Rossi Rifleman

I can't seem to search "hunting ammo" so I will post the question:
What deer hunting ammo do you guys recommend for the CJ in .44 magnum? In MD it needs to meet the muzzle energy of 1200 ft/lbs and cannot be FMJ. I have bought some Hornady 44 Mag 225 gr FTX® LEVERevolution® that meets the specs. Any other recommendations?

If the Hornady shoots well is should work. I'm not a fan of the FTX but that is me. I would tend to favor a jacketed bullet with a large exposed lead core. Something like this Winchester 240-grain JSP.

retAFShooter wrote:I can't seem to search "hunting ammo" so I will post the question:
What deer hunting ammo do you guys recommend for the CJ in .44 magnum? In MD it needs to meet the muzzle energy of 1200 ft/lbs and cannot be FMJ. I have bought some Hornady 44 Mag 225 gr FTX® LEVERevolution® that meets the specs. Any other recommendations?

Where are you finding the specs on handgun rounds fired from the longer carbine barrel? Not ready to take the CJ deer hunting, but a good source of that info would be great.

I haven't found any written specs for "handgun rounds fired from the longer carbine barrels" but one guy did tell me that he used his own chronograph to spec his rifle with a handgun round.

If the ammo meets the requirement from a pistol and I think that's where the Hornady spec comes from then it should surely meet or exceed the listed spec out of the CJ. Conventional wisdom (for what that's worth) say something like 100 fps for each inch of barrel either longer or shorter. Most of that data, however was derived using pretty much one load, in one barrel. I've never seen any articles where it was done with more than one caliber or more than one load in a given caliber and I haven't seem any articles on the subject at all recently.

Make smoke,

The only comparisons I ever did was was a Ruger Vaquero compared to my Rossi CJ shooting the same factory ammo. The CJ was about 100 to 150 fps faster, With factory ammo I find the Lever Gun ammo is better in my CJ. Mine is 45 Colt though.

But I don't shoot much Factory Stuff

Don't know if I can post a video via Tapatalk.

Looks like you did fine.

Well I was ready with my .44 magnum CJ and some 240 gr 1550 fps Buffalo Bore ammo (Hornady 225gr Leverevolution backup) on Saturday. My son and grandson and I went out to Wicomico Demonstration State Forest on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Unfortunately, none of us even saw a deer. My son speculates it was too warm because it was in the 60s during the daytime, 40s in the night.

Like the pictures. Is that a camera mounted to the scope? Did you end up Loctiting down your mount screws?