Penetration - .44 Black powder vs. .44Mag

J

JonnyB

New member
Greetings all:

A coworker just this morning said that he read somewhere - maybe G&A magazine - about a test that showed a .44 black powder revolver having more penetration (in wood) than a .44 magnum; 9 inches vs. 6 for the maggie.

I quickly challenged him to a shoot-off; my Model 29 against his antique. I qualified the challenge conditions to using similar projectiles, though. No hollowpoint vs. round ball or minie-ball.

I haven't any test data to back up my claim, but I called BS on the article. I would, in fact, place substantial money where my mouth is. A .44 round ball is somewhere in the 180-200 grain range, I suspect (as .54 is ~235), and is travelling along at, what, 750-900fps? I gotta believe that a 180 hard-cast bullet out of the magnum should be moving at 1400+ (don't have my load book at work), and will easily out-perform the other.

Am I all wet? Goodness knows it's hapened before...

Jon B.
 
I gotta go with you on that one Jon. I'm sure someone will come forward with real data to support you. But my gut just tells me that is backwards. Most smokeless loads are "hotter" than black powder loads. Hotter usually equals faster. Faster usually equals more penetration with projectiles of equal density and mass. Yeah, a good heavy 45-70 will acheive more penetration than a .30 caliber bullett -- but that's because of the bullet weight difference. I don't ever remember anyone suggesting that a black powder pistol would be a good gun to carry along for bear defense...
 
I lean toward your thinkin Johnny.

Be carefull tho. He might be nuts enough to stuff it full of 3F and maby get one or both of you hurt.

Sam
 
See'n as how the round ball is probably pure lead and slower and the modern bullet has a higher velocity, greater ballistic coeficient (sp?) and is a harder alloy I don't see how you could go wrong.

Now a BP revolver might be a good bear pistole because you could sneak away under the smoke cloud while Mr Bruin was trying to snort out the smell of the black powder.:D

Sounds like the test would be a good excuse to go shootin' and that's never bad.

Rick
 
There's wood & wood = not homogenous at all. That's why somebody came up with ballistic gelatin, etc. to provide for a standard test medium & all.

If you're gonna do this & even if you have to use round ball, make sure you get to pick the wood. Give him the one with knots (preferably oak) while you shoot straight-grained soft pine. :p
 
Use a .44 Mag Garret Hammer Head round and shoot thru 24+ Inches of pine! ;)

Maybe the Black Powder pistol was loaded Depleted Uranium rounds?
 
I'll have to reply to my own post, if you don't mind.

I checked a couple references last night regarding loadings. Here's what I learned:

.44 caliber lead round balls are 127 grains. Thompson Center shows a load for their Patriot single-shot pistol (I don't know the barrel length) at a max load of 35 grains of powder. It gives a muzzle velocity of 1063 fps.

The Lee load manual lists a 180 grain bullet as the smallest for the .44 magnum. The load using H110 powder drives that bullet in excess of 1800 fps!

I s'pose it's possible for a determined soul to find some weird combination for the .44 magnum that's a complete dog, but I fail to see how one could state, with a straight face, that a BP .44 will penetrate better than a .44 Remington Magnum.

I will stand by my wager.

Jon B
 
Just bear in mind that not all black-powder .44s are created equal. You can cook up relatively impressive loads in a Colt Walker/Dragoon type pistol.
 
I would have to agree that the .44 mag would probably have better penatration than blackpowder (and I LOVE my blackpowder revovler). From my reading on blackpowder I've heard that the biggest and strongest blackpowder pistols (Colt Walker reproductions and the Ruger blackpowder pistols) can be loaded to about .357 mag power levels. That's quite strong but still not a .44 mag.
 
This isn't "scientific", but I'm the proud owner of both types of gun in question. My Walker replica will take approximatly 48 grains of 3F at full charge. Never cronographed it, that's another project for the future... I have, however, test fired it at wood. I don't think I've ever shot through more than maybe six inches of any type of wood with the Walker, with a round ball. I know for a fact that a .44 mag will penetrate more than eight inches of live pine - with a 240 grain hollow point - and throw foot long splinters from around the exit hole.

A pure lead ball will not penetrate much. I actually thought that was the reason cap 'n' ball guns were considered good stoppers in their day - soft projectile flattening on impact, rapid energy transfer. I read an article, don't remember where, that claimed the Walker/Dragoon to be the best manstoppers around until modern bullet design in the sixties/early seventies. If I read it in a gun rag it has to be true, right?

Now I'm just going to have to organize a tape measure, maybe a cronograph and a suitably nutty shooting buddy to confirm results... yep, I have all those :D A few pieces of wood and better weather and a "scientific" test is a distinct possibility...
 
I grew-up shootin the Colt/Walker .44's because my dad had at least 6 of 'em. That reason for that is that my last name IS Walker. And it was my great great (great?) grandfather that was the the Walker part of that firearm equation.

And I don't ever remember the recoil on the loads we shot being anything to think twice about. But the S&W .44 mag my dad had was a little beast. So if recoil is any indication at all of penetration (and it should be at least a little, because you know the old saying "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction) then the maggie HAS to be about twice as good at anything energy related (which penetration is) as the BP revolver.
 
I read an article some years back where they compaired a .45 ACP, .45LC. .44Mag, and a .44 Colt Walker. IIRC the Walker was consistantly in 2nd place...unless they stuffed it with 60 grs of powder!
Sounds like a bunch to me, but it was intended to be ahead of anything else at the time it was designed and I guess if you could use that much powder it would sure do it!
 
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