Ballistics By The Inch - 44 Magnum Documentary

The.44 Remington Magnum, or simply.44 Magnum (10.9×33mmR), and often.44 Mag, is a large-bore cartridge originally designed for revolvers. After its intro, it was swiftly embraced for carbines as well as rifles. Despite the ".44" designation, all guns chambered for the.44 Magnum round, and also its father and mother, the.44 Special, make use of bullets of approximately 0.429 in (10.9 mm) diameter.
The.44 Magnum is based upon an extended.44 Special case, filled to higher stress for greater velocity (and thus, energy). The.44 Magnum has since been eclipsed in power by the.454 Casull, and most recently by the.460 S&W Magnum and.500 S&W Magnum, among others; nevertheless, it has remained one of the most popular commercial large-bore magnum cartridges. When loaded to its maximum and with hefty, deeply penetrating bullets, the.44 Magnum cartridge is suitable for short-range hunting of all North American game-- though at the price of much recoil and muzzle blink when fired in handguns. In carbines as well as rifles, these troubles do not develop.
The.44 Magnum cartridge was the end result of years of tuned handloading of the.44 Special. The.44 Unique, and also various other large-bore handgun cartridges, were being loaded with hefty bullets, pushed at greater compared to normal rates for better searching performance. Among these handloaders was Elmer Keith, a writer as well as outdoors type of the 20th century.
.44 Magnum revolver photographed with a high-speed air-gap flash clearly revealing the bullet. Elmer Keith chose the.44 Special cartridge as the basis for his experimentation, instead of the bigger.45 Colt. At the time, the choice of.44 caliber projectiles for handloaders was more varied, and.44 special brass was thicker and also stronger than the dated.45 Colt situation. Also, the.44 Special case was smaller in size than the.45 Colt case. In revolvers of the same cyndrical tube size, this implied the.44 quality revolvers had thicker, as well as thus stronger, cylinder wall surfaces than the.45. This allowed greater pressures to be used with much less risk of a burst cyndrical tube.