For heavy loads with heavy bullets (left to right: Berry 285 grain, Oregon Trail 300, OT True Shot 310), the author likes Hodgdon H-110. It meters well and shoots consistently.

If you're going to go to Alaska and feel the need for a bear gun, you'll want to start your practice with something easy. Working up from a "wimpy" IPSC or pin load to a hunting load, to a bear defense load, in the course of a few months of practice, you can get very good with a handgun. If you think, "I'll only need six or 12, and all I need do is check to see that it's sighted-in," you will not be as effective. Some will argue that the definition of a "bear gun" does not include any handgun, but that is a different discussion for a different article.

The next step up, the full-power hunting load, is just that. With a 240-grain bullet at 1,200 fps, you can shoot through any deer that walks the North American land mass. With a hard-cast bullet, you'll probably find your load exiting the far side of an elk. Having both entrance and exit wounds lets blood out and air in, which is desirable for a quick stop on your quarry. While wild boar are a lot tougher than any deer, the "240 at 1,200" equation will do yeoman's work in puncturing and perforating big hogs. It is also the top end of what I would subject a Smith & Wesson revolver to.

Yes, you can go a bit further if you have a current-production gun and not a 30-year-old gun. S&W has been fine-tuning the design and manufacturing of its magnums for many years. And the alloys are tougher. But there is only so much the gun, and the shooter, can take.

Call me wimpy, but I just don't find the bullets heavier than 240 grains fired out of my M29 to be any fun to shoot. For the heavier bullets and loads, I use a Ruger--Super Blackhawk or Redhawk. The SAA-shaped handle of the Super Blackhawk or the greater mass of the Redhawk tame the heaviest loads enough that I can shoot them enough to test the loads.

The top-end loads are for those who wish to hunt the biggest game for which they have the nerve. Out of a Redhawk, Super Blackhawk or Super Redhawk, a 310-grain Trueshot hardcast bullet at 1,200 fps will shoot through an elk or three wild boars. It probably would exit the far side of a bison. You will almost certainly have to find an outdoor range on which to practice. The indoor range I go to in the Detroit area, Double Action, has a backstop that shrugs off such loads with impunity. But many do not have such good steel and will whine about even a single shot.

Loading the .44 Magnum is pretty straightforward. It is a straight-wall, rimmed revolver case with a wide rim and tough brass. While I've run into soft 9mm, brittle .357 and .45 ACP with rims of odd dimensions, all the .44 Magnum brass I've ever used has been tough, uniform and consistent. At the pressures at which it runs, any manufacturer who got sloppy would hear about quality problems.

All cases used for .44 Magnum loading must be full-length resized. The rifle-only approach of neck sizing for greater accuracy (something even rifle shooters have abandoned) is not relevant or useful for the handgun. You may find that the cases used for your stoutest loads will be very hard to resize. Back when I was loading on a single-stage press, I thought I'd have to stand on the handle to size some cases or use a length of pipe for extra leverage.

The trick with the hottest loads is to use both a tungsten-carbide sizing die and lubricant. The extra step is not as much work as you'd think. After all, how many rounds of 310-grain bullets at 1,200 fps are you going to load? And having loaded them, how quickly will you be shooting them? Now, I still use that single-stage press to size my top-end power cases, then I load on a progressive once I've cleaned off the lube.

In bullet diameter, you are in luck. As the .44 Magnum is a new (relatively speaking) cartridge, the dimensions were strictly laid down from the beginning. And due to its power and the need for top-quality construction in the firearm, there were few fly-by-night manufacturers who made .44 Magnum handguns. As a result, you'll find an easy consensus on diameters: jacketed at .429 inch and lead at .430 inch. You needn't worry about experimenting with odd diameters to find the best accuracy as the likelihood of running into a barrel or chamber throats with odd diameters is exceedingly small.