.44 Magnum +P

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Just out of curiosity, I ordered a back issue of Handloader #265, for the article on +P loads for the Redhawk. What you might call .434 Casull ammo. The writer implies that he consulted with some panel of experts and that the pressures are estimated to be 45,000 (PSI, IIRC, but I'd have to look again). Bullet weights from 270 gr and up, some jacketed, some lead, some brass. He warns not to substitute different bullets of the same weights.

I'm not sure if I'll use this data. I have no need to do so to kill paper, but it is tempting to make up a few to see what they're like. I'm probably too lazy to segregate the brass for future use only at sub-magnum pressure, so for sure I should only do as many as I'm willing to drill out and sacrifice as jewelery after firing.

Unless I got the last one, back issues are still available, and I feel that they deserve to get paid for them, so I'm not willing to scan it and send out the whole thing. If you can afford to shoot .$$ Magnum, you can afford ten bucks for the back issue. However, if anyone wants to see the bullet list and claimed velocities, let me know and I'll post that with the charges redacted.
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Back in the 80s I found the whole concept of the hand cannon fascinating. I read every article by JD Jones and Ross Seyfried on handgun hunting. When I bought my BFR a five shot 45Colt it all came back to me so for shits and giggles after digging up reloading data for 5 shot cylinder loudenboomer loads and worked up some loads using 340gr SSK TC slugs and went to the pit. I managed too shoot 2 cylinders full and thought to my self yes ok I did that, got it out of my system, I haven't done that since, it kind of stung. The design of the BFR lends it self to heavy recoil much better than the redhawk and it is far more robust, I felt that 10 rds were enough. If you do it heed the warning about using different bullets. Seating depth is very critical with those types of charges and powders. A pic of the five shot cylinder.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw
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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Sweet holy fuck that's a hell of a lot of steel left in that cylinder. My wrist _aches_ thinking about the load levels that thing could eat with a burp & a "More Please!" :blink:

I find 9 ~ 10 grains of Unique in my 625 MG more than a hot enough .45 Colt load :whistle:
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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Having shot the 305 gr Buffalo Bore out of both my Super Redhawk and Alaskan I question the need for me to go higher. Unless climate change forces Alaskan Brown Bears to Texas.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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wlewisiii wrote:Sweet holy fuck that's a hell of a lot of steel left in that cylinder. My wrist _aches_ thinking about the load levels that thing could eat with a burp & a "More Please!" :blink:

I find 9 ~ 10 grains of Unique in my 625 MG more than a hot enough .45 Colt load :whistle:
Well, all that steel slows down the recoil. The Redhawk has a touch of that, too. :love:

My recent batches were something like 19.8 grains of 2400, 22.7 grains of 4227 or 23 grains of H110, each with plated 240s. I loaded only 15 of H110, 'cause that stuff is a huge pain in myLee PPM. None of these are too punishing, at least in moderate numbers. Last session I shot something like 30-35 of those and some lesser loads. the 4227 has zero flash that I can see at the outdoor range, and is a bit quieter than 2400, too.. Very low-drama (unless half an ounce of lead moving at transonic speed is dramatic.). I really need to get my chrono set up to see if the drama and velocities are correlated.

One grain less of 2400 and I don't mind running a couple of cylinders one-handed. My middle finger has taken a few whacks. I'm thinking of getting some bigger grips to keep it out from behind the trigger guard. Other than that, no problem other than a scrape on my thumb from the latch one day when I'd been gnawing on the dry skin there previously. Had to bandage it with a stylish bit of black duct tape. :whistle:

I did have a sore thumb joint one day last year, but I've adjusted my grip so the recoil is coming straight into the axis of the wrist and arm. No more problem with the thumb, and the gun is now rotating straight up, not flopping around. Good, clean fun!
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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I remember that issue of Handloader. Gunsmiths, including me, have been experimenting with +P loads in the .44 Mag for 30 years or more and there are a lot of blown up Mod 29s and a few blown up Rugers to attest to this. The loads in that issue of Handloader generally work safely BUT, if you mark case heads and measure them to 0.0001" [that's one ten thousandth] you will find that many of them will often show detectable case head expansion even though your Redhawks and Super Redhawks will handle the strain. That means very short case life.

Everybody, including me when I was young and wild, wanted a handgun more powerful than the .44 Mag. Consequently, we got a bunch of them starting with the .454 Casull. What we learned is that these monsters were unpleasant to shoot. [Try running 3 or 4 cylinders through a .500 S & W and then tell us that you haven't picked up at least a tiny flinch.] More important, these monsters are unnecessary and, contrary to public opinion, owning one will not make your willy grow bigger. I have a good friend who was an outfitter in Alaska and he dropped a huge charging Kodiak Brown Bear [over 1,000 pounds] with a single shot from a Ruger Blackhawk with 240 grain factory ammo. I've hunted a lot of different big game, including black bears and elk, with a .44 Mag and 265 grain Hornady flat points loaded mid-range. They do just fine.

If you have a Redhawk or Super Redhawk, experimenting with these +P loads is fun and I recommend it. But as Buck and others have pointed out, they are unnecessary.

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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The big thing about that five shot cylinder that I posted is that the chamber is cut quite tight. The brass has no room too expand much at all. Plus the cylinder was line indexed when it was cut, very precision. The forcing cone has a very tight gap with an 11 degree cut. All that adds up to a gun that can handle the really stout stuff. I think that a person should stick to the tables and look for loads that fit into the pressure range that is considered safe. A redhawk is a stronger gun than the blackhawk, it can take more of the punishing loads but what is hoped is that after a few that the reloader figures out how unnecessary that ammo is before he hammers the gun till it has excessive end shake.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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eelj wrote:By the by I do own a redhawk.
I figured so. :D I do too. But I also own three Super Blackhawks and, if the truth be told, I have a 7.5" Super Blackhawk that I cut down to 5.5" [had to move the front sight back too] and that is my favorite .44 Mag. I think, if I recall correctly, you also have a stainless steel 7.5" Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter .44 Mag. I have one of those too and I like it although I almost never shoot it anymore. I keep it for the memory factor. It has put quite a bit of meat in my freezer. :D

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Here's the illustration of the loaded ammo they used (maybe not the world's most creative ammo porn line-up), and the digitally mangled load data, which I hope is sufficiently unreadable. If anyone *really* wants to load just a handful of these and doesn't feel it's worth $10 bucks for the back issue, PM me and we'll talk...

Cross-checking a couple of these with the powder manufacturer's sites, it's funny that they only got 18 fps extra for the 320 gr lead with Enforcer, and Western shows a rather low pressure for their load to boot. Hodgdon gets the same velocity for the XTP as shown for the lowest load here, even though it is well over Hodgdon's max load. Both maybe due to the 0.725" longer test barrel, and probably no cylinder gap?

For Buffalo Bore and Underwood, these appear to fall between the standard pressure ammo from those guys and their crazy +P+ stuff. Closer to the "standard" than the crazy, I think. In those cases, the manufacturer's claimed velocities actually come from a 7.5" Redhawk, so those could be fair comparisons.

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IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Black Eagle wrote: Everybody, including me when I was young and wild, wanted a handgun more powerful than the .44 Mag. Consequently, we got a bunch of them starting with the .454 Casull. What we learned is that these monsters were unpleasant to shoot. [Try running 3 or 4 cylinders through a .500 S & W and then tell us that you haven't picked up at least a tiny flinch.]
My motivation for buying that issue was to see roughly what I'm missing by not having a .454, briefly and cheaply with no buyer's remorse!

As for the S&W super-magnums, I hope no one ever offers me a test drive of theirs. I'd regret the missed opportunity if I declined the offer, and I'm pretty sure I'd also regret accepting it. I flinch plenty already!
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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The beauty of the 44mag is an incredible amount of data readily available too the reloader. There has been a lot of development for that cartridge over the years especially with heavy for bore slugs. Heavy slugs need to reach a certain RPM in order too stabilize in flight. If the bore has a relatively fast rate of twist they can be shot at a lower velocity than a slug shot out of a slower twist. You can get a hint of what the 454 Casull is like but you will never really know till you actually shoot one. The SAAMI pressure standards for the Casull are up in the rifle range, I think around 65,000, that is nasty out of a handgun.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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Good point. Blast is a big factor, and I'm not going to be chasing those crazy pressures!

About a year ago, I was at an outdoor range with someone shooting a 5.7x28 a couple of lanes away. Mighty unpleasant for something that looks like a pipsqueak, and it's still around 10,000 PSI below the .454 or .460! That all seems very unnecessary.
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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I'm not trying to talk you out of experimenting, thats the fun of the reloading hobby. One thing I will say is that both Linebaugh and Seyfreid found that in the 45colt 350grs was the maximum weight for that cartridge to perform efficiently. I would guess that for the 44mag 320 would be tops. There are other 429 cases out there that the really big slugs work better in like the 445mag and the 444 rifle case. The same goes for the 45colt, 454 and 460 cases gotta be fed so there is a market for the really big slugs. Be safe.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw

Re: .44 Magnum +P

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eelj wrote:I'm not trying to talk you out of experimenting, thats the fun of the reloading hobby.
By "crazy pressure" I meant trying to match the pressure of the .454. I'm comfortable with the idea of the estimated ~15% over SAAMI predicted in the Handloader article. I would back away slowly from anyone who wanted to go 50% over SAAMI in the .44 Mag! MAYBE that would not immediately damage the gun, but if not, it's gotta be eating up all the safety factor.
One thing I will say is that both Linebaugh and Seyfreid found that in the 45colt 350grs was the maximum weight for that cartridge to perform efficiently.
Can you explain what "efficient" means in this context? I've seen that a number of times, and I don't understand it. I assume it's not a peak in the kinetic energy curve, since that seems (IIRC) to almost always be maximal with very light bullets. A peak, or a deep decline, in the momentum curve? Or is it not that techy?
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: .44 Magnum +P

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The efficiency factor comes from the weight and twist rates, in order to stabilize a heavy slug it must be spinning at a very high rate. The heavier the bullet the longer it is and that means less room for powder and lower velocity. Its all about RPM.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw

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