454 For Whitetail and Boar

[IrishLager]

Just recently turned 21. Now i am saving up for a .454 casual. I have decided to go w/ Ruger's super redhawk w/ a 9.5" barrel. Anyone own a 454, and if so i want to hear some good stories and some opinions on the round.

I will be using it for whitetail and boar for the most part.
Thanks in advance,
J

[JonSidneyB]

The .454 is definately a capable cartridge. For whitetail I don't think you need that kind of energy but you can always use reducted loads. That species of Boar? If it is a Javalina or Piccuri I think it is more gun than needed, but if you are going after the really big stuff It might be ideal.

[greencobra]

That's a handful. I had a 454 Casul 15 years ago, picked it up cheap at the shop I worked in when the original owner couldn't handle it. Packs a punch for sure. Too big for whitetails. Boar are mean, It should work, and then some.

I have no stories, it's just a mean mother to shoot Good luck and have fun.

[JonSidneyB]

If I remember right, this packs as much punch as a 30-06. A 30-06 is more gun than needed for deer at handgun distances. One thing nice though, you can load it with hot loaded .45 long colt wich is plenty of punch for deer and enough for small and medium hogs.

[IrishLager]

I plan to use Reduced loads on whitetail and would be shooting up to 100yds. As for the Boar it would be Russian Boars were going for.
Thanks for the help,
J

[Lee1959]

I have owned the .454 and sold it, going back to the .44 magnum. I liked the numerous loads in .44 magnum more than the few found easily in the .454 on most store shelves, especially in Podunk USA. And yes I do reload, but one cannot always count on that, sometimes you jsut have to buy off the shelf.

For whitetail, the .44 magnum is plenty of handgun, if you do your part and place the shot well, if you do not, no matter what handgun you shoot, it will be a loss. I have taken many deer with handgun and bow.

Pigs, I do not know much aboutbut I have talked to people who say a hot loaded .44 magnum with a heavy cast slug will do te job very well, so I am sure the .454 will work well also.

Before buying, make sure you shoot one enough to know that you will be comfortable shooting the handgun, and will shoot it enough to get very good with it. Practice is the key to handgun hunting. I might suggest getting it Mag-na-Ported, it helps a lot with a lot of shooting practice, and Larry Kelly and his crew are great to work with. Their shop is neat also, if you get the chance to visit. They even have some nice dogs to pet. It is only a half hour from me.

[0dBm]

I met Dick Casull some years back when he was still developing this monster cartridge. I did not know whom he was then. He was just a guy with some high-faluttin' ideas.

Some years later when the cartridge was actually mass produced by a big maker AND the platforms (guns) were also on the market, I tried a good friend's Taurus double-action revolver in this caliber.

The .44 Magnum felt somewhat anemic compared to the mighty .454 Casull. I fired a total of six cartridges before I politely said "very nice" to my friend. I went directly home and placed an ice pack on my shooting hand for about 30 minutes.

That was the last time I had anything to do with that cartridge.

When I was younger, I was not particularly sensitive to recoil. I fired everything up to and including the .458 Winchester Magnum in a rifle.

Not that I do anymore, but I prefer to use those uber-powerful cartridges in rifles where I can, at least have a little more firearm to hold on to.

That said, the .454 Casull is a very capable cartridge.

[HarryN]

100 yds with a .454 is quite impressive.* Way more than I could do.

I would be more inclined to consider a 12 ga shotgun chambered for 3 inch rounds, 18.5 in barrel, pistol grips, pump action, perhaps a straight tube barrel if you decide to stay with only 1 setup.* If you go that route, make sure you get a very smooth action pump - some of them tend to jam a bit under pressure.

It is not much more to carry and way easier to manage.* Ammo is quite a bit easier to obtain.* A sabot round might work at 100yds - need to think about that one.

[Lee1959]

100 yards is not a terribly hard shot, not with glass sights, and a rest, and a heck of a lot of practice, that is the part that is truly hard with heavy calibers. That said, I have never in 20 years of handgun hunting ever shot at an animal over 35 yards.

[sean m]

Had one with the 7.5" barrel traded it off as it was just to much gun and cost prohibitive to shoot. However I have held on to the Puma 454 lever action that I had paired with it. Imagine a 6 lb. 45-70 holding 10 rounds. :D

[LifeNRA]

454 is overkill in my opinion.
You can kill a deer or hog just as dead wth a .357 Magnum using Winchester 180 grain Partition Gold ammo.

I have noticed in the last 15 years or so that many people that I know have moved up to higher calibers for hunting whitetail. I still remember the first time I saw someone with a 7mm.
I believe this relates more to people praticing less or being less proficient with a firearm than anything else. A 30-06 will bring down any North American animal and yet hunters are carrying all the newest Magnum Super calibers.I think more people need to hit the range and stop reading the gun rags.* <-This has nothing to do with you IrishLager. I just needed to rant.* >:( :)

[Lee1959]

In my experience and opinion having hunted whitetail for better than 30 years, the .357 is marginal, the smallest caliber I would personally use for hunting whitetail. And only then at close ranges of 25 or 30 yards where bullet placement could be exact. Yes, others will work also, including the .22LR but too many are lost with smaller calibers, especially at longer ranges, which is unacceptable to me as a hunter.

I do believe however from what I have heard (from friends who have hunted them with handgun), having never hunted them myself, that it would be on the small side for boar hunting, especially if one has a frontal shot at a charging boar. They have a gristle plate that can stop many bullets or at the very least limit their penetration to almost nill. One friend had two .41 magnum bullets stop in it, the thrid penetrated and killed it.

[LifeNRA]

You make some good points Lee. The .357 is the smallest handgun I would ever take hunting, hwever with the right shot placement and the right bullet it is more than enough for whitetails and most hogs I would say.
I believe most deer that are wounded is because the hunter took a bad shot or could not shoot straight to begin with. Thus the reason so many hunters are going to bigger calibers these days in my opinion.
I have let many deer walk because the shot was not right or good enough. However I have seen so many hunters have to trail their deer for hours because they took a bad shot in the rush of excitement.
I will concede that the .44 magnum is a much better deer and boar cartridge though. But you would be suprised what that 180 grain Winchester Partition Gold round will do.

[BigAssDiesel]

.454 Casull is a great, powerful round. I carry one when out and about in the woods. I also hunt boar, altough with a long gun. Boars are easy if they are baited (arent all baited animals?) Wounded, they will try to come around to get you from the rear. Also, they have a thick slab of fat up front. Anyway, I love my Ruger. Good value too.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y266/BigAssDiesel/MVC-003F.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y266/BigAssDiesel/229L.gif

[copykat]

One factor that must be included is barrol length.
Its a huge factor.

[Mark G]

454 is overkill in my opinion.
You can kill a deer or hog just as dead wth a .357 Magnum using Winchester 180 grain Partition Gold ammo.

I have noticed in the last 15 years or so that many people that I know have moved up to higher calibers for hunting whitetail. I still remember the first time I saw someone with a 7mm.
I believe this relates more to people praticing less or being less proficient with a firearm than anything else. A 30-06 will bring down any North American animal and yet hunters are carrying all the newest Magnum Super calibers.I think more people need to hit the range and stop reading the gun rags.* <-This has nothing to do with you IrishLager. I just needed to rant.* >:(* :)




Amen- the only rifle I use is the 7X57 Mauser which has taken MANY pigs. My hunting buddy shoot the same and has taken numerous pigs as well as deer and elk with it. As you mentioned being proficient is the key and we always strive for head shots.

As for the .357, I used to carry one pig hunting until I saw a round bounce off a pig one day and the person I was with finally killed it within a couple of yards from him with a shot between the eyes. I moved up to the Ruger .480 afer that since I want to take one with the pistol one day and I want the added assurance that I can put it down QUICKLY!!!!!

Mark

[dairycreek]

454 is overkill in my opinion.
You can kill a deer or hog just as dead wth a .357 Magnum using Winchester 180 grain Partition Gold ammo.


I sure don't agree that 454 is overkill for deer. I have been a handgun hunter for longer than I would care to admit (I just turned 70) and have taken more than one deer with a 357. Never hunted a hog in my life so I can't comment on that at all. Sure the 357 will take a deer if there is a good shot made, placed just right, in the right place, etc. But, sometimes, even that just isn't enough and a deer will escape to undergo a lingering death. Sure, the same thing can happen with a 44 mag or a 454 but all things being considered, the bigger, more powerful round will produce a quicker, more humane kill. As I said, I have used the 357 but IMHO it is very marginal for deer.

[cratz2]

Yeah... I wouldn't agree that 454 is 'overkill' but I would say that it's more than is consistantly needed.

Anytime the big kicking guns are discussed, I always wonder how likely someone is to practice to 100% ability if the gun is painful to shoot.

On paper, I don't see how the 454 is going to be much more effective than a similar load in a 44 Magnum. I can shoot a 6" 44 Magnum all day (well, 50 rounds comfortably anyway) but a 7.5" 454... Not so sound wimpy or anything, but it's just more than I can comfortably tolerate. Three rounds and my ability drops.

I remember talking to a guy one day in a gunshop. I'm only 34 but felt like an old-timer. I think he was 18 or 19. Only handguns he'd ever shot were 22s and 9mms. He said he was trying to decide between the 500S&W or a 454 for his next handgun, mostly for bragging rights and possibly for hunting whitetail. The shop owner and I were kinda rousing him, mostly because of his inexperience with handguns, but also for his attitude about the 44 Magnum. He was seemingly dismissing it as a worthless cartridge. We were trying to convince him that a 44 was plenty for deer in Indiana (keeping in mind that a lot of our deer land is so hilly and forrested that shots much past 30 or 40 yards are MUCH more common than 100+ yard shots). But, he was hard-headed and ended up buying the 500S&W. This was back when they weren't too plentiful.

Well, I guess it turned out that he had shot it twice and traded it back in. It made him so afraid of anything bigger than a 9mm, that he didn't even trade into a 44 or 357.

Now, I've never shot the big 500, but I understand that it's generally more pleasant to shoot than a 454 because the gun weighs so much and because of the long barrel.

The three 44s I've owned I could shoot comfortably. They are at the upper end of what I would recommend a novice shooter to try but my relatively small wife shot my 4.5" Blackhawk as did a friend we had down at the property. They weren't shooting for accuracy, but with common sense, the 44 Magnum should be able to be mastered by anyone willing to learn it.

The 454 is just truly in a different league.

[bkkd]

the .44 mag is hard to beat as a general duty hunting handgun, it has taken all north american game cleanly and will continue to do so, and has even been pressed into service as a big bear defence gun and a lot of stories attest to the fact that it worked.

now if you handload it, you go even higher on the scale of usefulness..........

[johng]

I sure don't agree that 454 is overkill for deer. I have been a handgun hunter for longer than I would care to admit (I just turned 70) and have taken more than one deer with a 357. Never hunted a hog in my life so I can't comment on that at all. Sure the 357 will take a deer if there is a good shot made, placed just right, in the right place, etc. But, sometimes, even that just isn't enough and a deer will escape to undergo a lingering death. Sure, the same thing can happen with a 44 mag or a 454 but all things being considered, the bigger, more powerful round will produce a quicker, more humane kill. As I said, I have used the 357 but IMHO it is very marginal for deer.


I don't agree with this at all. Deer are no tougher than people and a .357 has proven to be very effective there. It just isn't very effective at long ranges so I would not use them much beyond 75yds. My little Marlin carbine has taken countless deer over the years using 125 grain soft or hollow point ammo. Russian Boar are an entirely different story as they can turn around and kill you which I've never heard of a deer doing so bigger might be better if only to make the shot less stressfull.

[AK_Greybear]

Hello all, new to the forum. Thought I might have something to add to this topic.

I have some experience with the Ruger Alaskan. I own and carry one. Also have the Puma in 454, SS, 16" .

Background: We live, work, and play in Alaska. We are hobby miners and general "bush" lurkers. "Bush" in Alaska means pretty much anything off the road. We (not the royal "WE" - just the wife and humble self). Humble self (wife is looking over shoulder and laughing body parts off as my use of that phrase) is and ex cop, ex geek, ex Aleyeska Pipeline (alleged) worker, and traveler into the deep bush flying in small airplanes. 20+ yrs experience in AK. 40+ years experience shooting handguns and instructing in self-defense shooting.

With all that said, you gotta be REAL serious and have a real (or perceived) need to shoot the Alaskan. This is a SERIOUS handgun.

I carry it in a kydex chest holster from Survival Sheaths.

The problem is that you are NOT on the top of the food chain here. At least not unarmed. When you spend serious time bent over looking into a gold pan it's hard to keep the level of awareness of surroundings that you should. Ergo, the Alaskan.

IT'S WHAT YOU GOT THAT MATTERS.

That lesson, of course, may be "preaching to the choir" here at EDC.

The Alaska is a SOLID, doesn't get any better than this, handgun.

Absolutely find a 454 and shoot it with full-house loads before you buy one.

Ammo (and wrist pain treatments) are expensive. If you MUST have a 454, Ruger is the ONE.

However, the 120 lb. wife carry and shoots regularly a Taurus Tracker in .44 mag and loves it.

The Puma is just too sweet for words.

[Goldtanker]

Hi AK_Greybear-

Welcome to EDCF!

Denny

[boomstick]

I was offered a 454 mateba yesterday and turned it down after my buddy asked "where the hell are you going use it?" and he was right, the .454 exceeded the (ftlb) range limits on all of our local pistol ranges.
I know you can use 45lc with it but that kind of defeats the point of owning one :rolleyes: