Need 44 special factory load reccomendations

[gatersb]

Hey guys I'm kinda confused on what to choose. I received a taurus 44 special snub nose revolver for a really early christmas present from my brother.  Kinda confused on what load to choose for personal/home protection.  Its the lightweight model and is ported.  It seems like winchester or cor bon are gonna be my choices since glaser and magsafe are really too high.  Also has anyone tried georgia arms ammo.  They have a 200 grain gold dot but it seems to say +P and I don't want to damage my revolver.  Thanks for any input. 

BG

[coyotejoe]

Since I handload I really haven't done much shooting with factory loads, but as a general rule of thumb, the big bore light weight guns are best served with rather light for the caliber bullets. I have a Charter Bulldog in .44 special and prefer bullets of 180, 200 and 210 grains. Recoil of heavier bullets is pretty snappy and the common 246 grain lead bullets may sometimes creep forward and tie up the gun. The effect is similar to an inertia bullet puller, when a shot is fired the gun recoils sharply to the rear and the bullets in other chambers tend to remain stationery by their inertia, thus being pulled from the cartridge case.

[dbriannelson]

I had a couple of Charter Bulldogs a long time back, but the only time I bought factory ammo was to get some brass to start reloading with.  (I ended up using a Keith 250gr over 6 gr of Unique.)

So lacking direct experience, and noting that you don't have a whole lot of advice so far, here's what I think.  Forty-four is a pretty big hole, no matter how it's made.  Lighter bullets are going to be less painful to shoot and you won't need heavy ones for those 100-yard hits out of a snubby.  I also think that searching for that magical explosively expanding bullet at velocities that won't exceed 850fps is unnecessary and probably expensive.

I'd recommend you find whatever factory (or mass-reloaded) ammo (not +P) there might be with a sub-200gr, sharp shouldered SWC or SWCHP bullet and be confident that it will do whatever you need. 

Then shoot a lot of them so you know you can do your part in delivering it to the right place.

-Don

[44 Man]

That revolver will handle those +P loads just fine.  I carry CCI Blazer 200 gr Gold Dot in my Charter all the time.  For practice I use anyones 200 gr hp bullet over 8 gr Unique and it shoots to the same POI.  Before I switched to a jacketed bullet (they shoot more accurately than cast in my Charter Bulldog), I used to load 245 gr SWC keith over 7.3 gr of Unique.  (7.5 unique is considered max)  I have fired thousands of those loads through that little Charter and it just asks for more.  It is a little rough on your hands without pachmyer grips though.  44 Man