Favorite powder for .357 & .44 mag?

[MadMo44Mag]

I have made many home made pistol shot shells but trust my life on em - no thanks!
The best performer out of a pistol is in 357 using #9 shot. This gives the most amount of lead at the highest velocity.
#9 was the smallest I could find and I would have like to have tested #12. The largest tested was #4 shot. The larger the shot the more energy needed to push it with more open space between the shot to cause rapid pressure lose down barrel.
Once it leaves the barrel energy bleeds quickly!!!!
I used Bulls Eye, Green Dot, Accurate #2 and power pistol. The Accurate and PP loaded the best.
You have to use a fast powder because there is no crimped bullet and minimal resistance going down the barrel; .in other words low pressure.
The pattern out past 6ft is way to wide and just not enough energy for good penetration.
Works great on snakes and such but a man in clothes and possibly more than one layer of clothing just not enough energy and shot to suite me.
Might be good in the 1st chamber and possibly scare an intruder off with minor injury but the rest of the cylinders will be full of 38 spl +P 158 JHP.
I did my testing with 357 and 44 calibers.
For a test back stop is use a hollow core door and a solid wood door.
Figured these would give good representation as well I had two old doors – LOL!!!!
At 4 ft 357 & 44 had no problem going through both sides of the hollow core door and put a nice dent in the solid door. As I moved back less and less shot exited the back side of the hollow core door and the dents in the solid door grew more like individual pellets in small bunches.
At 6ft only about 50% even penetrated the front side of the hollow core door and the rest bounced back towards the shooter!!!!.

 

[shootmre steel]

shot loads

Well,

A I said. They were built just because they were there. The only thing I ever shot with one was a duck lifting off a lake at about 50 feet. Tumbled him. Other than that. As i said. We put several through a steel garbage can lid at about 150 feet. I never Chronoed them. This was many years ago. I didn't know what a Chrono was then. We justed matched the gross bullet weight with the powder load and tried it. I have a couple left somewhere. I may try one out across the Chrony.

We also loaded irregular polymar beads in 12 Ga shells. You could kill rats in the corn crib and not poison the cows or shoot holes in the side of the crib. The old man (dad) got mad as hell when we shot up the barn.

 

[CJS3]

These are currently in the ammo cabinet;
44Mag
18 1/2 grains of H110 under 300grXTP hunting round.
12 1/2 grains of Unique under 220 grains of lead for putting holes in paper.

357Mag
14 1/2 grains of H4227 under 158gr Berry's plated bullets.

I've also used Unique, HP38, AA7 and AA2 for each caliber.
If you're going to load the magnums, also consider the Specials for light duty at the range. They use less powder which equals more ammo and more range time.