Made the mistake of shooting a .44 Mag

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bought a .44 Blackhawk on a whim last tax return and was addicted! Now I own 3 .44s and want more!!
 
You want "unpleasant?" Put a 4" 329 together with some Garrett's Hammerhead! Three rounds and I'm done for the day.

It does give me a nice warn feeling during walks in bear country tho. If the first five rounds don't "get his attention" the last one is for me. I don't hink I'll notice the recoil at that moment.
 
45 Colt.....BIG BORES!!!!!



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Yes, that Redhawk is what "RUGER ONLY" really means, not the ugly Super Redhawk or the dated, wannabeacowboy look of the big Blackhawk single actions. But to each his own. I have the 4" Redhawk plus a very handsome New Vaquero for the tamer stuff.
 
1KPerDay said:
I've been gearing up to load .45 Colt and I received notification that MBC is finally shipping my order of .45 Colt brass and pills. I assume full-house loads of .45 Colt will provide a similarly satisfying punch? I'm ashamed to admit I've never even handled a .45 Colt handgun. :eek:
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Depends on what you shoot it in. As others have said, the Colt SAA is NOT the platform to do this with, though third generations SAA's will handle higher pressures than the first generation SAA's.

Since others have mentioned it, and it usually comes up in discussions of why a .44 Magnum was developed and not a .45 Magnum, here's my take on it. Through discussions at work with GoWolfpack, and some personal research, I got a grasp of the history behind the development of the .44 Magnum.

Elmer Keith was the developer of the .44 Magnum...in fact, he first developed the .357 Magnum.

The short story is that Elmer Keith had an avid interest in pushing handgun loads to their extremes, but was limited by the guns in production at the time. His favored pistol at the time was the .45 SAA, which could only be pushed so far in his efforts until the guns simply could not hold up to his attempts to reach his goals.

So he switched to the .44 Special revolver and continued his experimenting. He was able to develop a load capable of pushing a 250 gr. bullet to 1,200 fps.

So he developed his special loading using handguns which were available at that time...and the guns available in .45 Colt were simply not capable of holding up to the challenge like the .44 Special revolver was. Had there been, perhaps history would have been different.

From there, he badgered (convinced) Smith & Wesson and Remington into producing not just commercial ammunition loaded to these specifications, but pistols which could shoot them safely.

The market picked up this new loading for the .44 Magnum readily.

Through retrospect, perhaps it's fortunate for us that the .44 Magnum was developed the way it was, because the impact on the market was minimal with respect to safely shooting the new round in existing guns. Development and marketing for guns and ammunition chambered for .44 Magnum was therefore easier, safer, and more marketable than a round which might be confused with, and unsafely used in, existing .45 pistols.

Eventually a similar effort with the .45 Colt WAS made, and resulted in the production of the .454 Casull. However, the round developed was deliberately longer than the .45 Colt, not only to achieve the performance characteristics desired, but to prevent it from being loaded and fired in existing guns chambered for the .45 Colt. At the time of its introduction into the market, only the .454 Casull could load and fire that round, and any subsequent guns which would ever be made to chamber that round would thus be built to handle it as well.
 
My old shooting buddy bought a 6" M29 way back when Dirty Harry had just made it the "must have" gun.
He loaded up a couple of hundred rounds of full-house loads and off we went to shoot the beast.
This was a box-stock weapon, with the Smith & Wesson "deluxe" grips with their razor-sharp checkering.

Well, we each got a couple of cylinders-full through the thing, and then we quit. He had a cut thumb from the cylinder latch and both of us had pretty torn-up right hands from the checkering.
He went home and attacked the grips with files and sandpaper..... (I think I would have just bought something else...) and also pulled all those 250 grain cast bullets and reloaded them with a whole lot less powder.... Something that would propel those slugs at about 900 fps.
Turned torture into pleasure.
The next wee, we both found the weapon superbly accurate, easy to shoot, and generally a pleasure to handle. I think he eventually sprung for some custom grips for the thing.

I had one of the earliest Ruger Blackhawks in .45 Colt, and experimented with some of the hotter loads but didn't try to push things. It was a pretty controllable weapon... I had sprung for the brass trigger-guard/grip with the squared-off trigger guard. Kept it from biting your finger.
 
Depends on what you shoot it in. As others have said, the Colt SAA is NOT the platform to do this with, though third generations SAA's will handle higher pressures than the first generation SAA's.
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Well, Colt admits that 2nd and 3rd generation SAAs are fine with .45 ACP and .45 ACP +P loads. The latter loads generate about 23,000 psi and produce somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 fps with a 255 grain bullet.

I've found that 1,000 fps with a wide flat nose bullet or a semi-wadcutter (Kieth style) will shoot through a white tail from side to side at any range a prudent man would use an iron-sighted handgun.

Even standard pressure loads (about 14,000 CUP) are perfectly adequate for deer.
 
Vern Humphrey said:
Well, Colt admits that 2nd and 3rd generation SAAs are fine with .45 ACP and .45 ACP +P loads. The latter loads generate about 23,000 psi and produce somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 fps with a 255 grain bullet.

I've found that 1,000 fps with a wide flat nose bullet or a semi-wadcutter (Kieth style) will shoot through a white tail from side to side at any range a prudent man would use an iron-sighted handgun.

Even standard pressure loads (about 14,000 CUP) are perfectly adequate for deer.
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I'm working my finances towards my dream Colt .45 SAA, 5.5 inch, color/case hardened Peacemaker and reloading is front-and-center on that dream, as well. It's good to know I can take it to something a little greater than 850 fps.

:)
 
Well.... my take is that FULL POWER .44Mag loads are fun..... for a cylinder or two. After that the pounding on my hands makes things end quickly.

But tone those loads down by a little and the "All Day Fun" aspect returns. Drop the loads from full velocity by about 15% and it's all day fun that still has a serious BUMP in the hands.

The good news is that when you drop down a .44Mag by that degree it will now be darn near, or close enough, to the same as a full to near full SAMMI spec .45Colt as far as your hands and wrist is concerned.

Note that I'm not comparing knock down power, velocity, penetration or any of those other hunting or self defense aspects. Just plain and simple "Wrist Wrecker Wattage" that some care about that shoot simply for fun at the range.
 
Just thought I'd mention that .44 mag leverguns are tons of fun! Heavy loads are just a thump in those.
 
I have two .44 Magnums, a Taurus Raging Bull 6.5" and a Hawes Western Marshall single
action like the original poster mentioned. Both revolvers are lots of fun to shoot and
whenever I go shooting with my friends, they all ask to shoot the .44 Magnums more
than the other handguns, rifles and shotguns I own. I'd love to get a .454 Casull to
add to my collection and maybe a .44 Magnum like the Ruger Alaskan or the S&W
Mountain Gun.
 
I made the mistake of shooting a 500 s&w one time and then I shot my grandfather's 44 mag. The 500 was insane and stung the hand, but was a thrill. The 44 stung the hand with full power loads but was accurate and a joy with my own cast boolits at lower levels.

I bought the Smith 460. Full power loads are easy on the hands and reduced loads are very fun to shoot and still thump the steel and feel like a cannon. My powder puff 460 load is a 270 SAA HP cast boolit at 1,000 fps, which is still a serious load compared to other cartridges.

Even the 45lc loads that I make up with red dot and at only 7xx fps are impressive on steel plates compared to 9mm and 40 cal competition loads.

I love the 460 because it can go from mild to wild and I can run the same boolits that I use in 45 acp, if I want.
460270SAA.jpg
 
I just loaded up a 100+ 460 Mags with 300grn hard cast over 40 grns of 4227.
Ought to keep me blasting for a while.
I just got a new mold for another 300 grn with gas checks, want to try that one out too.
 
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