44 special 'kinda a big 22 RF" yes, yesss! Indeed 44 is twice as big a number as 22 in fact isn't it? But the comparison stops there, as a 240 gr weighs 6 times asa much as an LR. But it sure is a good choice for the uses you have in mind.
I personally consider the two 'specials' to be VERY SPECIAL cartridges. I like the 38 in a light gun, loaded hot. The 44 special, I like with milder pressure loads, letting the weight and wide meplat do the work which the 38 has to have speed to do. With all my revolvers I set the cylinder gap at .002, which tames 'gap blast' to the minimum possible, in my experiance, whether a 22 RF or anything larger. Revolvers with a wide cylinder gap, of .004 and sometimes well over .010, produce a heavy headache making blast, even with ear muffs, for me. I want my revolver loads to be such that I can shoot them up to 4 times without my ears ringing. (Keep in mind that the loads which don't make my ears ring might be plumb painfule to any one with sharp hearing. I'm ran too much loud equipment, guss I'll have to count guns as equipment here, to have good hearing left, at 72!)
I would suggest a 240 gr WFN, for the lightweight bullet, because of you desire to have two bullet weights, and a 280 gr WFN for the heavier one. The heavy one should be cut with the longest nose that will fit your revolvers cylinder, and the lighter one somewhat shorter, and perhaps with a tiny groove around the ogive so you'll see the different nose lengths and even be able to feel them in the dark, should you ever want to.
The reason. With the lightweight moving out slowly, recoil will lift the barrel much less than if driven fast, so, with your stout load being 40 grains heavier (one 22 LR heavier, by the way!), the extra weight will increase recoil enough to raise the barrel equal to the ligher slow bullet. You'll have to play with loads to make it happen, but both bullets will shoot to the sights at say 30 yards or so. You may have to go a bit higher with velocity than your dreamed 1050 fps, with the heavy bullet, but the gun will handle it easily at speeds to probably 1300 fps, using slow powder, like H110/WW 296 or possibly Accurate #9 if you can't get enough of the slower powder in.
For the light bullet I would reccomend my favorite light load powder, Hodgen Universal Clays. It produces the least blast of any powder I've ever used, in this type of load, which makes it most pleasant to shoot, which is the reason you want a lightweight bullet.
The light load would put large varmints like wood chucks, and any game smaller, into a tail spin the second it hits home. Your heavy load will make a perfect selfdefense load and deer hunting load.
