Bigbulls, I tried a .444M on for size when they first came out, and I honestly wasn't very impressed...it's a good round, but at the time, it was limited to basically the same effectiveness of the .44mag. This problem may have been alleviated by now, as at the time it was basically a problem with bullet performance, no one made a rifle bullet in .429/.430", so your effective hunting range was basically that of a .44mag handgun....It filled a gap, so to speak, between the .44mag rifle and the .45-70 in power, but not in performance, given a good rifle bullet, I'd say it would bridge the gap better, but already having .44mag rifles and .45-70 rifles, I didn't need one in between...the .44mag's good to 150+/-yrds in my hands, and the .45-70's good as far as I can see (I've done a lot of shooting at 6-800yrds with it). Having a .444M that does 175-200yrds didn't serve much purpose for me. If I didn't have any of the rifles I have and didn't shoot .44mag so much, I'd still buy the .45-70 first, but might consider the .444M

rkbo, not many men will argue "program data" against proven field results...as I said, it surprised even myself, but the proof is in the pudding...BTW, re-read my second post on here, you'll be surprised about your "so much flatter" trajectory. Your program likely figured the data for a handgun for the .44mag, most of them do, at which point I'll refer you to the fact that I'm shooting a rifle with a stronger receiver and about 4 times the bbl length.