Originally Posted by McInnis
Thanks to all. I knew I could count on some good answers.

And Kevin, I've owned a copy of that Lyman's manual for a long time. Just never paid attention to the section on cast bullets, so I'll be reading up on that tonight.

So, here's some numbers (and another question) from my chronograph for my new .454 Casull, 6.5" BFR.

Using .45 Colt Brass, 325 grn Cast Performance LBT bullets and 17.5 grns 2400, I got an average of 1172 fps with a spread of only about 20 fps from min to max.

With Buffalo Bore .45 Colt ammo with 325 grn lead bullets, I got an average of 1394 fps, even higher than they advertise. After one round, I needed to put on leather gloves.

With one round of Hornady factory ammo with 300 grn XTP, I recorded 1533 fps - Yikes! - I'll never feel the same about my .44 magnums.

So, question - if I'll use this gun for hunting elk or maybe moose, with open sites which will realistically limit me to 50 or 60 yards max, how much if anything is that extra velocity over my handloads worth?

And oh, here's a special message for you all from an old friend of mine.

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You don't need the extra velocity. The 325 at 1100 will shoot clean through darn near anything. Do some penetration testing yourself to gain some confidence in what it will actually do. Once you realize that velocity is not needed to cleanly take game, you'll be loading for comfort and accuracy.