.440 Cor-bon
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With the introduction of the Magnum Research Desert Eagle chambered in the powerful .50 AE cartridge in 1991, it rapidly became the most powerful semi-automatic handgun in production. Chambered at that time in .50 Action Express, .44 Magnum, and .357 Magnum, users began wondering whether there was an alternative to the heavy recoil (and very expensive cost) of the .50 round with the stopping power of the .44 Magnum.
In 1998, the Cor-bon company stepped up to produce the .440 Cor-bon cartridge. As is fairly typical in the wildcat cartridge industry, this cartridge is a .50 AE case necked down to accept a .44-caliber(.429") bullet.
Most would agree that Cor-bon succeeded on the task of creating a lighter recoil round with as much or greater penetrating power as the .44 Magnum. The round has a flatter trajectory, and leaves the barrel faster than either the .50 AE or the .44 Mag. However, as the cartridge was created for one pistol (a revolver has also been chambered in the round, in addition to the Automag 4 pistol from the now-defunct AMT), and produced by one manufacturer, it never took off, and has remained fairly expensive.
The round is generally considered to be a hunting round for a number of reasons. First, it exceeds what most would consider to be useful in a self-defense pistol round. It is effective at disabling and killing large animals, with the manufacturer's and proponents' claim of being able to travel through large bones (such as the shoulder in deer). Second, since it is physically a very large cartridge, designed for a very large pistol (the Desert Eagle), it is not particularly feasible to carry it into the field. Furthermore, its large size prevents the user from having very many on hand at a given time, with magazine capacity limited to 7, with an additional round in the chamber. This is certainly a disadvantage in the time of 17-round 9mm pistols.
