Anyone deer hunt with a 10mm or .41 magnum?

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bernie

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I will be using a .41 magnum Blackhawk to deer hunt this year and will be using some 210 gr. XTP's. I am curious if anyone has used a .41 or a 10mm with a cast bullet to deer hunt with and was wanting to know what your results were. I am wanting to start casting bullets for the .41, but do not know that a .41, even with a Keith style bullet would be good medicine for a whitetail instead of a good hollow points.
 
I have not taken any deer with a 10mm but I have taken several with its ballistic twin the .45 Super using a 200 grain hard cast flat nosed bullet at 1230 fps. Results were excellent and I see no reason why a good flat nosed cast bullet in the 10mm or .41 mag would not work just as well...
 
I have taken a few deer with my 41 mag blackhawk. Have used 210 XTP's and a stout load of H110 and cast bullets of similar weight and moderate powder charges. Both are effective if shot placement is good.
 
I've killed many deer with 10mm. None with 41. And many with 44 and bigger handguns.

Most of my kills with 10mm were 180 or 200 grain xtps over blue dot. A few have been with hard cast 180s. No difference in dead-ness and usually the bullet doesnt exit so no energy wasted. Both will break through a front shoulder equally well IME. With any shot placement you would likely see no difference. I do prefer the xtp

I've killed many with 240 grain Keith style in 44 mag.
 
I used to own a 41 mag Blackhawk and I hunted with it some. Never killed anything with it though. And I often carry a G20 or G29 in 10mm with me when hunting, but it is not my primary hunting weapon. I have no doubt that with 180-210 gr HP bullets from either would kill deer or bear just fine as long as the shooter can make the shot.

I'm not sure I'd recommend a hardcast bullet for hunting deer though. Those bullets in 10mm will penetrate 5 or 6 FEET in ballistics gel and have been used to kill Alaskan brown bear and cape buffalo. I'm quite sure you'd get the same results with 41 mag. While it would kill a deer, an expanding soft point or HP will most likely put it down faster. The hardcast bullets are for extreme penetration on the really big stuff that bites back.
 
I agree that you would probably be better served with an expanding bullet on deer. They don’t require the penetrative ability of a hardcast bullet.
 
I'm not sure I'd recommend a hardcast bullet for hunting deer though. Those bullets in 10mm will penetrate 5 or 6 FEET in ballistics gel and have been used to kill Alaskan brown bear and cape buffalo. I'm quite sure you'd get the same results with 41 mag. While it would kill a deer, an expanding soft point or HP will most likely put it down faster. The hardcast bullets are for extreme penetration on the really big stuff that bites back.
Cast bullets work just fine on all game but the 10mm is way too light for brown bear and Cape buffalo. Despite the stunts by Razor Dobbs.
 
Despite that fact that he shoots well, places well, and well, killed two Cape buffalo with a 10mm. But it's inadequate. :D
 
Any quality bullet in the deers vitals will kill a deer....eventually. Id always go expandable
 
I have killed 5 deer with a .41 mag Ruger BH 6 5/8". 2 does with the Hornady 210XTP, 2 with the Rem 210SP and 1 with the Nosler 210JHP. Of those, I preferred the performance of the Remington slug the best. One of those was a good mature doe with a common short range double lung. The other was a mature Northwoods buck over 200 lbs quartering away at 60 yards. This was the hardest kill I've made with the handgun, and I have to say bullet performance was optimal. Entered near the back of the ribcage, and vectored in a straight line to far side shoulder, followed the seam in the shoulder joint, lodging just under the hide, tearing a nice ragged hole in the vitals along the way. Shot was at nearly 45 degrees uphill. None of the HP kills passed through even on "clean" broadsides. When people say deer are easy to kill, I have to say it depends on the deer. A mature buck North of Duluth MN is a different animal than the same deer in the Panhandle of Texas. Add in adrenaline level of the animal at time of shot and shot angle and they can be very hard to kill indeed. I had a buck run 100+ yards after 3 hits to the chest cavity from a .280 Rem soft point. I would not have wanted to shoot that deer with ANY handgun. Yes, he was big and under severe stress (he had a fresh bullet hole in the ear from a volley of shots on the neighboring property about 5 minutes prior). Use enough gun/bullet for the worst case.
 
My oldest son killed a nice eight point two years ago with his 10mm Kimber 1911.
The deer in my avatar is his 10mm eight point.

Last year he killed a nice six point with his Ruger Blackhawk I gave to him several years ago.
 
The .41 has plenty of steam to put a deer down if it’s hit in an area that ruins the vitals.

210- JSP or JHP, 215-225 gr SWC loaded near max, or even the heavier 240 gr Win partition gold, will do exactly what you want.

Great caliber!

Stay safe.,
 
About 20 years ago a friend that I worked with inherited a 41 Mag. from an older family member. He wound up handloading it and took some deer cleanly using it. Don't recall the load details other than that it wasn't anything super hot or unusual. He hunted a thick woods from bow hunting stands and all deer were taken at bow range. But none went very far after being hit ( most were double lung shots IIRC), and overall he was quite satisfied with it in general.
 
Does the .40 short ‘n weak count?
I’ve killed two deer with two shots. No bullets recovered.
1st was with the Winchester 155gr SilverTip. Heart lung liver hit. Bullet exited leaving a 2” exit wound. Deer ran 40yds and dropped. Range was ~40yds.

2nd was with an equivalent load with a Hornady 155gr XTP over max load of WSF for same 1,200fps from my G22. Similar shot placement, similar results.

I killed two with my S&W 1006 circa 1992 with a 200gr XTP at similar 1,200fps. (Then max load of Acc#7). Both looked about same as hit with .40S&W w/155gr. Similar to a .30/30 with a 170gr bullet.

Shot Placement X3...
I only have a G22 .40 now. It doesn’t know it’s not a 10mm.... loaded with max load of LongShot, it just about is...
 
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