.440 Cor-bon

The Cor-Bon company produced the .440 Cor-bon cartridge in 1998. As is fairly typical in the "wildcat cartridge" industry, this cartridge "necked down" from an existing cartridge, the .50 AE to accept a .44-caliber(.429 in) (10.89 mm) bullet.

History

The .50 AE was introduced in the Desert Eagle from Magnum Research 1991, and shortly thereafter shooters began wondering whether there was an alternative to the heavy recoil of the .50 round but still with substantial stopping power, like the .44 Magnum.

In designing the .440, Cor-bon created a lighter recoiling round with as much or greater penetrating power than the .44 Magnum. The round has a flatter trajectory, and leaves the barrel faster than either the .50 AE or the .44 Mag. However, the cartridge has never taken off, and has remained fairly expensive.

Uses

The round is generally considered to be a hunting round rather than a defense round for a number of reasons. It exceeds what most would consider to be useful in a self-defense pistol round, other less-expensive rounds with less recoil quite capable of handling defensive needs. And since it is physically a very large cartridge, commonly chambered in a very large pistol such as the Desert Eagle, it is not particularly feasible to carry it concealed.

It is effective at disabling and killing large animals, able to penetrate large bones such as the shoulder in deer. Some gunsmiths are chambering lever-action rifles to take full advantage of this cartridge on large game. [" [http://www.levergun.com/Marlin/index.html What is Possible with the Marlin?] " by M.L. "Mic" McPherson at Levergun.com]

ee also

* List of handgun cartridges
* 10 mm caliber Other similar size cartridges

References

External links

* [http://mysite.elixirlabs.com/index.php?uid=12665&page=1622 Information from the Cor-bon website]