Silvertips are the ammo of choice
I live on a river and test expansion by shooting down into the river at about 15 yards and comparing recovered bullets. I know, its not a good comparison to flesh and bones, but its an equal medium to compare expansion of different bullets in. I have had Remington 185 grain 45acp "flying ashtrays" look like they could be reloaded and shot again and have had Federal 180 grain 357 Maximums disintergrate and only leave a piece of lead the size of a no. 1 buckshot behind. Silvertips are unbelievable. All calibers expand violently. In the 45acp they will shed their jackets half the time. They even almost double in size when shot in the 380acp. I have had good luck with the Remington Golden Saber also, but velocity has to be regulated to get desired results with these bullets. Shooting the 125 grain 38 Special Golden Saber above 1100fps will cause it to disinigrate. Shooting the 125 grain 357 Golden Saber under 1000 fps will cause little or no expantion. Bullets like the Speer Gold Dot, Federal Hydra-Shock, and Hornady XPT expand well also. Other lesser hollow points don't work as well. You get what you pay for. For non hollow points, I like the 168 Grain Lyman (358429) or 240 grain (429421) hard cast using linotype. As pointed out in an earlier post, it will go through and leave a good hole. What was not said is that the large flat nose will send out a shock wave and damage a lot of tissue around the wound channel. I shot a deer through the heart at close range (20 yards) with the 358429 and had the stomach explode without damaging the diaphram. Now thats a shock wave!! Of course, overpenetration is a problem. I have never recovered a 357 bullet shot through the heart or lungs of a deer. I did have the above mentioned Federal 357 Maximum bullet explode and not exit with an 80 yard shot. I call that a bullet failure for game hunting but it might be perfect performance for self defense. It was a spine shot and knocked the deer off its feet, so I didn't need tracking blood anyway.
Getting back to your 44 question, I have a 4" 44 Smith thats been Magnaported. The recoil is not any different than a 357 4" with full loads. I am not recoil sensitive, so its tough to tell but I can empty the 44 just as fast as the 357. I have an 8" Smith 44 and its not too hard to shoot fast, but is harder to control than the Magnaported gun. I also have a 10" octagon Contender 44 mag barrel and thats a different storie. I have cronographed 300 grain Sierras at 1600FPS and in the light octagon barrel and that will definently wake you up!!! I don't shoot this load in the Smiths. It would be too hard on the gun. The bullet weight would definetly add to the recovery time if you wanted to shoot it quickly.
I also have a 4" Smith 44 Special. It is a little faster to shoot but my hot loads are only about 950fps with this gun. Its more like a 4" 38
Special to shoot than a 4" 44 mag.
The worst kicking 44 Mag I ever owned was a 7 1/2" Ruger Flattop. All the gun writers aways said how bad the Flattops kicked. I aways thought they were a bunch of whiners untill I owned one. When you shoot it, your middle finger is resting on the back of the trigger guard. when it kicks, its just like hitting your finger with a hammer. By the fifth shot you are just quivering. Like I said, I'm not recoil sensitive, but I'm not immune to pain! There would be no recovery from the first shot to make a second shot with this gun. The same might be said of my 4" Ruger 41 mag 3 screw, but there is no pain, and you can get off a second shot, just not quickly. This is due more to the grip style (and my HOT handloads) than anything else.
One thing I didn't mention is that all my Smiths have Hogues on them while all the Rugers have factory grips. Thats what fit my hands. This makes the Smiths a little more "user freindly", even though the Rugers fit my hand good.
If I had to use a 44 mag for self defense carry (I don't, I use a model 38 airweight cause guns are heavy to carry all day) with no hollow points, I would use a 240 grain 44 Keith style (Lyman 429421) hard cast at 800-900fps. A 215 grain (429215) might work as well or better, but I like the penetration of the 240 grain. If I could use a hollow point it would be a factory loaded 44 Special Silvertip load or Federal Hydra-Shock. I doubt you would need a second shot with any of these loads. For deer and around home field use I like a maximum load of 2400 or H110 with a hard cast 429421. I know where they hit at 100 yards (or more) and they leave one hell of a blood trail!!!
