Reeder Custom Guns - 44 mag 340 hardcast bullet maker

Hey guys,

I’m really struggling finding someone who makes a 340-355 grain hard cast lead bullet for reloading my 44 mag. I can buy already loaded ammo from Buffalo bore and such. But I can’t find the bullet or even a mold for a bullet that heavy. Where are these guys getting their bullets from!?

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but you can checkout Matt’s Bullets.

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Honestly I find them punishing in recoil past 1000 fps. And at that speed, Gary is telling the truth, it will shoot clean through the biggest Buffalo! Or a telephone pole. It's crazy how a 240 gr. JHP will be stopped clean but a good cast bullet will sail right on through. Personally I'd not shoot a hog with any JHP. Just me.

I really like the LEE 310 gr. bullet and moulds are so cheap. A fantastic bullet. I even trimmed the mould and took the gas check shank off to make a 270 gr. plain base bullet. It is fantastic in .44 Special as well. I'm getting too hold to batter myself.

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With my .510 GNR I simply could not hang onto it with a 410 gr. at 1200 fps. I toned it down and shot clean though my Buffalo, twice! It was running about 1050-1100 fps. About all I could handle in the field. The hammer still came back and cut my hand through my light gloves. Not bad but ouch.

I did some "Fire Lapping" on a .44 SBH with some bore constriction just behind some Mag-na-Ports using those 330 gr. SSK and running about 900 fps. It shot about 10-12" high to the sights but was very accurate and controllable. I got the thing shooting fantastic, even though I can still measure a tiny amount of constriction with pin gauges. It just suddenly started shooting great at this one point of honing the bore down. I vowed to continue until the pin gauge slipped on through but I've not done it. The gun is "fixed" in my view. I bet that is why I got it cheap. It shot crappy after the port job and the guy let it go. I found why, and it's a tack driver now.

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The recoil is one reason. I had the SSK mold for a while but don't like tying myself to the whipping post. I put it on here and somebody who likes self whupping more than me bought it. I haven't mourned it's passing. There was a time that some shooters liked those SSK bullets. I was not one of them. It was always like shooting max loads in your favorite 454 Casull. No thanks.
Going the other way, the super light bullets had it's good points and it's not so good points. Lee Jurras, the proponent of the super light bullets was a good friend and would from time to time send me a CARE package
loaded with some of his favorite Super Vel bullets. Now they didn't have the hand numbing feature of some of the heavier bullets that some folks liked. But some of Lee's Super Vel bullets came out of my revolver's barrel like the well known bat out of Hell. They were known for a high pitch crack when that bullet would break the sound barrier that would melt your ear wax. But they would sure kill a 100 pound Corsican sheep.
Back in the late 60s I would book handgun hunts at Telico Junction in east Tennessee and some at other locations. I booked these hunts from around 1967 for almost 40 years for 15 to 20 handgun hunters. From time to time Lee would join us at Telico and bring me another CARE package of his latest Super Vel ammo at Telico Junction. I still have several boxes of the original yellow box Super Vel.
So there are pros and cons on ammo. Either the extremely heavy or the breaking the sound barrier would kill game. It is just what floats your boat.

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out 2 different weight molds, one a 310 and the other a 330. I may be wrong as I have been known to be wrong in the past and have a couple of ex wives that would verify that. If I was wrong on the SSK molds I apologize. Damn it breaks my heart to be wrong.

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from my alloy it cast 320 grains. It had a very shallow rounded grease groove and proved to run out of lube easily. Leaded badly at over 1400 fps.

I told him what we ran into and he redesigned it with a larger squared grease groove. That was the 315 gr. mold I believe. My alloy cast less than that by about grains or so. From Linotype they were 285 grains.

MY friend had2 Redhawks, a 5 1/2 with open sights and a 7 1/2" with a scope. It was heavy and nice with heavy loads.

We pushed JD's bullets a bit over 1500 fps from the 7 1/2" Redhawk and from a 10 1/2" Super Blackhawk. Dropping back to 1400 fps made a difference in the feel. Off sandbags, scope-sight, the Redhawk would put 5 shots into 1 1/2" at 50 yards. I watched my friend who owned them shoot a palm size group at 150 yards.

For hunting I dropped the loads back to the mid 1300's. Even that was more than a person really needed. There wasn't much slowing down the big heavy bullet.

Sighted 2" high at 50 yards it was almost dead on at 150.

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I had a large amount of linotype back then, so my bullets came out as about 310 to 320. Like you said my bullets with mostly linotype leaded pretty bad. I used a lot of wheel weights and linotype. In my Smiths it was a good bullet right at 275 to 280. Something about that mold bothered me so I put it on here and sold it. Probably the fact that I had to size them, which I hate.

I was shooting a lot back then. I was still in radio and had the morning show so I was out of there by 1PM. I was also partner in a gun shop at the same time so every chance I had I was out back shooting. The model 29 I was shooting was the same gun I had been using for 8 or 10 years so I sent it back to Smith every year or so for new guts. Some of my loads were a bit hot and battered the model 29 a bit so I had to keep giving it a break every year or so.

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My notes say it cast right at 305 gr. out of wheel-weight metal and approximately 285 from Linotype.

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problems. A 340 grain bullet will shake even the heaviest 44 magnum revolver loose real quick. A 340 grain bullet is simply not meant for a 6 shot 44 mag revolver. There is no data for a bullet that heavy and even a few extra heavy rounds you run thru that 44 will shake it loose. The custom mold makers don't make those extra heavy bullet molds for the main reason there just isn't any call for them. We build some of the finest 44 Magnum revolvers there are and I recommend staying away from those heavy bullets. Even a Freedom Arms will shake loose with a bullet that heavy.
I have hunted with a revolver in Africa on 16 safaris and have seen what a heavy bullet will do to a revolver. Plus a heavy bullet like that won't kill any animal quicker than a 275 or 300 grain bullet, plus with the heavier weight bullet it will have a rainbow trajectory. Companies like Super Vel, Hornady, Winchester and a lot more have proven that a moderate weight bullet will kill anything you want to kill.
I have taken over a dozen buffalo (Bison) with 220 grain
bullets and if I did my part all but one of those buffalo were taken with one shot each.
My recommendation is listen to the guys on this forum. They are some of the best handgun hunters there are and I know for sure they don't shoot those extra heavy bullets in their guns. I have hunted all over the world with these guys and they use a little common sense with their hand loads.

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Thank you for the insight. This load is more for bear protection than hunting. If you were to give a recommendation for a bear protection load what would you recommend?

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Having played with bears thru the years I don't recommend anything smaller than the 475 Linebaugh. A bear is a critter that you don't want to mess with. You don't want to try to kill him with a heart shot. On a bear you want to go for a neck or point of shoulder shot. You want to break him down, put him on the ground immediately and then when you have him down on the ground, kill him.
A bear looks at you as food. I have shot bears and just when I think he is down for good, he gets up and wants to dance with me. Years ago in Alaska a 12 gauge shotgun along with the 44 Magnum was the main bear medicine, what a bear guide in Alaska carried. The 44 was for when all else fails. The 2 big bore handguns were the 44 and 45 Long Colt. The 45 was just a cowboy cartridge, not for anything serious
The bear load in a 44 Magnum was the Hornady 260 grain jacketed soft point. For dangerous game I have relied on that bullet and it has never let me down. That doesn't mean I killed everything with one shot. Far from it. The S&W model 29 44 Magnum was the gun for the bad boys. But it wasn't always the perfect combo for the critters that will eat you and enjoy it.
Most of my bear situations were in Washington state. On one late in 1989 or early 1990 we were hunting with bear dogs. T
he bear dogs had jumped a bear and were hot on his tail. The brush was so heavy we had to crawl on our all 4s and then we couldn't keep up with the dogs. When we got to where we could see the bear he had already killed 2 of the guides prize bear dogs. We were our knees as it was too dense to try to stand up but the guide yelled for me to shoot the bear as he could see 2 of his dogs down. I had a Smith 44 Magnum loaded with the Hornady bullet I mentioned earlier. Trying a shot while you are on our knees is hard. With a bear coming at me was even worse. Aiming at his chest or any frontal area I shot the bear 4 times while he was fighting the dogs. Then he realized the dogs weren't what was hurting him and came at us full tilt boogie. I hit him with the 44 one more time when he was kissing distance away. At the 4th shot he decided to go for the dogs. The guide had kept his main bear dog on a leash tied to his belt as he didn't want his strike dog to get in the fight.. The bear decided he wanted that dog.
Now the guide and I were still on our knees when the bear hit us head on. I managed one more shot as he hit us. He knocked both of us down and the dog was tangled up with the guide. The bear jumped on the guide and was busy killing the dog. I had the good end of the bear with his ass on my chest. I had one round left in my 44 and I reached up and put the barrel in the bear's arm pit and let him have it. The guide was carrying my Contender loaded with the 357 Herrett. All he could do was put the end of the barrel in the bear's throat and let him have it. The bear died on top of both us with his nose touching the guide's nose.
We weren't sure who killed the bear but he was dead and that was all the mattered. The bear killed 2 of the guide's dogs and clawed up one or two more. The guide was shook up for half an hour. He had the adrenalin so strong in his system that would sit down, then get up and walk around, then sit down again. He must have shook my hand a dozen times and thanked me for not freezing when the bear came at us.
The main questions I answered on this story was first, a reliable gun and cartridge, that being a S&W 44 Magnum shooting a 260 grain Hornady jacketed soft point. A bullet that is heavy enough to break down the bear's shoulder but not too heavy that keeps you off balance shooting double action. Next, open sights. No scope and for sure no red dot. Finally shoot a bullet that you can handle in a bad situation, and one that is that is not too heavy to keep you from giving the bear all 6 double action if necessary.
Back in 1989 the 260 grain Hornady was considered a heavy bullet but was a bullet a lightweight revolver like the model 29 could handle. Had I been using another double action revolver and some of the extra heavy bullets that are seen around these days there was no way to get 5 or 6 heavy bullets off double action and hit what I needed to hit. The heavy bullets leave you trying to get the barrel pointed at what was trying to eat you instead of fighting the recoil from the heavy bullet.
There are several other instances of dancing with a bear but we will get to them later.

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