Yeah, mine's a "hand rifle", too.
That's why I love the thing for hunting. I've got the .30-30 barrel in a 12" hunter with the compensator and I swear, I've had .38 wadcutters recoil more. But, be sure and take your ear muffs! Not sure if it's the compensator, the 14" barrel is better I'm sure, but I rung my own bell out of a box blind when I first started hunting with it. Hearing bells for days.
Killed the deer, though.
I shoot a handload with a Nosler Ballistic tip 150 grain in mine. I can, from the bench put 5 shots into 3" at 200 yards. Bud, THAT'S a hunting HANDgun!
With a zero at 175 yards, it hits 3" high at 100 and 2.5" low at 200. Makes 200 yards viable if you have a good rest. At that range, you're still packin' 922 ft lbs with 1660 fps velocity. The Nosler WILL expand at 1500 fps, but it's getting down pretty low at 200 yards. That's my limit, but with a pistol, that's a heck of a limit! I've yet to shoot anything further than about 90 yards, though. I get awesome performance on deer with that bullet. It's shooting 33.5 grains of IMR3031 behind that bullet for a muzzle velocity of 2000 fps and 1315 ft lbs. Standard deviation for a ten shot string was 23.56 which ain't bad, pretty consistent.
Out of a 14" barrel, that load would probably gain another 100 fps. I've stuck with this load, though, as it has a good ballistic coefficient, the bullet expands well at these lower velocities (not common for this bullet weight in a spitzer), and it shoots a LONG ways.
Compare this load to a flat nose Winchester factory load, MV is 1870 fps for 1166 ft lbs and a six shot string SD of 29.77. A 175 yard zero sees you over 4" (excessive) high at 100 yards and 7 inches down at 200. and 200 yard retained velocity/energy is 1325 fps at 585 ft lbs. You can see, the spitzer wakes this baby up!
I have another load I worked up for the Sierra game king 135 grain "pistol bullet" spitzer designed specifically for contenders in .30 caliber. I load 37.5 grains of IMR 3031 behind that bullet and get 2085 fps at 1303 ft lbs. This load retains 1666 fps at 831 ft lbs at 200 yards and a 175 yard zero sees it 3" high at 100 yards and 2.4" low at 200. This bullet expands very well. I haven't shot it in the contender on game, 'cause I settled on the 150 Nosler load, but I have fired this bullet on game out of an SKS for similar velocities. It worked like magic at 100 yards on a doe.
Don't know if you're into handloading, but you see that you can make this gun a viable 200 yard game getter with a good spitzer where factory flat points will give you a 150 yard gun. Actually, because the energy on the flat point factory load is already down to a little over 800 ft lbs at 100 yards, I'd keep my shots on deer to 100 yards are less. At 150 you're 680 ft lbs, pretty low for a .30 cal bullet on deer. Spitzer handloads will wake a .30-30 up.
