Has anyone used the Hornady 265 gr. bullet in their 44 mag.?
Bulldog...

The 265 grainer is a fairly stout bullet and may give minimal expansion, depending, of course, on the velocity you plan to launch it at and what you plan to shoot with it.

Bobby,
According to the Hornady manual, 23.3 grs. of H110 will get me to 1600 fps, but they list that using a 14" T/C barrel, mine is a 10" T/C. I would like to use this on whitetail deer.
Bulldog...

Bulldog,

The Hornady 265gr SP is a great bullet but I feel it is in a nomans land in the relm of .429" jacketed bullets.

It was designed for use in the much larger 444 Marlin and as such is a very stout bullet for the 44 mag in any handgun.

It would penetrate quite well for a middle weight bullet in the 44 mag but there are better choices out there I feel.

If you are hunting only whitetail, I would have to recommend the new Speer 240 gr Gold Dot HP. I have used the 270 gr Gold Dot on whitetail and it works very well but again with very little expansion, which is by design. The 240 gr will be a better match for deer. These are bonded core bullets and will often penetrate with most hard cast bullets.

If real penetration is wanted, again the 265 gr is a middle weight. There are some 300gr pills out there both jacketed(my favorite is Speer Uni-Core SP) and hard cast that will penetrate like theres no stopping them when fired to at least 1300 fps.

Will the 265 gr bullet work well on deer, they should. They do have a relatively small flat on the nose and will not disrupt as much tissue as more traditional handgun bullets will.

I always recommend aiming to take out at least one shoulder along with the heart/lungs and if possible both is better for a quicker recovery. A whitetail that has been punched in the lungs with a handgun will most assuredly die but they can often cover some good ground before realizing it. Breaking a shoulder will drop them quicker and sometimes in their tracks. Meat damage is very minimal with 44 mag velocities and bullets over 240 gr.

Good Hunting!!

50

Bulldog-Like FiftyDriver stated, there are many better choices out there for deer. AMong them is the 250 grain Partition, which will expand AND penetrate, opening sufficiently even on thin-skinned game. My other school of thought is in the opposite direction. I also use a 320 grain LBT-style bullet from Cast Performance Company, which will shoot through just about any game animal I'll ever encounter. I've used it on vermin and varmints along with deer, hogs and exotics and have always been impressed with its performance. The wide, flat meplat creates a nice wound channel, but like the previous post also noted, putting it through one or both shoulders truly expedites the inevitable. -- and generally puts them down on the spot.

Amen on the Cast Performance LBTs Bobby. I have the 275gr. I loaded some to about 1350fps out of a 44 mag Ruger SRH. I haven't shot any game with them yet, but I set up a cardboard box full of bones and chips of wood with about 10" of wet newspaper in front and behind the box. At 50yds the bullet went all the way through and I didn't recover it.
It was cool to see the bones and wood flyin in the air when that bullet hit.

I thimk most 265gr bullets are either designed for the 444 Marlin in rifles, or silhouette shooting with the 44mag. (at least they used to be)

Thanks guys for all this info.
I'm just trying to get the best load to use for deer hunting this year. I have already worked up two nice loads, the Speer 270 G.D. @ 1400 fps, and the Sierra 300 grainer @ 1350+ fps.
Thumbing through the Hornady loadbook, I saw the load data for the 265 gr. S.P. and just wondered how it would work for deer.
I had a load (first one tried) using the 200 XTP, the min. charge got 1725 fps out of my chrony, but between the muzzle flip & blast I dropped it. I did not chrony the max load with it, wish I had just to see how fast it was....It was not a bullet I planned to deer hunt with.
I thinks I'll get me some of those 240 Gold Dots to try, they may be the ticket.
Bulldog...