Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 454 Cassull performance edge ?

For those who shoot the 454 Cassull, exactly how much increased range do you obtain over the 45 Colt? I have two 45 Colt's I currently hunt with. One is scoped and the other iis open sight. I trust them out to 100 yards and would not shy from a 125 yard shot if conditions were right.

So, is there any real benefit to the extra recoil? I am talking mostly Whitetails, Axis & Elk.

The range with any handgun is how far you can hit your target. The longest kills that I have ever made were with the 45 Colt. A carribou at about 150 yards and a pig at 218 yards. The Carribou was taken with a 310 grain LBT LFN at 1240 FPS and the pig was taken with the Buffalo Bore 325 grain load at 1350 FPS

It depends on the gun. I do not think that you gain much over the 45 Colt if you intend to use heavy bullets in a Freedom Arms revolver because you will run out of cylinder length before you are able to put in enough extra powder to make a real difference in the longer Casull case.

For bullets below 300gr, however, I do think that you will see a noticeable difference in trajectory given the additional velocity. Whether you can make use of that trajectory advantage is a matter of skill, not ballistics.

I agree with JWP475, unless you have specialized needs and skills, there isn't much a 454 will do that a 45 Colt can't.

I have a 45 Colt in a RRH and am contemplating a FA model 97 similarly chambered. There probably nothing I will get the opportunity to hunt that will not be properly sedated with one or another of the 45 Colt loads which in either of these guns can be of significant ooph!

Reloder 28,
I own, load for, and shoot, revolvers in both .45 LC and .454 Casull- the .45(s) are Ruger Bisley Vaqueros, the Casull is a Freedom Arms custom scoped handgun, 10" ported barrel.

If you compare 260 gr. JFP bullets in both, the relative ballistics are as follows:

.454 Casull, 260 gr. JFP, 1750 fps. MV, scoped:
50 yards- +1"
100 yards- 0"
150 yards- -5.2", energy 1000+ ft. lbs

.45 LC, 260 gr. JFP, 1300 fps. MV, (assume scoped):
50 yards- +2.2"
100 yards- 0"
150 yards- -9", energy 656 ft. lbs.

It's obvious that with bullets of equal weight, the .454 offers much flatter trajectory, and enough energy at range to be considered for larger game. The big .45's really come into their own when scoped and used for larger big game, with nearly twice the energy of a .45 LC.

There is no doubt a price to be paid in terms of recoil with the .454 Casull!

But if you are hunting larger game, you won't be using (at I won't) light weight expanding bullets like those 260s. That being the case, loaded with heavy for caliber bullets, the .454 offers no real advantage over the venerable .45 Colt -- JMHO.

The 260 gr. Freedom Arms Jacketed Flat point bullet is a very hard, tough bullet, that in my experience penetrates deeply and with little expansion. I have used it on wild hogs out of the .454, with complete end-to-end penetration.

I have also used the 300 grainers on hogs, but have seen little advantage to using them compared to the 260 grain bullets.

I hunt with 300 grain hard cast bullets. Without exceeding published loads you can get 1750 fps out of the 454 with 300 grainers. The 45 pushes them at about 1200 fps with max loads. Energy at 100 yds is about 1360 vs. 720. As Bighorn said the 454 has nearly double the energy.

You can load the 454 down to 45 levels, but you can't go the other way.

I shoot open sights and I'm not much good beyond 100 yds so the better trajectory isn't nearly as important to me. If you're shooting scoped there's a decent difference between the two. Here's the trajectory according to Hornady's calculator:

454:
50 yds: +1.3
75 yds: +1.2
150 yds: -5.6

45:
50 yds: +3.1
75 yds: +2.5
150 yds: -11.1

You'll get no arguments from me regarding the 45 Colt's ability to easily anchor any of the above mentioned game, but you can't deny that the 454 throws lead a lot faster and a little bit flatter.

Actually, the 45 Colt will do in the 1300s with the 325-grainers in the Rugers (see the Buffalo Bore 45 Colts) and in the FA revolvers, if I'm not mistaken, you can load the Colt to or close to 454 Casull vel's as just before production of the Casull, the Casull case was lengthened 1/10" over the 45 Colt case in which it was developed.

Just trivia really but it shows the the limiting factor for the Colt is really the gun, not the case. It's a great cartridge.

I often wonder just how that is possible. The 454 Casual is rated for 65,000 psi by the SAAMI. While the .45 Colt is rated for 14,000 psi. Now apparently some have found that it is pretty safe to load it to 20-25,000 psi, that's still a long way from an extra 1/8th of an inch in case lenth and another 40,000 psi. E

There are a lot of old .45 Colts out there hence the weak sister factory loads (aside from those offered by Buffalo Bore, Grizzly, etc.). Again, all things being equal with the same heavy-for-caliber hardcast flat-nosed bullet, the extra velocity really won't buy you any more penetration.

In a 5 shot cylinder the 45 Colt loads can be loaded to equall the 454 loads with heavy bullet. But why do so. I have 5 454s and 1 45 Colt I shoot the 45 Colt the most. As posted above my longest kills with a revolver has been with the 45 Colt.

Energy figures are meaningless to animals, since they can not read. Energy figures do not and will not rate lethality.

yep. there are three levels of 45 colt performance: level 1 for single action armies and clones. level 2 for ruger blackhawks and guns of similar strength, and level 3 for five shot revolvers which pretty much equals the 454 casull. when ross seyfried wrote in the mainstream, he wrote extensively about this very topic.

If energy figure and extra velocity make no difference, then why do we have the 454 Casull, the 480 Ruger, the 460 S&W or the 500 S&W ? E

Energy is meaningless. There is not one single factory .454 Casull load that doesn't "generate" more so-called muzzle energy than my go-to load in my .500 Linebaugh (525 grain bullet at 1,100 fps), by a significant margin. Take a guess which .454 load works better on large game -- not a one.

Go shoot some game with a .45 Colt and a .454 Casull -- using the same bullet, and tell me if the game can tell the difference, despite the velocity and "muzzle energy" differences.

Speed and energy seem to be sexy for many and it sells, after all that's want marketors want. Sells and lots of them

A 22-250 shooting a 55 grain bullet at 3600 FPS calculates to 1583 FPE. A 45 caliber 360 grain bullet at 1400 FPS calculates to 1567 FPE. If energy figures were meaningful the 22-250 would be slightly supirior to the 454 with the 360 grain bullet, most of us know that this is ridiculous.

A charging Alsakan Coastal Grizzly wiegh 1000 pounds is charging you and you only have 1 shot and your choice of weapon is the 55 grain bullet from the 22-250 with its 1583 FPE or the 360 grain 45 caliber with its 1567 FPE. Which one are you choosing???

I know which one I'm choosing and it ain't the one with the most energy, that's for sure....

Energy will not accurately rank terminal performance and therfore is a rather useless number

But Eremicus has spoken...so it must be so!

I hate to be a dickhead, but it's the same arguement over at the bigbore forum. A 45-70 is supposedly just as good as a 458 win mag, it's just a little slower.

For most game animals, the difference probably won't matter, but if I had two guns that were the same size, weight, etc..... and one was chambered in 45-70 at PUBLISHED max velocity for my #1 and a 458 with the same bullets at PUBLISHED max velocity and were face to face with a dangerous animal, it's a no brainer.

Same goes for the 45 colt and the 454 casull. Sorry!

If I were given a factory Vette vs. a factory Camaro of the same year and top speed were my objective, it's a no brainer.

BUT, for most hunting of non dangerous game at normal hunting distances, I'm sure the 44mag, 45 colts are all we need.

BUT THIS IS AMERICA. And while it's still a free country, it's fun to debate and choose what suits us best.

OK, I'm getting of my soapbox.

I would tend to think that increased energy with the same bullet makes a difference. If energy did not mean much, then a cowboy action load with hardcast should stop an animal the same as a fire breathing 454 load. We know that is not the case. There is a point when too much energy can decrease penetration when the bullet is not up to the task. The bullet simply will break apart. I know that I would feel better with a 454 than the same bullet in a colt. There is nothing wrong with the colt but there is a reason for more powerful cartridges.

Then I would ask if you have ever hunted with a handgun. The reason I ask is not to be a jerk, but to see if you have killed any game with a .454 or a .45 Colt. If you have, you will see that game just isn't impressed with the increase in velocity -- not in the least. Energy is nonsense.