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Old October 6, 2018, 11:05 PM   #12
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,839
Quote:
Hornady indicates that the 180 XTP is not really intended for the velocities obtainable from a carbine, and my take is, likely from full bore .44 mag revolver as well.
Your "take" is slightly mis-taken.
The bullet is built to give its full performance from full bore .44 Mag loads, fired from the usual 6-7.5" barrels of hunting revolvers.

The problem is the extra velocity the carbine length adds. Every expanding bullet has a range of velocity it performs in. Too slow, it doesn't expand, or expand enough, too fast and it expands too rapidly and too much.

The usual hunting revolvers will drive that 180 in the 14-1600fps range. And, of course the greater the distance the lower the speed, so the bullet needs to be "soft" enough to open up properly at even lower speeds at 50 or even 100yards.

The .44 Magnum is mostly a handgun round, and despite all our carbines, a lot of the factory ammo is intended to do its work from a handgun.

Add another 4-600fps that you can get from a carbine and the bullet is going too fast for proper performance.

You can do it rifle rounds too. Drive a 150gr .30-30 bullet at 300 Magnum speeds and it comes apart rapidly. The 125gr .357 bullet that is such a good performer out of a 4-6" revolver becomes almost a grenade when pushed to 2200fps from a carbine. The Speer 400gr .458 bullet is built to expand at the black powder speed of the original .45-70 loading. Drive to 1800fps and you get jacket and core separation often. Drive it to 2100fps from a .458 Win mag and it acts like a huge varmint bullet. Almost explosive.

The 180gr load is on the light end of bullet weight for the .44, but its a good load, out of a pistol. Out of a carbine, the bullet is slightly overdriven, and you should choose a different load with a heavier constructed bullet.

Weight is important, but what the bullet is made to do, (and at what speed) is as important, if not more so.
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