Question about 44 magnum ammunition

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What do you think would be a good cartridge to use for hunting? I recently acquired a .44 magnum revolver, and am a bit unsure as of what to use. I plan on hunting whitetail.

I've looked at a decent variety of ammo. I'm on a tight budget, so it can't break the bank. I have a pack of Remington UMC 180 grain JSP that I use to target shoot with. My first thought was that this would be too light, but then again, some people hunt with a .357 with 180 grain bullets. And from what I have seen, it has one of the highest FPS and ft lbs ratings out of most commercially available ammo, with 1610 FPS and 1036 ft lbs. That seems pretty considerable, to me. As long as it gets enough penetration, which with those ratings I don't think I have to worry about.

Again I can't really go for the super-expensive Garrett or Buffalo Bore ammo, which I think is really unnecessarily powerful anyway. I'm a pretty good shot, so I don't need my bullets to just plow their way through the deer.

...of course, I could always just use my shotgun. But that takes all the fun out of it ;) .
 
What you have is fine... as long as it's accurate in the gun, and you can place your shot reasonably well, you won't have any problems.

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Because of its smaller diameter, a 180gr .357" bullet has much greater cross sectional density than a 180gr .429" bullet and thus has more potential for penetration at relatively low velocity.

For whitetail deer, I would go with whatever decent 240gr or heavier JSP or JHP bullet shoots well in your gun. You don't really need all that sophisticated a bullet for the task as a 240gr .44 Magnum loading has ample power, penetration, and weight for whitetail deer. I honestly don't see anything wrong with Winchester White Box or American Eagle 240gr JSP for the task you seek.
 
Learn how to shoot so you only need i round per deer. Then buy premium bullets like Speer Deep Curl, Swift A-frame or Corbon DPX. THose all work very well !:)
 
You don't really need all that sophisticated a bullet for the task as a 240gr .44 Magnum loading has ample power, penetration, and weight for whitetail deer. I honestly don't see anything wrong with Winchester White Box or American Eagle 240gr JSP for the task you seek.
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I agree.
 
Bottom line—BEST overall general purpose .44 Magnum load was the Hornady 300 gr XTP:
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+1 This is what I use on whitetail and the results are amazing. At 50 yards they knock them down faster than my 30-06. The hole is so big you can almost see daylight. Kinda like the movie "Quick and the Dead" with Russell Crowe. :D
 
Been using mostly Remington 240gr JSP or SJSP for years but American Eagle and Fiocchi have taken their turn with no degradation in performance.

My preferred bullet is hard cast LSWC but I don't have many loaded and I can find the other almost everywhere I go to buy ammo.
 
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