Cast or Jacketed for Hunting w/a Marlin?

[Chris W]

To my surprise and delight, I recently landed a Marlin 1894fg; a .41 mag, 20" carbine. Now that I have it, I plan to hunt North Carolina whitetail with it this Fall.

Assuming that I can produce equally accurate loads with the bullets shown--each moving, let's say, between 1750 and 1800 fps--which would you use (were you in my fortunate shoes ;) ), and why?

I've always understood the reasoning behind a good JHP better than a cast bullet, myself; I mean, a bullet that punches through is just going to waste energy, I figure, and I guess I'd expect a 210 gr XTP to penetrate to a deer's vitals from any reasonable shot angle (might be a different story with big hogs or black bear). But there seem to be a lot of hardcore hardcast evangelists out there, and they can't all be wrong all the time, can they?

So what say you wise and wizened huntsmen? Help a fellow decide!

[SquirrelMan]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that with whitetails, penetration isn't that much of a factor-espaecially if you are shooting at close ranges.

Now if you were going for hog, I would say that penetration is everything, but thin skinned whitetails are easily penetrated compared to hogs.

-SM

[leadbutt]

Chris,nothing wrong with either one, but strickly for witetails I would use a holow point,either cast or jacketed,at lest 200 grain weight.Now if your going to throw in Bears and Hogs,go for the heaviest cast solid ,or jacket soft point you can find

[itsmike762]

From what I have seen hunting whitetails with a handgun is that many times you just dont get enough FPS for a hollow point to expand but with XTPs out of my .44 carbine they sure do. :)

[stevelyn]

For thin-skinned, light boned critters like whitetails you don't need a super bullet. The Remington JSP will be more than adequate for your purpose. It'll combine the best balance between expansion and penetration at reasonable ranges and shot angles.

[User Name]

Couldn't have said it better myself, stevelyn! ;)

[Mannlicher]

I have never used a .41 Mag, handgun or carbine. I have always felt that with no extra expense, or effort, I could have a 44.

In my 1894S in .44, I have had very good results with a Speer Gold Dot 270 grain SP. I don't think this is available in .41 mag, but if it were, its a good compromise between expansion and penetration.