Heavy Weight Bullets In The .44 Magnum

Most shooters who have been around a fair amount of time know that Elmer Keith's writings about the .44 Special from the late 1920s into the mid-1950s were directly responsible for the advent of the .44 Magnum. He did not invent the cartridge, per se. However, without his articles about taking big-game with big-bore sixguns -- especially when chambered in the .44 Special and using what is now known as the "Keith Load" of a 250-grain, hard-cast bullet of his design at 1,200 fps from a 7 1/2-inch sixgun -- we would in all probability have never seen the .44 Magnum. He not only spent 30 years paving the way, he also negotiated directly with Remington and Smith & Wesson to bring about the ammunition and the sixgun to shoot it.

Keith was not an overnight sensation by any means. He started like most of us, from nowhere, knowing next to nothing. In fact, nearly 20 years after the .44 Special had been introduced by Smith & Wesson, he had yet to see one. Remember that in Keith's early years there were no gun magazines as such, and the closest thing to instant communication was a letter that took several weeks to travel across the country. He was simply a young, hard working cowboy in the 1920s who was enamored with sixguns, mostly the old Colt SAA .45, which in his time and economic condition were probably black powder specimens that had seen better days.

In the early 1920s, Keith had an experience that changed his life forever. He decided to celebrate the Fourth of July by tiring his old black powder .45 Colt 5 1/2-inch SA. He went upstairs and onto the back porch of his little ranch house to make some noise.

"When the gun rose from the recoil of the first cartridge, I unconsciously hooked my thumb over the hammer spur and thus cocked the gun as it recovered from recoil. When I turned the next one loose, I was almost deafened by the report and saw a little flash of flame. My hand automatically cocked the gun and snapped again, but no report. I stopped then, knowing something was wrong. The upper half of three chambers was gone. Also one cartridge and half of another case. Also the top strap over the cylinder. My ears were ringing, otherwise I was all OK" (The American Rifleman, August 15, 1925).

This was described in a letter to the editor of The American Rifleman and would begin Elmer Keith's long, colorful and tremendously influential career as a gun writer. When the above "accident" was investigated, it was found that Keith had been using heavy .45 Colt loads in the SAA made up with 300-grain bullets with a diameter of .458 inch originally intended for use in the .45-90 lever-action Winchester. Not only that, it also appeared that he had aided the ignition process by crushing the black powder into a finer grain size.

His old Colt simply died that morning, and Elmer Keith switched to the .44 Special. By 1929 he had a full-blown article in The American Rifleman about his famous Number Five Single Action .44 Special that he built to be, as he called it, The Last Word.

When Keith got his .44 Magnum, he got even more than he had asked for. All he wanted was his .44 Special loading of a 250 grain, hard-cast bullet at 1,200 fps. He suggested new, longer brass so that this load would not chamber in older, weaker guns. Ammunition manufacturers were afraid that early .44 Special handguns could not handle the load. Instead of duplicating the Keith Load for the .44 Special, Remington came out with the .44 Remington Magnum with a 240-grain bullet at 1,400+ fps. Keith was ecstatic about the new load, and about the Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum sixgun.

It is interesting to read the early reports. Keith downplayed the recoil of the new cartridge. Major Hatcher of The American Rifleman staff likened it to being hit in the palm with a baseball bat. For most of us, reality was somewhere in-between Keith and Hatcher, probably leaning in Hatcher's direction. The .44 Magnum kicked! It kicked hard!! Especially in the 4-inch Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum with the plain clothes stocks that Elmer preferred, and definitely in the Ruger Blackhawk with a grip frame that was identical to that found on the Colt Single Action Army. Over the years, I have learned to handle the recoil of the .44 Magnum by practice, by using hand-filling, custom stocks and, most assuredly, by welcoming new sixguns that added extra weight over the 3pound heft of the original .44 Magnums.

I also learned something else. Going back to Keith's original blow-up story, I noticed that he was using heavyweight bullets, not the 255-grain bullet standard for use in the .45 Colt at that time. Why? I would guess he was looking for greater power and deeper penetration for use on big-game animals. When he switched to the .44 Special, he also designed a heavyweight .44 bullet, which was produced by the old firm of Belding & Mull. However, remember that in the early stages of his sixgunnin' life he was still learning. His 280-grain .44 Special bullet had a very blunt, rounded nose, and he soon found that it was lacking in long-range accuracy. He went back to the drawing board and came up with the classic #429421 250 grain, semi-wadcutter bullet, which everyone knows today as the Keith Bullet. When the .44 Magnum arrived, he used the same bullet and simply increased the muzzle velocity by 200 fps over his .44 Special loading. This was his standard load for every purpose until he suffered his terribly disabli ng stroke at the age of 81.

For at least 25 years the Keith Load was the standard load for the .44 Magnum, just as for 25 years earlier the .44 Special loading from Keith had been the standard. That is a half-century of tremendous influence on .44 shooters by one man! Once the .44 Magnum arrived, many sixgunners began to take a serious look at hunting with a handgun. They also found very quickly than if they did want to hunt, they would have to load their own ammunition because there was very little available on the shelves which was truly suitable. The Keith load has served us well.

Then in the late 1970s, a new influence began to be felt. J.D. Jones founded SSK Industries, which was dedicated to providing the best possible products for handgun hunters. Much of his early work was with wildcat chamberings in the Thompson/Center Contender. One of those wildcats was the .430 JDJ, which was simply the .444 Marlin trimmed back. There were few bullets available, so Jones designed his own as well as supplying bullet molds. One of these bullets was a 320-grain, flat-nose that he would soon discover worked superbly in .44 Magnum sixguns.

I acquired one of Jones' early molds for this bullet and used it extensively in a custom 10-inch Ruger Super Blackhawk over 23.5 grains of WW680 for 1,400 fps. Now we had the same velocity as the original factory loaded .44 Magnum but with 80 grains more bullet! A new era had dawned for the .44 Magnum. Today we are fortunate to have heavyweight bullets, both hard cast and jacketed, available from a number of suppliers, as well as excellent bullet molds for casting our own.

1. Accuracy: The longer a bullet is in relation to its diameter, the more accurate it normally is. It is a rare .44 Magnum sixgun that does not shoot 300- to 320-grain bullets more accurately than it does 240- to 250 grain bullets.

2. Big Game Hunting: To be successful as a handgun hunter, you must understand the four Ps: Placement, Power, Performance, and Penetration. Placement refers to where the bullet hits the target; Power, the muzzle energy; Performance, whether it expands or not; and Penetration, just how deeply into the animal we can expect the bullet to go. The latter is extremely important when hunting large or dangerous animals. And the simple fact is that heavy bullets penetrate more deeply.

Let us look at some of the heavyweight bullets used in the .44 Magnum, beginning with 10 cast-bullet loads. All were assembled using Starline's excellent and durable .44 Magnum brass, CCI #350 Magnum Large Pistol primers and Redding's equally excellent .44 Magnum carbide dies. Loads were chronographed over Oehler's Model 35P. Six powders normally used for heavy duty Magnum loads were pressed into service:Alliant's #2400, Accurate Arms' AA#9, Hodgdon's H110, the relatively new Lil' Gun, H4227 and Winchester's 296. There are also some loads included with Unique and BRP's 290-grain, Keith-style bullet simply because I shoot so many of these in older .44 Magnums. Other bullets are also shown with Unique loads for the simple reason that heavyweight bullet loads in the .44 Magnum need not always be shot at full power.

...Accuracy: The longer a bullet is in relation to its diameter, the more accurate it normally is... (from the article)

I think the statement is mostly true since if a bullet is the same shape and diameter the longer bullet is of course heavier and will buck wind better (property of higher BC).

A higher BC also also means flatter trajectory at a given velocity, but to me that is something different then accuracy. That has to do with point of aim.

Absent wind, a heavier (longer) bullet of the same diameter may not necessarily be more accurate. I wouldn't say it would necessarily be any less accurate either. I think where he lost me was attributing it more to length then weight.

A Nosler ballistic tip has a higher BC then a Match Bullet at the same weight. Why don't the bench resters use them? In my own experience a Nosler is less accurate then a Match Bullet. A lot less. The Match Bullets are hollow points, and I think that there is a reason that they are. It doesn't have to do with superior BC.

I have way more experience with rifles then pistols, but I figure the bullet doesn't care much about the gun after it has left the barrel.

Although I like long heavy bullets, they are generally less accurate than shorter, lighter bullets. Just the opposite of what he says.

I had thought that at comparable velocities a longer bullet is more stable than a shorter one because of areodynamics. Like a longer arrow is more stable in flight than a stubby stick.

The 4" 29 is a gun with classic lines. I have a 29-1 in 8 3/8ths that is a "one-hole" gun, consistently putting 50 rounds in a playing card sized hole at 15-25 yards, even with me shooting it. I gave it a cleaning and trigger job this weekend, going with a 14 lb rebound slide spring, which smoothed and dropped the DA pull just a bit.

I suspect due to the increased mass requiring greater angular momentum to stabalize.

I have wondered why they don't make a long copper jacketed, plastic/nylon bullet for varmint hunting, in say .308. They would have good seating depth and probably fragment on impact, which would be desireable. The stubby 110 grn bullets in .308 do not have a reputation for any real accuracy. It would make my .308/ .30-06 more versatile.

The increased mass has nothing to do with it.

The determining factor, is where that mass is located. Long heavy bullets are harder to stabilize than short, wide bullets due to gyroscopic instability.

Here is an extreme example: Take, say a 6.5mm 160 grain bullet and drill a tiny, perfectly centered hole through the base all the way through the point. Insert a long nail and make a toy spinning top out of it.

You will find it difficult to make it stand up.

Now take a .45 caliber 180 grain jhp. Do the same thing. It will be easier to make it stand while spinning. To make it even better, take a hammer and flatten it to where it looks like a large penney. It will spin even easier.

That is basically why long heavy bullets must have a much faster twist.

The S and W Model 29 is a beautiful gun. I don't think it is tough enough to stand up to really powerful loads shot on a regular basis. However, I had a friend who put darn near 10,000 full power rounds through his Model 629 six inch before the sear broke. He had the thing fixed and sold it. The guy who bought it probably put another 5000 rounds through it so far.

I'm well aware of the limitations of the Model 29, and particularly the earlier ones prior to the introduction of the "Endurance package." The 29-1 was a single year model with the only change from prior models being reversing the thread on the ejector rod so it won't unscrew under recoil. I'll shoot factory 240 grain loads from it, but would go to a Ruger or FA if I wanted more get up and go out of a handgun. For most of what I do, 200-240 grains at under 1000 f/s is plenty. That's probably why I have a number of Model 25's as well.

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