I have a 5.5 bisley with a few basic mods (cylinder reamed and a Bowen sight and trigger job). Most has been covered before but I found it cheaper to sell my old standard grip 45 colt and buy the bisley I wanted then do a conversion.
A 255/260 at 1000 fps is plenty for deer and any reasonable black bear and doesn't use much powder and is at a recoil level I can shoot a good number of rounds without pain. Years ago I shot hot fast 44mags and I find the slower 45 colt much more pleasant to shoot. I have shot 4 deer with the 45 colt and a few with jacketed loads in a 44mag and the colt does just a good job as the more painful 44.
As an east coaster, with no Griz, I never played with heavy loads.
While I have played around with some more expensive WFN bullets the cheap bulk 255s shoot well in my gun and kill deer so I settled on those. There are a number of powders that will get you to 1000fps +/- .
A change in residency ended my handgun hunting, but I still take the 45 to range every now and them, its a great comfortable gun and more accurate than I am.
