So I bolted Mr. 29 into a Caldwell HAMMR rest and got to work. Once I'd settled the gun into the inserts, the remaining ammo went downrange and produced some interesting results. Three six-shot strings produced three 21⁄2-inch groups, with five of the six clustered under two inches.

I suspect that this particular M29 has one chamber slightly off-axis with the barrel--not uncommon in 30-year-old .44s and not so much that you'd see it shooting by hand or on a sandbag rest. But clamped into the machine, the one chamber throws (if you call a 21⁄2-inch group "thrown") its bullet a smidge out of the group. Were I hunting with this gun, I'd shoot groups and mark the chambers until I found the one that was off and then not load it or load it to come up last.

And make no mistake, this is hunting ammo, not defensive ammo. First, the high velocity. Hornady expects 1,425 fps out of a long-barreled hunting revolver; I got 1,319 out of my four-inch gun. That means heavy recoil. In a defensive situation you don't need that power nor the recoil.

Second, the penetration is excessive for defense. For defense you'd want a bullet to expand fully and get past the 12-inch mark. Much more than that and you risk excessive penetration, exit and extra hazard to bystanders; as noted, this ammo produced nearly two feet of penetration in ballistic gelatin.

I'll leave it to the elk hunters to decide whether 23 inches of penetration is enough. I know that two feet of wound channel through elk with a rifle is plenty in many circles. As long as you aren't looking to break the shoulder with this bullet, I'd say it is plenty good enough. Whitetails? Does the reply "piece of cake" satisfy you?

As if all this wasn't enough, the same ammo will work just fine in a lever-action .44 Magnum rifles or carbines. Those of you looking to go hunting with your cowboy carbines now have ammunition that's more than adequate to the task. In fact, you have a high-penetrating, expanding bullet with a flat trajectory and superb accuracy.

Hornady will be loading all if these they make into ammunition, so don't expect to see these bullets as components for a while. Based on the performance I've seen, they'll have a hard time keeping up with demand on loaded ammo.