i have been looking at some articles on the 44 mag and people say at the right ranges it will take any northamerican game. then i looked at it's ballistics and saw that it had half as much energy as the 30-30 but i've never heard of anyone saying a 30-30 can take any north american game even though it was more power.
can anyone explain this to me?
Well I don't know who said the 44 mag was good to go for ANY North American game but I would certainly disagree. I sure wouldn't use it for elk, moose or any of the bears. IMHO it is okay for whitetails but even then I would keep the range pretty short. It is a pistol cartridge after all.
ANYONE would be far better served by use of a more typical "big game" round, than this pistol cartridge. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with using it. The shooter simply must take it's limitations into account - just as with ANY cartridge.
By the way, redsox, from an energy standpoint, you would be better off using your 12 guage shotgun, with slugs, than a .44 Mag. If this is a point of confusion for you.... the 900 ft- lb (impact energy) minimum that is spoken about is a GENERAL number..... NOT the theoretical minimum. It is possible to kill an animal with less than 900 ft-lbs - but the further below that number you go, with ANY cartridge, the less chance of a "clean" (one - shot) kill.
I hope that this heps clear up some confusion for you.
Well said gorse.Couldnt agree more.
Most 44 mag loads arent even legal here(Wy) i dont believe. I think the figures are - a cartrige must have 1000 ft lbs of energy at 100 yards here for big game - Even if your not going to shoot that far and big game is from tiny antalopes to moose etc
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How does that 1000 ft lb requirement get regulated? What about handloads? If you get stopped by a CO with a marginal cartridge, what do you need to do, break out your chronograph and calculator to prove to him you are legal?
There is no spot enforcement of the "1000 ft-lb" rule, in those states that have it. The regulation is simply in place to provide a guideline for hunters... to try to prevent someone from using something ridiculous... say, a .22 LR, for example. The intention of the regulation is for commercially- loaded cartridges.... that meet this minimum criteria. That, coupled with a minimum bullet diameter regulation, in some states, is simply an attempt to weed out the "geniuses" among us who would go after Elk with a BB gun.... (unfortunately, there ARE a few of them around).
People get too wrapped up in energy when comparing a rifle to a magnum handgun . The .44 magnum will take anything that a 30-30 will. Use a a Keith style bullet with a wide meplat and it will punch a bigger hole through an animal on contact than a 30-30 will fully expanded.
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But, will the .44 Mag "punch a bigger hole than a .30-30" out to the same distance as a .30-30 can be safely used ? I think NOT. Range to target (and retained energy when the bullet arrives) IS a pertinent part of this discussion. I don't think the comparison is terribly valid if one is considering the .44 Mag at 50 yds..... and the .30-30 at 150 yds, for example. Apples and Oranges.....
When I was a teen the 44 mag was the most powerful handgun in the world, Don't laugh I'm not that old. It was known for brutal recoil, by todays standards its not that big of a deal. but in the 1970"s it was truly awesome, ya think the guys roaming the wilds of alaska left it at home cause it wasn't big enough. No they used it quite effectively, and the hunting guru's of that era loaded it with harder cast bullets , nobody made the controlled expansion jacketed bullets then, and successfully took even the largest game on the dark continent with them. Y'all may smirk at it now but how did they kill elephants in the cap and ball days?
You still see almost the same arguements today as in the 223 is 2 small for deer, #6 shot isn't big enough for turkeys, the 22 WMR isn't large enough for coyotes. Ok just so nobody tells all the dead animals that they were shot with a firarm not capable of killing them.
RR
That's all well and good, ridge runner. You also happen to be correct - lots of animals have been taken with such cartridges... and lots of animals have been lost, too. Unfortunately, we seldom hear about those - so it's impossible to make a well- reasoned judgement based on this sort of anecdotal evidence. So, we are left to make judgements based on the numbers. This is the point at which personal judgement comes into it all. I and it seems MOST people here, would rather err on the side of caution - rather than do their business with only a razor-thin margin. History is history - as for myself, I don't give a cr-p what someone did in the past, if there are valid technical reasons to argue against taking the same path. The stories given about such things are often not quite reliable, you see. So, I and many of us, will continue to use cartridges that have a solid margin - others will choose to go with their "faith" - not logic.
I don't understand
