tiger955 said:
Hi all... I'm looking to soon purchase a shorter barreled revolver for woods carry... mainly for defense against 2 and 4 legged varmints in the TN mountains. I have full size 357 and 44 and have carried 357 blackhawk for many years with full power loads, but it is deafening without ear protection. I normally use muffs at the range and shoot full power loads but don't notice much difference between the 2 with the muffs.
The gun will be carried mainly for protection but want to be able to take a random shot at an opportune target without worrying about digging out muffs. For protection mainly concerned about large feral dogs or stumbling on meth cookers so want more than 38 special... Never tried 44 special, thinking from what I have read on forums a heavy 44 slug at 900ish fps would be plenty of power without excessive muzzle blast.
I don't really have the opportunity to get out right now and reloading stuff is packed away so not practical to experiment right now.
Thoughts???
The loudness depends on a lot of things but appears to mostly be dependent on barrel length and powder charge, and less so if the bullet ever exceeds the speed of sound.
Snubbies are far louder than longer-barreled revolvers, and give much more of a sharp crack of a report like a rifle than a bang/boom that the longer-barreled revolvers give. I'd rate a 2" snubby .357 shooting full powered rounds to be similar to shooting a lightweight 7 mm RM or .300 WM rifle with a 22" barrel. Shooting full powered rounds in my 7 1/2" SRH is pretty similar to shooting a shorter-barreled 12 gauge volume and character, and I do not do this without hearing protection. Most of what I shoot from my .44 is 240 grain Keith bullets at about 950-1000 fps and also 200 grain RNFPs at about 1100-1200 fps out of my .44 and both are very polite to shoot. Recoil is minimal and the report is a "pop" that sounds similar in volume to a typical 9 mm FMJ cheapo target round out of a service pistol. These do work well on pests such as raccoons, possums, and armadillos with minimal mess and fuss.
Deer-sized pests such as large dogs and two-legged predators generally behave similarly to a deer. Shooting one with a low velocity cast lead bullet that does not expand much if at all will kill it reliably with a chest shot, but it will not go down immediately unless you hit it in the head, spine, or take out a shoulder or hip. Deer go about 30-40 yards when shot with those rounds as I have seen with shooting them with .50 caliber cast sabots out of a shotgun. They go about half that distance when shot with a suitable deer rifle (such as an '06 shooting 150 grain JSPs), same with a good sized dog shot with the same rifle round. What will immediately or near-immediately stop a good sized dog is a direct hit with a round of BB/BBB/T goose shot or #4 buckshot. That is my choice for that task, and it has worked well for me repeatedly in the past as long as the pest is within 50 yards. However, if it was too onerous to carry a shotgun, I would pack the .44 Magnum with full powered 200 grain JHP rounds to give the most whack to the pest rather than poke a hole in it and give it 20 seconds to fight back.