Hi Hardcast,

I agree with you completely about handloading. But as I mentioned in my post above, that is not an option. I live in a containerized housing unit in Afghanistan, and I cannot ship powders or bullet casings to this address through the APO system. Plus there would be nowhere to store the stuff. It simply isn’t possible for me to handload right now, and the best I can do is to have someone else handload for me, which is what I’m doing. I’ll be getting the rounds as specified above for $2.53/round: roughly the cost of good factory 450 Marlin loads, but loaded way down for hunting whitetails. That will have to do for me for this hunting season. Maybe next year I’ll be back stateside in time to get started with handloading. I appreciate all the links, and I will be checking out your info when I am ready to get started.

As for penetration, what I mean is that the commercial loads won’t be very “efficient” for deer. Yes, they’ll kill them plenty dead, but I don’t need that kind of velocity with the bullets in question: unnecessary recoil, report, etc. And I’ve read reports of those commercial .450 Marlin loads zapping through deer and not expanding very much, if at all. I can get much better expansion and still get complete pass-through on a whitetail with a broadside shot with much lower velocities. Some of the handloading recipes you mentioned in your post would probably be excellent for me, such as the 300 grain Barnes XFN @ 1,870. If you want to make some for me, I’ll happily take them.