I had a 6'' Freedom Arms .454 Casull pretty much identical to the gun in videos for a long time, along with a 7 1/2'' Ruger Super Redhawk .454 and my current big bore is a 5 1/2'' Ruger Blackhawk .45 Colt. I would much rather shoot full tilt loads in the FA than in the Super Redhawk or really hot .45 Colt loads in the Blackhawk. I have no dog in the hunt as to whether they were using balls to the wall loads or not, but I will say the FA revolvers are exceptionally well built and handle recoil extremely well. I don't think shooting hot loads in another platform is a good basis for comparison to say it couldn't be done with a Freedom Arms.
That said, a 300+ grain hard cast bullet at 1200+ fps out of a .454 or hot .45 Colt will penetrate just as well as the same bullet at 1600 fps and probably significantly better than a jacketed hollow point at 1600 fps. Regardless of what the chronograph read, I think the shooters on video did a good job of proving that a big bore single action is more than capable as a bear defense tool.
