200g Gold Dot--50g Blackhorn

The bullet featured this morning was the 44 caliber 200 grain Gold Dot. Intended for use in a 44 special revolver as a defense load, it seemed it might be ideal, to use in a reduced recoil load for a rifle. The bullet was shot through carpet, plywood, and water jugs at 25 yard.

Nice close range youth hunt load!

Nice. I bought a box earlier this year just for that. I'm toying with either 60 or 80gr in pellets in a Black Diamond for my boy. I'm curious how they'd perform at 100 yards, even though for by boy, I'm only looking at 75 yards max.

Flying ashtray... It would be a good deer load. My daughter shoots 50 of 3f t7 and a t/c cheapshot. 1350 fps and clean kills out to 125 yards.

Banerbird said:

Nice. I bought a box earlier this year just for that. I'm toying with either 60 or 80gr in pellets in a Black Diamond for my boy. I'm curious how they'd perform at 100 yards, even though for by boy, I'm only looking at 75 yards max.

Click to expand...

In my findings, that bullet would breakup using 80gr. I encountered a little less disintegration (oak & pine trunks) using the 44-call 200gr XTP.

I've since moved away from the lightweight bullets, to the 44-cal 300gr XTPs and 300gr Powerbelt Platinum, which is worlds better than any other Powerbelt I've tried in the past.

The only time I purchase those Platinums is in mid-December, when Walmart or Sportsmen Warehouse has them on closeout prices. Otherwise, they are too expensive for my wallet.

I am impressed with that bullet. I've shot several deer with a .44 magnum loaded with that bullet and the 240 grain Winchester bullet. I never had a "long track." Maybe 30 yards at most. And when I dressed the animals what impressed me most was the damage those 240 grain bullets did to deer. Another light weight bullet I had the chance to see damage from was a T/C Cheap shot which is a 240 grain all lead bullet. A friend shoots them in a Knight LK rifle and he really puts a hurt on deer. But note: all our shots at deer in my country are close range. Under 40 yards.

I never suspected it made it into the fourth bottle. And it opened really well. Great test!!

With that gaping HP i would have guessed for more expansion/flattening. The 45cal 250gr DeepCurl flattens pretty intensely in water jugs and it also has the huge hollow point.

Other than the 2 petals that didn't fold over, I'd say that it can't expand any further. The other petals are completely folded over and expanded as much as they can. Pretty impressive with such a low powder charge.

I often wonder why/how a lot of people under estimate the performance of muzzleloaders. Given this load (or any load between 200-240 gr) and a velocity of 1300-1500 fps, how anyone can say it's not sufficient for deer. The ballistics are very similar to a 44 mag, which I wouldn't hesitate up to 100-125 yds (depending on the bullet weight).

I took my dad's G2 44 mag with an 8 inch barrel and Hornady 240gr factory ammo and hit what I was looking at at 150 yards (a small spot on a mud bank across a lake). The mud flew and a HUGE crater was created. Based on that, would it drop the deer in it's tracks? Probably not. But is it sufficient to be effective, maybe. But either way, the ballistics for that load at 100 yards are more than enough.

So take that factory ammo and compare it to the lighter ML loads. I think you'd find that they are comparable. So why not a "light" muzzleloader load at 100 yards?

Thank you for this test. It told me what I wanted to know about a light load for my son.