Big Boy Steel .44 Mag Range Report

[JEBar]

UPDATE : 50 rounds @ 50 yards

earlier today I visited our oldest son's range .... since the early 60's our 44 Mag hunting load in our former Ruger Blackhawk and current Redhawk revolvers has been 23.8 gr of W296 pushing a 240 gr Nosler JHP .... as a point of clarification, I've never found the the brand of shell casing or primer makes any difference .... that said over time we have come to prefer Starline brass and CCI Large Pistol Magnum Primers .... the scope on our Henry is sighted in for a practice load using cast bullets which I have no plans to ever use again .... my objective for today was to test our long standing handgun load in our Henry BBS 44 Mag rifle to determine how well it would group them at 50 yards .... the target below shows the results of 50 rounds fired while seated and using a shaky, at best, rest for the rifle's forearm .... light crosswind that I don't believe played a significant part .... all in all, I'm well pleased and can now move on to sighting in the scope .... to do so we will run 10 or so rounds through a chrony and feed the results into a ballistic's program .... initially I'm considering zeroing at 150 yards but much will depend on the trajectory determined by the ballistics program

[GFK]

My! You can't get much better than that. Good shooting!

[Mags]

Ate the heart out of that target! Next goal to strive for, all in one hole. Go for the challenge You can do it!

[CT_Shooter]

Great shooting, JEBar. Fifty rounds in the same ragged hole is as good as it gets. Very impressive. Your handgun loads absolutely perform in your rifle. Fantastic! Thanks for sharing your targets.

[PT7]

Ditto, ditto, ditto --- all of the above comments!

[JEBar]

kind comments appreciated .... don't know exactly when it will be but I'm really looking forward to getting back out there

[TNman]

Wow, nice shooting with the BB on the elk target. Excellent Redhawk targets too!

[North Country Gal]

With shooting like that, I'd be darn itchy to get back out there. THAT is impressive. Nice work.

[RanchRoper]

Looks like a cannonball went through that target. Very nicely done. Great shooting.

[JEBar]

Wow, nice shooting with the BB on the elk target. Excellent Redhawk targets too!

thanks .... I've been hunting with our Redhawk for more decades than I care to remember .... early on I relied on the OEM sights and it put a variety of meat on the table .... later I mounted a crosshair 4 power scope that worked really well but, simply put, was too cumbersome .... from there to an early Aimpoint red dot .... it wasn't a bulky and worked well .... now it sports a much more compact Aimpoint that I really like .... unfortunately, at a hundred or so yards, on a sunny day, the dot gets to be awfully large .... it serves OK for hunting but is too large for finer target shooting .... right after buying our BBS 44 Mag I went through a phase of trying to develop loads using lead bullets ... literally thousands and thousands of rounds later I never did find one I was really happy with .... guess I just couldn't shake a lifetime of believing it is best for me to practice with the same ammo that I hunt with .... now that all of my lead bullets have been expended and I have a thousand plus rounds of the hunting level bullets mentioned in post 1, I'm delighted to be resighting in both 44's what I hope will be the last time

With shooting like that, I'd be darn itchy to get back out there. THAT is impressive. Nice work.

praise from you is highly appreciated .... I'm still able to do a reasonable job using just a forend support but age, arthritis, multiple hand and shoulder surgeries have combined to ensuring that my days of shooting off hand are long gone ....

[JEBar]

Looks like a cannonball went through that target. Very nicely done. Great shooting.

not bad but certainly not on par with yours .... I can't help but be in awe of your off hand shooting .... heck, if you ever see me down on one knee on a firing line (or most anywhere else) please dial 9 -1 and wait ....

[BigAl52]

Nice job Jim looks like you have found your load.

[RanchRoper]

Don't sell yourself short, that is an expert shredded target. It sure feels good when a fella gets dialed in like that....

[JEBar]

I haven't been able to get back out to the range to run our 44 Mag handloads through a Chrony .... its simply to dang hot ..... did run a sample ballistics trajectory and came up with the following :

numbers taken from Nosler's latest reloading manual .... using the same load in the 50 rounds fired at the Elk target shown above ===> 23.8 gr W296 pushing a Nosler 240 gr JHP with a ballistics coefficient of 0.173 generating a muzzle velocity of 1723 fps with a Zero set for 125 yards

25 yards +.6"

50 yards +2"

75 yards +2.4"

100 yards +1.8"

125 yards 0.0

150 yards -3.1"

in my mind that is an excellent big game hunting round for out to 150 yards .... from the muzzle out to 150 yards pretty much allows the crosshairs to be placed in the center of the kill zone

[Slugnut]

they make a beautiful couple. good shooting, my friend.