Well I went with the 444. The decision maker was I was generously donated 150pc of 444 brass (thanks again, you know who you are) and thanks to snowgetter1 got some dies coming at a great price so I figured it must be a sign pushing me that way. I will most likely have a 460 barrel made up latter on just because. We will see how this 1st barrel does for feeding and such.

I suppose I should let the cat out of the bag. I am going to be building this on a Striker with the intended purpose of hunting deer here in Iowa. I have been doing more and more still/standing hunting in recent years so this just seems to be a logical step to let me best use handloading and a Savage to legally hunt deer, and hopefully add a bit of range to my kill zone. Plus with my new mobile box blind I built last fall a Striker would be handier inside.

Thanks for all the input, and I will start a new thread with a build and range report once all the pieces to the puzzle arrive.