe you can estimate distances really well, see fantastically at a distance, and make shots at 300 yards without a scope. I can’t.

 

[BRatigan]

Back in the nineties at the Shaftsbury Fish and Game Club, Shaftsbury Vermont, we had a fun shoot with our IMHSA production 10 in contenders etc. Mine was a 7MM TCU and I was able to hit with iron sights, chicken targets at 525 yards, 3 out of 5 times. Thats a group size of about 6 inches. The combination of shooter and caliber in the right gun can make amazing things happen.

 

[trekker73]

@xphunter does stuff with 357magnums I admire as beyond my personal ability and confidence, and I try to calibrate my own expectations a bit based on what successes he’s shared publicly. So I may not have taken a 134 yard shot with a 357mag with just a red dot, but I know with the retained power of the 357mag, somewhere in that 150yrd ballpark is reasonable if the shooter can place the bullet. (Gratuitous inclusion of his 110yrd 44mag Antelope as well).View attachment 1085656

But this photo of Mark Hampton also illustrates well the upward swing in game taking capacity of the 44magnum, exceeding the capacity of the 357 mag.
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Very impressive pics. Any idea what the load to take the buff was?

 

[CraigC]

The Grizzly 300gr Punch load for these two.

 

[Varminterror]

Very impressive pics. Any idea what the load to take the buff was?

Mark’s article states he used Buffalo Bore 305 grain factory ammo, which would be the Heavy 44 mag 305grn hard cast, gas checked LFN trucking around 1325fps. A stout load, but well within the capacity of Ruger revolvers and Marlin 1894 rifles (pending stabilization of the heavy 305grn in the slow twist barrel, naturally).

 

[trekker73]

How well does the Rossi's 1:30 twist stabilise heavy ( aka longer) bullets in 44 fellas? I found in 357 low powered loads or subsonics you are better off staying with 158 grains or lighter but at high velocity you can stabilise the 180XTP ( and that is a long bullet in 357).

Havent seen all the 44 bullets up close ..but Im guessing a 240XTP may not be much shorter than a 305grain WFP cast bullet...?

 

[trekker73]

The Grizzly 300gr Punch load for these two.

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Very impressive, what breed of bovine is that?

 

[CraigC]

Those are water buffalo. Full penetration, with a few exits. We were testing bullets so they were shot more than necessary. Both went down after the initial shot, within 100yds.

 

[xphunter]

@xphunter does stuff with 357magnums I admire as beyond my personal ability and confidence, and I try to calibrate my own expectations a bit based on what successes he’s shared publicly. So I may not have taken a 134 yard shot with a 357mag with just a red dot, but I know with the retained power of the 357mag, somewhere in that 150yrd ballpark is reasonable if the shooter can place the bullet. (Gratuitous inclusion of his 110yrd 44mag Antelope as well).

The 357 Mag does well within it's realm for deer and antelope for me.