Muley, slip on over to midwayusa.com and have a look at the harvester sabertooth bullets.
From the left side:Shop all departments> Black Powder Guns>Bullets and Sabots>Harvester Muzzleloading.

Pete, if you do sell that Optima, think seriously about a DIFFERENT handgun to hunt with. That little pea shooter 4 inch .44 would be fine for an on top of the animal finishing pistol but a hunting pistol it aint. Think seriously about either a good .44mag Ruger in one of the hawk series. (Black, red, or super in both). OR an even better idea would be to go to the TC series and hunt with one of them. Too many better options out there in the pistol world to stick yourself in the butt with that seriously limited range. You can top whichever you buy with a good quality pistol scope and be hunting in no time out to 100 yards.

It was so long ago I don't really remember. But I believe the 275grn PB was the best for me but it was terrible as well. You should just hunt Elk in Rifle season like I do with a good ML and bullet

You do know that Elmer Keith did most of his hunting with a 4" barrel? It's said that he shot a deer at 600yds with the same gun. Must have been 25ft of holdover??


It doesn't matter though. I just took the muzzy and the .44 mag out to shoot both. I was going to make a decision which one I was going to keep and hunt with. I had ordered a PAST shoulder recoil pad, and wanted to try it out. What a huge difference it made on recoil felt on my shoulder, but it seemed to help on my cheek too. I used a 260gr PT Gold with 100gr of BH 209, and it was comfortable to shoot. I haven't felt that since having my cheek operated on.

So, i'm going to go ahead and keep the Optima to hunt with, and sell the .44 mag. I don't need a handgun for anything now.

Glad that decision is over with.

Got any tips for 55? I never hunted it before. Got any areas close to the Cottonwood Pass side of the unit?

I never thought i'd ask a question like this. I'm all about finding where to hunt on my own, but not a lot of time left, and not a lot of money for gas to go there to scout much.

i don't know the numbers myself. I'll find out

You're going to love that PAST shoulder pad the more you use it. :cool2:

LOL, There are more "long tales" about Elmer Keith and his exploits than I could read about in a lifetime. Been casting Keith style SWC's (not the changed up Lyman crappers but the original design he made up for Ideal) for years in my .45lc's for hogging. But needless to say, aint either one of us Elmer Keith and a 4 inch barreled .44mag just aint a good hunting option for an even above average pistol shooter. But none of that is either here nor there since you got your ML'er recoil problems figured out.

What sort of crazy material do they use for the pad? It's only 1/4" thick. I didn't think it was going to do anything, but was I wrong.

It's a gel/foam insert. It basically redistributes the recoil pulse over a larger area making the "felt" recoil much less.