"Ask the Rabbi" by R. Mermelstein

In answer to your inquiry, the lead round nose bullet in just about any subsonic cartridge is a notoriously ineffective stopper. The late Elmer Keith, best known as the father of the .44 Magnum, designed the semi-wadcutter cast lead bullet after a number of failures with the round nose bullet on small game. The semi-wadcutter, with its flat frontal area and sharp, pronounced shoulder was an enormous improvement as he proved on both small and deer size game animals. The term "wadcutter" refers to the clean, neat hole it makes in paper targets. Way back when, those who reloaded their own shotshells used a sharp circular cutting tool to fabricate over powder and over shot fiber board wads which couldn't have ragged edges.

The 180 gr. JHP, if it is manufactured with a sufficiently thin jacket, ought to exhibit some degree of expansion even at the low velocities of factory .44 Spl. loads. Traditionally, .44 Spl. factory ammunition is held to mild chamber pressures in deference to older, weaker revolvers. My references put the muzzle velocity of the 180 gr. JHP at about 900 fps from a 4 inch barrel. Shortening the barrel by one inch would lessen the velocity by 25 to 40 fps, still making it a formidable defense load.

Since the S&W 696 is built on the same L-frame as the Model 686 .357 Magnum and its variants, it's fully up to handling chamber pressures as high as one would care to handload within safe parameters.

I've done quite a bit of tinkering with a variation, actually the predecessor, of the .44 Spl. known as the .44 Russian. The .44 Russian was the darling of American target shooters in the last quarter of the 19th century. Cases are easily made by trimming back .44 Spl. cases .185 inch, or about 3/16". It is a pleasure to shoot, and good heavens is it a tack driver. The .44 Spl., from my research, was purely a marketing ploy by the sales staff at Smith & Wesson when they brought out the New Century, or Triple Lock, revolver in 1907. Original .44 Spl. ballistics weren't one wit of an improvement over the Russian, so named because the Russian military ordnance department contracted with S&W for just such a cartridge. But, for a new model revolver the sales people insisted on a new cartridge. Elmer Keith's years long infatuation with heavily loaded .44 Spl. handloads culminated in the birth of the .44 Magnum in 1955. The Russians started the ball rolling in 1870!

This discussion has gotten a bit sidetracked by a little background history, but the .44 Spl. is put to best defensive use with factory loads using a lightweight jacketed hollow point only if it can be relied upon to expand properly. You might test this out by soaking a few old phone books in the bath tub over night and try shooting different expanding bullets into them from a distance no greater than 7 yards. While street thugs aren't constructed of paper, it's an inexpensive medium for determining approximate bullet expansion properties. If cost is no object, do what one small commercial ammunition loading company did: stack a few hundred dollars worth of pastrami slabs and dress it in a denim jacket! No joke. They actually did it.

There's no lack of defensive .44 Spl. loads available over the counter if you're not a handloader, or have no interest in lugging around wet phone books or pastrami. The .44 Spl. will always be around for aficionados of big bore revolvers. It has earned its keep.

Sincerely,

R. Mermelstein