Big hole hp vs little hole hp in the .44 mag

[Shuz]

Late last month I decided to modify some MP-431-256 regular point boolits by sizing with the tapered hp pin Miha furnishes with his MP-433-300 moulds. While not quite as big a hole as the Lyman Devastator, the enlarged boolits are visually much bigger than the regular hp.
The boolits were cast at the same time out of an alloy that tests Saeco 5, because I'm shooting 8.3g of Green Dot and wished to keep the velocity and recoil down without leading the bbls. Cutting to the chase.....I fired 5 shot gps out of 2 different .44 mag revolvers, and each time the enlarged hp "groups" were nearly twice the size of the regular hp groups. (2.3" vs 4.3")

One of the guns used is a super accurate 629-3 Classic DX with a 5" bbl and a Leupold 4X EER scope, and the other is a relatively new Ruger Bisley KRBS-43N with a 3-3/4" bbl and open sights. The rounds fired from the Bisley averaged 963fps with an SD of 12 and the rounds fired from the 629-3 averaged 983fps with sd's of 8 and 13.
I plan on conducting this trial again within the next few days and will enter another .44mag or two to see if the results are the same. By the way, the bbls of both guns showed absolutely no leading.
Have any of you folks compared accuracy of different hollow point sizes and/or shapes?

[Tatume]

The diameter or depth of the hollow point will make much less difference than the concentricity. Are you certain they are centered?

[Larry Gibson]

I was a long time user and proponent of the 429244 cast soft, HP'd to varying depths with the Forster 1/8" HP tool and driven to 1350 1400 fps for excellent performance on game. However, when I tried the 429640HP "Devastator" with its very large HP I saw a marked difference and improvement. I now use the Devastator for my 44 Magnum hunting loads exclusively. I even traded the 429244 mould off for a Lyman 450.

Larry Gibson

Attachment 107561

[44man]

The one gun that does not need a HP is the .44. It is at home with a WLN hard boolit for any game.
You ruin penetration with a HP.
But to see an accuracy difference with different cavities is indeed strange because most HP's shoot very good.
I am going with alloy and slump, skid changes over the HP cavity. You have altered something else. The load is not conducive for accuracy to start with. 900+ is a sad place for a .44.
I don't know what Saeco 5 is but bet it is a putty ball. I hope you are shooting 50 yards, you did not say so i assume it is 25.

[gray wolf]

to much Enough info left out to make a comment.

[Larry Gibson]

Have to differ in opinion with ya 44man.

You ruin penetration with a HP.

I have yet to find that to be the case with either the HP'd 429244 or the 429640HP. I've yet to recover one of either in deer or pigs. Several threads in the hunting forum of HP cast bullets used w/o the "blowup on the shoulder" or the "lack of penetration" problems often proffered. Yes there are reported problems but almost all are associated with use of an improper alloy. I can relate as many "failures" with improperly alloyed solid cast bullets also. Such a failure is not the fault of the bullet but one of the shooter.


If cast of very soft alloy such as 20-1 or even 40-1 that 429640HP will expand nicely to a reasonable range at 983+ fps which is a very nice 44 SPL +P loading. Within 50 yards it will do nicely on deer. Not a load that I would use these days but it will do better than the classic Skeeter 44 SPL load which I have killed deer with. And if that big wide HP doesn't expand you have the same benefit of most WFN solid cast because that bullet is a WFN with a big hole in the front.

Larry Gibson

[Shuz]

Tatume--I think you may have hit on the answer. I do not know if the enlarged hole is centered. I do know that I have shot many 5 shot groups with the Lyman Devastator that Larry mentioned, and groups were often 1" or less at 25 yds with the scoped 629-3.
When I size the 429640 Devastator, I usually use the Lyman 303 top punch.

[lonewelder]

I agree the hp may not be concentric.As far as 44man and Larry I agree with both.At the diff velocities you need different things.At 900 a solid will kill deer but they will run a good ways,a hp helps this.At 1300 a solid works fine.The 44wcf has proven that for years.

[44man]

I do agree with Larry because alloy choice is much more important for the HP. It is why I asked what Saeco 5 is. I can't shoot soft lead from any revolver, I get fliers. Since I shoot deer out a little over 100 yards, I don't need them.Attachment 107682 I shot this deer in the neck with my heavy WLN, .44 boolit, water dropped WW's. I don't think I will be using a HP!
I have lost whole shoulders at exit from 50-50 HP's.
Don't need a stinking rifle to destroy a deer!

[Shuz]

Saeco 5 converts to Bhn 8 or thereabouts. Pretty soft, right, but I get absolutely no leading when I'm driving the boolits at 950 to 1050 fps with a relatively fast powder like Green Dot. Lately I've had to reduce the recoil a bit due to pain in my hands from RA. I still shoot some 1100 to 1200 fps out of my 4 to 5" bbl'd guns but it's not the fun it was once. Tuff to get old!

[44man]

Saeco 5 converts to Bhn 8 or thereabouts. Pretty soft, right, but I get absolutely no leading when I'm driving the boolits at 950 to 1050 fps with a relatively fast powder like Green Dot. Lately I've had to reduce the recoil a bit due to pain in my hands from RA. I still shoot some 1100 to 1200 fps out of my 4 to 5" bbl'd guns but it's not the fun it was once. Tuff to get old!

Leading was never an issue until I tried pure. 50-50 leaves my barrels clean but all softer has needed a GC for me.
It was always the poor accuracy and fliers and why I use harder. Then again I use 296 and need case tension.
Age does a job for sure and I am going on 77. Many of you "OLD TIMERS" are just youngsters! It is why I am an old curmudgeon after all!
I have tested everything that can be done with revolvers and then some. But IHMSA made me think more and it payed off big time. It all carried over into cast and hunting.
The .44 with my boolit or the Lee 310, a deer might get 30 yards and the .475 will drop 99% on the spot. I just can't see myself using a HP in either. I don't need to skin, gut and grind the deer in the field.
It is wrong to figure a HP will put a deer down faster. My experience with the 240 XTP has not born that out, they go twice as far with no blood trails.
The deer I shot with the 50-50 HP was ruined so bad the shoulder was pulling off with the skin but she made over 100 yards.
I find dead deer all the time, some were hit behind the shoulder with magnum rifles so the off side is busted so bad all the guts were outside the deer. They were still lost. A few years ago I walked one property and found a dozen lost deer and many were blown to bits.
The day you can convince me that a HP kills faster will be a long time coming.

[DougGuy]

I am with 44 man on the no need for a HP, I like the Lee 310-RF boolit myself, and my 7 1/2" Super Blackhawk REALLY took a shine to 50/50+2% alloy that I can scratch with a thumbnail. After I evened up the cylinder throats to match the largest one at.4325" or so, I shoot .432" boolits over 17.0gr of 2400 or 20.0gr of LilGun for my reduced power loads, we are still talking about 1150-1180f/s velocity, and It is my understanding that the softer alloy and the velocity I am shooting it at is a perfect match for the barrel twist of the Ruger. It now shoots exceptional groups, and near zero leading. I get one tiny smidge of lead in one groove, just under the front sight. That's all.

All this of course, is the result of a combination of factors, the hardness of the alloy, the velocity they are driven at, even the throats and the 11° forcing cone come into play as well. The Lee 310-RF just hits on all of it like a boat coming up on plane when everything is right. I guess with your diff HP sizes, you are shifting the center of gravity to a place in the boolit where you can't stabilize it at the velocity you are driving it at. It may need another 200 - 300f/s to hit it's sweet spot.

Also using the 310 with the .370" meplat, there is no need for a hollowpoint as this will expand somewhat but it will penetrate deeper and retain much more of it's weight. If the deer is standing behind a pine tree, no problem, hey y'all watch this, drive it right through the tree and STILL take the deer. Try that with a HP..

[harley45]

Not sure how it compares to .44 Magnum but I have the MP 200gr HP for my 10mm and cast some out of 50/50, we had a car struck 300 pound hog the other day that I got a call to put down. I had some of these loaded at 1000 fps in my car from an earlier range trip and decided to see what would happen. Long story short it expanded perfectly and lodged in the offside. Just food for thought.

[fredj338]

DOn't confuse accuracy with SD/ES numbers, the two are not the same. I find for hunting, a smaller cup point, will give good expansion & not frag, more bullet nose to support expansion.

[DougGuy]

Harley45 what you have there is like an ultimate man stopper, does lethal damage yet does not fully penetrate to endanger others or go through walls, etc. For a hunting boolit, you would want total penetration, where you have an animal bleeding out of both sides, two holed they call it, is a much more serious and effective wound that will put one down much quicker than a hollowpoint that expands and stops. True it dumps all it's kinetic energy in the target, but stopping oxygen supply to the brain is the #1 goal in putting down a game animal, and the fastest and only way to do that is to stop all blood flow asap. A through and through wound with a WFN is way more likely to accomplish this than a single entry wound from a hollowpoint.

[C. Latch]

I am with 44 man on the no need for a HP, I like the Lee 310-RF boolit myself, and my 7 1/2" Super Blackhawk REALLY took a shine to 50/50+2% alloy that I can scratch with a thumbnail. After I evened up the cylinder throats to match the largest one at.4325" or so, I shoot .432" boolits over 17.0gr of 2400 or 20.0gr of LilGun for my reduced power loads, we are still talking about 1150-1180f/s velocity, and It is my understanding that the softer alloy and the velocity I am shooting it at is a perfect match for the barrel twist of the Ruger. It now shoots exceptional groups, and near zero leading. I get one tiny smidge of lead in one groove, just under the front sight. That's all.

All this of course, is the result of a combination of factors, the hardness of the alloy, the velocity they are driven at, even the throats and the 11° forcing cone come into play as well. The Lee 310-RF just hits on all of it like a boat coming up on plane when everything is right. I guess with your diff HP sizes, you are shifting the center of gravity to a place in the boolit where you can't stabilize it at the velocity you are driving it at. It may need another 200 - 300f/s to hit it's sweet spot.

Also using the 310 with the .370" meplat, there is no need for a hollowpoint as this will expand somewhat but it will penetrate deeper and retain much more of it's weight. If the deer is standing behind a pine tree, no problem, hey y'all watch this, drive it right through the tree and STILL take the deer. Try that with a HP..

What kind of accuracy do you get with that load out past 75 to 100 yards?

[DougGuy]

What kind of accuracy do you get with that load out past 75 to 100 yards?

Don't know. All my hunting with this stuff is pretty close, I get where the woods is thick and get in a tree stand so 75% of the kills are within 25-30yds of the tree stand. I pistol hunt as a sidearm to a long gun so if it gets more than that, I just use the long gun. This boolit out of a short barreled Ruger Vaquero, for me is a 50yd boolit at the most.

[Bass Ackward]

You and your darned Green Dot. And I told you that 325pd would make you pay.

Drive ya nuts huh? You were shooting one hollow point design and one hollow CAVITY design. I'll bet that if you harden your bullets to where that big hollow point doesn't deform (outta balance) so much and your results will be different. That soft and spanking it with Green Dot and I can only imagine what that devastator bullet looks like when it exits and your velocity is just to low to stabilize it properly.

Nice to experiment and wonder why. If you need to shoot just go with what Professor Target teaches you and figure it out later if you can. Pontificating will actually lead you to the correct conclusions, sometimes.

[Shuz]

We'll see if "Professor Target" can enlighten me when I try the same experiment with a few different guns. I may even try the 329PD! Remember, the softness is to eliminate leading at that velocity and recoil level. There was absolutely no leading with these loads and alloy, but without recovering a boolit to look at the rifling marks, I may be getting skidding and be not aware of it. Then, I'm just dumb and happy with no leading!

[44man]

Bass and dougGuy see it. Fast powders do deform a boolit faster. You can't look at the final pressures, you need look when the peak occurs.
I also like close shots and 20 yards is just so good but anything out a little over 100 will be taken because of accuracy.
There is a difference with my hard boolits at long range, a deer can go a little farther then one shot close, loss of velocity and energy, so a little softer for long range would be better, but then I get those fliers and lose confidence in taking a shot so it is a trade off. I could hit a deer at 200 with my .44 if someone held a yardstick above the deer due to about a 35" drop but I would not trust a fast kill at that range. From 100 out, it starts to just poke a hole. A boolit still needs energy.
Some believe a boolit that stops dumps more energy and the amount is really so sad when you look at it. Better to use boolit work with full penetration in every case. We just don't have tons of energy. You are not going to get hydraulic shock with a revolver no matter how much meat is destroyed.
One day my grandson and I dropped a friend on stand and were walking out, jumped deer out of the thick, lots of little trees. One stopped at a paced 110 yards. I had my .45 Vaquero in the holster. Grandson said shoot! I told him I can't shoot through all the trees. I took the gun out and the doe was facing away, looking back. I held just a little high on the tail, the boolit went across her back, took her in the neck to put her down. Standing, off hand. If he would have looked at me he would see big eyes!
I was using either the 335 LBT or the 325 Lyman, don't remember, at 1160 fps. 21.5 gr of 296 Fed 150. 7-1/2" barrel. Both these boolits have done 1" at 75 yards from Creedmore.
I do not know how I missed trees. I have taken many deer with the .45 and it does not kill like the .44 at 1300+ FPS but it does work at closer ranges. Deer jump and walk a few yards, start to shake their heads and panic, try to run but fail fast. pretty close to an arrow hit.
Now a softer boolit would work better with a small cavity but then I could not hit as good so there is still the trade off with distance.
Actually my cap and ball Old Army kills faster with a RB. Pure lead that I love but I can't shoot it from smokeless. The Old Army has the wrong twist for the 1100+ FPS so it is a close range gun only.
Many claim full velocity with accuracy using 20 to 1 or 40 to 1 from a .44 mag. I need to see it myself.