The 44 mag makes a nice lever gun caliber too, I had one and it did a real good job dumping a couple hogs and deer. pistol ammo is less expensive than rifle ammo, low recoil, short bolt throw, high capacity. its probably most effective at 100yds or less though, but you could stretch it to maybe even 200 w/ the 44 mad lever revolution ammo. the handload I used was a 240xtp doing about 1750fps in a 20" tube.