This will be my first season hunting the big woods of Maine--I haven't been to too many places where you have a clear shot of 100 yards--in fact unless I'm in a field or road/trail I rarely see clear lanes of much more than 50 to 75 feet!
So I've decided to try out my 16" rossi in 44 mag--seems like a good contender for a short-range heavy-brush hunter. Once I make a selection I pretty much stick with it for the entire season (unless the venue or game changes). Dialing the gun in has been something of a challenge--and I've occasionally had some very good results with some of my hand loads.
Today I went out and shot a variety of ammo with a variety of ballistic characteristics. In general--the 240 flat points tended to group better while temperature was fairly controlled--both in the barrel and the environment. They tended to be light to moderate loads with OK velocities in the 1100 to 1300 range (according to specs--though I haven't verified with chrono).
I ended up selecting a load I developed for the Hornady xtp hollow-point as my likely go-to deer hunter--unless the collective wisdom here convinces me otherwise. This load is propelled by 24.3 grs of H110 and should be cruising along at over 1700 fps--which I'm guessing means it's going to deliver the necessary wallop in the event a 100 to 150 yd shot presents itself--I don't thing the slower loads could reliably do that. The only concern I have is that the hollow point might be a bit prone to franging at closer ranges at that high a velocity--don't want to reduce a bunch of meat to blood-shot mush.
The group below was shot off a bag at 100 yds today with gusty right crosswinds. Although not the best small group shooting I've done at that range--I like it because all 5 shots stayed reasonably tight with both a cold and warm bore--to me that spells better consistency across a wider variety of conditions. The first three shots were right at MOA nearest the bulls'.
Is my reasoning sound??
