Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 454 Casull vs bigger calibers question

+1, John. On the realy big stuff the 475 and 500's definitely hit harder but may not kill better they definitely take the go out of them quicker IMHO

I love handgun hunting as much as anyone. I know my limitations. Unlike a rifle, practicing to proficiency with a handgun is beyond time consuming.

I've fired a full horse powered .454 Casull once, enough to know that handgun hunting is better left to those with more time to gain proficiency and possessive of expertise that I was born without.

+2 the 475 is a great round, but I struggled to shoot it accurately. I have no problem with the colt and can handle the 454 well too.

Regarding penetration...I've shot animals through and through...and I've shot animals where there was no exit wound. It seems that if a bullet stays inside of the animal...as long as you penetrate through to the vitals...that all of the energy that is carried by that bullet is expended in the animal, instead of exiting the animal and taking energy with it.

Ive always been rather skeptical, of the idea that having
"all of the energy that is carried by that bullet is expended in the animal, instead of exiting the animal and taking energy with it."
is nearly as useful as having a larger exit or at least TWO open holes in the hide to allow blood to drain, and that the "SECRET" here is knowing the games anatomy and proper shot placement, and the near instant destruction of vital organs rather than any slight increase in total energy transfer.
the fact is that handgun bullets kill by disrupting or destroying tissue, and organ function and blood loss, more similar to archery than what a 270 win or 300 mag does with adding hydrostatic shock and a much larger temporary cavity.
destroy the heart,lungs,liver or a few major arteries death will be rapid but not instant, sever the spine, neck or destroy both shoulder or the brain and you usually drop game nearly on the spot, so I generally try for shots that penetrate thru the central front chest and either enter or exit where they are likely to break a major bone when thats possible... punch the light green area and game doesn,t go far

I agree with this. Energy dump and muzzle energy is a myth and neither kills animals.
Shot placement is so important too.
In truth it does not matter if a boolit goes to the moon after going through an animal as long as it worked while inside. Stopping any bullet inside an animal never made it better. Too many times it is WORSE.

I think penetrating through to the vital organs--and having all of the bullets energy expended in the animal, and in particular in the vital organs--will disrupt and/or destroy a lot of tissue and vital organ function...and cause a lot of blood loss. You don't have more blood loss just because you have an exit wound. You may have more blood on the ground...but the animal's blood loss still occurs from the previously mentioned damage.

If the animal has bled profusely inside of it's body, it's going to have the same effect from blood loss on that animal as if the animal had bled from an exit wound and onto the ground instead.

Blood loss is blood loss.

Most here with the big guns have a huge level of experience more then I do shooting them. I have had a lot of clients with these guns and have shot many of them a few times.

After seeing most of them used with various kinds of bullets, I have come to the conclusion regarding hunting revolvers. The .44 mag seems to be the greatest level of recoil investment for the power delivered. It's very much like the 375HH in the rifle world.

The 375HH is at the level of recoil that most adult men can handle or learn to handle. The .44 mag seems to be at that same level in the handgun world. It's my opinion that if you cannot kill what you're hunting with the 375HH then you have a problem. The same can be said for the .44 magnum. If your unable to cleanly kill what you're hunting with a .44 magnum there is another problem.

The loads available for the .44 magnum can provide astonishing penetration and crumple effect on all sorts of big game. At least those which are normally hunted and not considered a "stunt" event. People with the skills who choose to hunt Hippo, rhino, elephant, cape buffalo etc. with a handgun are usually at another level mentally and physically.

For ordinary big game hunting even including moose and bison, I have no concern over a .44 mag being used within archery hunting ranges.

The guns that escalate to higher levels of power and recoil certainly kill better and faster and provide additional margin for error. There are however a scant few that can operate them with the same level of comfort and skill of the .44 magnum.

Today the powder and bullets available a quite a bit better then those available 40 years ago when this was the big dog in the handgun world. The Garrett Cartridge bullets out of a 7.5" redhawk is a very impressive level of power for the biggest game.

It's also a heavy and not very user friendly gun to pack around, unless that is the whole intent to hunt with. This means there are really different levels to consider. Holstered as a side arm, or to be used as a prime hunting tool. I had a 375JDJ which was a "kinda" handgun that was a prime hunting tool for me. But no way a packable side arm,

I shot a 480 Ruger which was a wonderful shooting gun, that I really liked. The 454 Casull was kinda snappy, but very confidence inspiring. Neither would be able to replace the 44 mag for me though. The .44 is just the near perfect balance of recoil investment to lethal power delivered in my opinion.

Only a small non traceable amount of energy is acctualy transferred in an inelastic collision (which is what a bullet collision is) momentum is always transferred.

This transfer the energy is just BS

Then there is a significant difference between the mechanism of tissue damage between high velocity rifle bullets...and lower velocity handgun bullets.

Don't forget to throw in the length of that damage and pair it against the rifle's wound diameter, most of which bleeds little as it causes immediate clotting.

44?

The 45 Colt provides better killing ability due to frontal area without the need to load it to the gills. Talk about recoil to power ratio, even when duping the 44 Magnum in the speed and bullet weight category.

Rifle concepts and experiences don't apply to handguns, unless you can show me a pistol bullet that looses a significant amount of weight or one that even expands every time.....

Since a rifle cartridges produces a significant amount more velocity than a revolver which in turn produces a higher amount of hydraulic presser which stretches the tissue past its elastic limits

Big bore handgun calibers reached their zenith with Elmer Keith's .44 mag. We used to shoot all kinds of rifle calibers in T/C contenders like .30-30, .243, etc. They were not fun after the novelty wore off. I feel the same about the .454 and larger calibers. Better to carry a rifle. The one great exception is for people working around big bears. A large caliber handgun is always on your person, not leaning against a tree when you really need it. It might be worth learning to shoot the really large calibers if you find yourself around bears with humps.

Why is it better to carry a rifle? I personally have no trouble shooting the larger calibers, and hunt almost exclusively with revolvers nowadays. I'm not clear as to the meaning of your post.

I'm going to take a stab at this. Energy dump vs complete pass through.

When the flat meplat of a bullet designed to not expand is pushing it's way through flesh, at the appropriate velocity, it has a "splash" effect. Where as the flesh is being pushed aside, damaging that flesh. The damaged tunnel or wound channel will be larger than the diameter of the meplat.

If a bullet is pushed too fast, the bullet, depending upon construction, may not hold it's flat frontal shape, thus diminishing the "splash" effect and thus reducing the diameter of the damaged tunnel or permanent would channel. I would also put expanding handgun bullets in this arena too.

If the bullet is traveling through the flesh too slowly, it is likely to have a diminished "splash" effect and, again, a reduced diameter of the damaged tunnel.

So, for the energy dump crowd I surmise that as the bullet is slowing down and not creating an exit point, the meplat is not creating as large a wound channel diameter. Upon initial entry the meplat is likely doing it's job with a large wound channel but the channel is diminishing in size as the bullet comes to rest within the animal.

On the other side, the bullet pushed to the appropriate velocity, with it's non damaged meplat, is creating the desired wound channel all the way into and completely through the animal. We not only have two blood drain holes but the complete wound channel is large, as we want it to be.

Either will likely bring the demise of the animal but the complete pass through, hopefully, will do it quicker.

Opinions on my attempt to compare the two thoughts?

Alan

Sounds about right, but I dont know anything compared to John and Whit. What do you guys think? By the way Whit, I'm sure you heard this a thousand times but your book is fantastic. Only book I've ever read more than once. Such a wealth of info on big bore handguns. Thank you for writing it.
Ryan

JWP and Whitworth are exactly right.
A revolver is just like a rifle and has three results. A hole punched with little damage, perfect kills with large blood trails and no distance traveled or complete destruction of the animal. Once you understand it is a balance between a bullet and velocity you will know.
Many do not know just how affective a revolver can be or how much destruction they can do.
The problem is many think all things work and that is not true for rifles either. You go to a lot of trouble picking a load and bullet with the rifle for the game but you expect the revolver to do anything with any bullet.
Some think a 2" revolver will do what a 7-1/2" will no matter the size of the caliber and case.
So hard to explain that more velocity is not the answer, that DUMP is a foolish thing to look for. It is FALSE.

I don't follow.

"Large blood trails and no distance traveled" sounds like diametric opposites.

I do agree that "energy dump" means little when a 22-250 with a varmint bullet is only equal to a heavily loaded 45-70 on paper.

Handguns aren't so different to us who get the "privilege" of using shotgun slugs and their various incarnations on deer sized animals. Even when pressed to become "rifle-like", they all still rely on an amount of bore diameter to function properly and even the most advanced expanding designs have limitations due to range and speed.

The 20 gauge PT Gold load is basically a 260gr. 45 caliber pistol bullet going a lot faster than the hottest 454 Casull. They clock around 1,800 fps from a 24" barrel.

The 12 gauge loading is basically a 385 gr. 50 caliber pistol bullet clocking 1,600 from a 24" barrel.

Both properly placed kill about the same, but the animal's reaction to the larger slug is more pronounced with the 12 gauge loading inside 100 yards, despite it always clocking much slower, IME. Note, from what I've seen they KILL the same.

Despite running faster and expanding, the newer 50 caliber projectiles also don't have anything over the old, defunct wadcutter type BRI 50 caliber sabots and certainly not over the larger, yet even slower Brenneke or Foster types, so far as killing goes.

Once a wound diameter gets to a certain point, quite a lot matters little. I would hedge my bets on actual frontal surface (flat nose, cutting edge), then velocity when it comes to "thump". At the velocities handguns operate at (even the "fastest" ones), excessive hemorrhage and clotting isn't going to occur like we see in rifles simply because even pure lead and high antimony alloys won't shatter; pure lead however, will go mush at the top end impacts, effecting penetration. We also don't have enough speed to rupture (even after cutting) tissue like rifles do with monolithics.

We make up for power with projectile design and bore size, trying to get a long, tubular wound channel with a consistent diameter throughout....

Spot On, Hawk!!!

You nailed it, Hawk!