Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns S&W460/454Casull

How did it fail, and where did it hit?


I think most of the discussion about bullet choices here is irrelevant though, given the OP's location, which is pretty close to mine. Unless he gets attacked by an elk, there just isn't anything else around here that needs anything bigger than a 45 Auto or 357 Mag. We have cougars, small-medium sized black bears, and meth heads; none of those need a 400gr hard cast bullet to be put down.

My buddy shot a red stag (it weighed between 300 and 350 lbs) at point blank range with his .45 Colt loaded with 300 grain XTP Mags. One (see photo) made it through the on-side shoulder and stopped in the ribcage on the offside and came completely apart. The other bullet hit the onside shoulder, which distorted the nose of the bullet which then hooked a 90 degree turn and was found under the skin of the ribcage on the onside. Those bullets at 1,200 fps should have done better in my estimation, particularly the Mag versions.

Yondering
I dont have a real need for a new revolver I just want one.
I'm sure I'll take it to Alaska when I go back up there fishing.

Here's the red stag.....

Nothing wrong with that! I've got a 460 myself, for no practical reason that I can think of.

Whitworth, thanks for sharing. That's pretty unusual performance for that bullet, especially at 45 Colt velocity. I believe your account, but it sure doesn't seem to be the norm for that bullet. Any idea why he was using the Mag version instead of the regular XTP?

I'm glad he did use the mag version. He chose the mag over the standard XTP because we were bullet testing on animals that were considerably bigger than whitetail that week (that stag was one of the smaller animals we tested on) and he wanted a bullet that wouldn't expand much if any and would hopefully give him some penetration. I will tell you what bullet impresses the hell out of me in the realm of expanding jacketed bullets is the Swift A-frame. Those consistently delivered top notch performance on every animal they were used on.

Yondering, I'm a little surprised that an "ole" caster such as yourself, would choose the jacketed bullet. If bear defense is in the equation, I think of jacketed bullets, much like " mechanical " broadheads. When they work, they are great! When they fail, they fail miserably!! . memtb

Each have their uses, and I shoot plenty of both. Cast bullets aren't perfect for everything either, and can "fail" just as badly as anything else.

This is the one that failed to open and failed to track straight.

Here it is alongide my s&W airweight

45 colt on left, S&W 460 on right

They are fun. I had both the 500 and 460 for a few years. Then reality sets in. lol

Enjoy your's. Working up loads was the best part for me. Mine were quite accurate and as Max suggests I did work on both reduced loads and full bore loads with the 460 case successfully, preferring to treat the cylinder as a cylinder rather than a pre-barrel. I killed quite a few hogs with mine in Texas over 3 years.

so far the only ammo. I've put through it is some factory 260gr fusion. Loud with a lot of muzzle blast but the ported bbl tames the recoil pretty well.

Too bad you waited so long to buy your 460 as i just unloaded 2 full cases of Winchester 260 gr dual bonds.