Black hills Whitetail 44mag

[HandgunHunter]

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I drove up into the Black Hills of Wyoming the day before my season started and made camp in the bed of the truck. I awoke to a 20 ish degree morning and quickly got ready and headed into the woods at first light. I have hunted this area several times before and I chose this area due to the steep climb in that reduces and almost eliminates foot traffic and the USFS has banned vehicles in the area. This area is about 1.5 miles square of forest with some old fire/log roads within it. Recent burns have left a lot of deadfall that gives plenty of bedding cover for both deer and elk. I began slowly working through the woods trying but failing to avoid the crunchy snow. I would work up to a vantage point and often spook deer on the way due to the crunch of the snow. I would hit the rattle bag on the vantage points and called in deer several times. I continued to do this all day. Around 2 pm the snow finally softened from the warmth of the day and stalking became much easier. I climbed upon a flat and started working through some short spaced out pine when I finally spotted a whitetail I was happy with hanging my last tag of the season on. He was making a scrape in a small open area and I was concealed amongst the short pines. I had one perfect shot lane I was stalking along as he worked around in the opening. I sneaked within 45-50 yards and squatted to be bellow the bottom limbs of the pines and have a clear shot window. He was sniffing along a deer path and stepped into my shot lane. I placed the 2.5moa dot of the Trijicon SRO on his shoulder and let the 240 sierra do its work. The buck flipped onto his back then made a short 15-20 yard dash and collapsed. The bullet entered mid shoulder and exited off side in the lungs/high heart. The icing on the cake is it was only a 1.5 mile pack out and one trip....I have packed enough elk this season which made this seem easy

For the legal experts……I’m a 100% disabled vet and my season starts 5 days before yours….

 

[Dan O]

Congrats on a nice buck!!! Looks like you did some work to your Classic.

 

[Bowmannate2000]

Congrats! I have a 6" .357 Ruger GP100. would that be effective for whitetails? What kind of effective range for something like that?

 

[HandgunHunter]

Congrats! I have a 6" .357 Ruger GP100. would that be effective for whitetails? What kind of effective range for something like that?

The gun and projectile will work much farther away than most shooters will.

Under 100 yards is a realistically achievable goal for most.

I have taken lope and deer to 150 with a 44.

 

[hardwoods]

Congrats, very impressive! I've never considered hunting with a handgun, but I may have to give it a try someday. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Bowmannate2000]

The gun and projectile will work much farther away than most shooters will.

Under 100 yards is a realistically achievable goal for most.

I have taken lope and deer to 150 with a 44.

I'd probably shoot my bow farther than the .357! I really need to shoot it more! What is a good hunting round for .357? I have some American Eagle 158 grain soft points. Is that adequate for deer out to 50 yards?

 

[HandgunHunter]

I'd probably shoot my bow farther than the .357! I really need to shoot it more! What is a good hunting round for .357? I have some American Eagle 158 grain soft points. Is that adequate for deer out to 50 yards?

Any 158 JHP will do it

 

[44hunter45]

Always love your threads, @HandgunHunter. Nice buck!

I've killed deer with .357 Mag, 45 ACP, 44 Mag, and 45 Colt. (hence my HT handle) All open sights. The longest shot was 60 yards. My ranges are short here in North Idaho, so I like "heavy for caliber" bullets.

357 and 45 ACP deer both fell to Speer Gold Dot HP loads. I would call these 'accidental' kills, since I was not packing the weapon deer hunting, but had it with me in the woods when a legal deer presented itself. Every one has been Dead Right There, with one memorable exception.

The 44 Mag with a Hornady 300 Grain XTP is the only time I've had to track one. Full pass through, lung blood out both sides in the snow.
Hit the deer broadside from about 25 yards. I bumped it and then it got legs. Found it down but alive after we backed out to move the truck closer to the last blood. It had a double chest sucking wound and still went in a big loop of about a mile. I found the bullet jacket between the hide and ribs on the entrance side. Only the core passed through. I generally had good luck with the XTP before that. After that I switched to Swift A-Frames.

Here he is:
My oldest was 13 in this picture. He is 35 now. Time flies.


I learned from this deer if you don't get a drop right there, treat it like an archery hit.

Now I use only softer cast boolits. I use WW lead and let them air cool, not water drop. These come out around 12 BHN. It is a classic Keith style. My 44 mold has a HP pins. I'm
saving to get the HP molds for the 45 Colt next. I lube with pure deer tallow. It works great. If you shoot Rugers, you may need to do lapping work to use hot soft lead loads. It's not for everyone, but tweaking my wheelguns is part of the experience for me.

I'm not as dedicated to handgun hunting as @HandgunHunter , but I've always enjoyed it.

 

[HandgunHunter]

Always love your threads, @HandgunHunter. Nice buck!

I've killed deer with .357 Mag, 45 ACP, 44 Mag, and 45 Colt. (hence my HT handle) All open sites. The longest shot was 60 yards. My ranges are short here in North Idaho, so I like "heavy for caliber" bullets.

357 and 45 ACP deer both fell to Speer Gold Dot HP loads. I would call these 'accidental' kills, since I was not packing the weapon deer hunting, but had it with me in the woods when a legal deer presented itself. Every one has been Dead Right There, with one memorable exception.

The 44 Mag with a Hornady 300 Grain XTP is the only time I've had to track one. Full pass through, lung blood out both sides in the snow.
Hit the deer broadside from about 25 yards. I bumped it and then it got legs. Found it down but alive after we backed out to move the truck closer to the last blood. It had a double chest sucking wound and still went in a big loop of about a mile. I found the bullet jacket between the hide and ribs on the entrance side. Only the core passed through. I generally had good luck with the XTP before that. After that I switched to Swift A-Frames.

Here he is:
My oldest was 13 in this picture. He is 35 now. Time flies.

View attachment 247044
I learned from this deer if you don't get a drop right there, treat it like an archery hit.

Now I use only softer cast boolits. I use WW lead and let them air cool, not water drop. These come out around 12 BHN. It is a classic Keith style. My 44 mold has a HP pins. I'm
saving to get the HP molds for the 45 Colt next. I lube with pure deer tallow. It works great. If you shoot Rugers, you may need to do lapping work to use hot soft lead loads. It's not for everyone, but tweaking my wheelguns is part of the experience for me.

I'm not as dedicated to handgun hunting as @HandgunHunter , but I've always enjoyed it.

I have found going heavy for caliber to gain me nothing. The JHP bullets do better at optimal speed. What I mean by that is a 44 is based around a 240, 357 158, and so on.

I reckon if I was going with a solid heavy for caliber may be a way to go. I prefer big wound channels and short tracks.

With the above method of optimal weight JHP I have had zero tracking in the past 8 years. Wound channels actually can be compared to a lot of rifle wound channels.

I had made the switch to all lead free but my order was late this year. The cutting edge handgun bullets work awesome.

I made my living building custom hunting handguns for people all over the USA. Just retired in May 2022.

 

[44hunter45]

I have found going heavy for caliber to gain me nothing. The JHP bullets do better at optimal speed. What I mean by that is a 44 is based around a 240, 357 158, and so on.

I reckon if I was going with a solid heavy for caliber may be a way to go. I prefer big wound channels and short tracks.

With the above method of optimal weight JHP I have had zero tracking in the past 8 years. Wound channels actually can be compared to a lot of rifle wound channels.

I had made the switch to all lead free but my order was late this year. The cutting edge handgun bullets work awesome.

I made my living building custom hunting handguns for people all over the USA. Just retired in May 2022.

I too need to do this. I'm interested in trying the Hammer pistol bullets

 

[HandgunHunter]

I too need to do this. I'm interested in trying the Hammer pistol bullets

They don’t even come close to matching the wound channel of a JHP.

Until hammer decides to either actually make a HP or start doing the pre cut petals they are basically equivalent to a truncated flat point fmj.

Cutting edge pistol bullets at a minimum match the wound channel of a JHP.

 

[44hunter45]

They don’t even come close to matching the wound channel of a JHP.

Until hammer decides to either actually make a HP or start doing the pre cut petals they are basically equivalent to a truncated flat point fmj.

Cutting edge pistol bullets at a minimum match the wound channel of a JHP.

Agreed. What are you using? Educate me.

 

[HandgunHunter]

Agreed. What are you using? Educate me.

I have used the cutting edge 200 grain fracturing. The 357 140 fracturing and the 210 44 in a 445 supermag.

 

[tzone]

Awesome write up. Congrats on the buck!

 

[CPAjeff]

Congrats on the great buck!