so the hunt starts next friday and we're taking some axis, a bison, perhaps some rams. the buff is gonna be taken by my FA 454 10" with some standard 325grain buffalo bore loads OR i'm gonna let my 13 year old take it with his new smith 629 44 mag. buffalo bore hardcasts on that one as well. i've already flattened buff with the casull and the 475 but i'm thinking i'd really like to see how those buff bore 255 grain hardcasts at 1350 would perform. i could go up to 300+ grainers obviously but i've got boxes of the 255's lying around and i've shot hogs with them and they worked real well. might just try it on the buff. opinions please.

Post pictures and results of your 13 year old and the bison he shot. He'll treasure this hunt for years.

By all means use the 44, but keep the 475 handi to mop up the mess with

Stick with the 454 Casull for the Buff. No need putting the animal through a test. JMO

I'd be more comfortable using the .454 as bigger holes just seem to make me happier. That said, the .44 will work. My concern about the .454 is a 13-year old shooting it. Has he? Can he? If you answered yes to these questions, then I think the .454 is appropriate. It won't do any good if he can't place the bigger bullet. You can always test the .44 on the downed animal. As jwp said, keep a big 'un on standby for backup. If he shoots the .44 better, then he should use the .44. We're not talking deer here........

It's just like the African hunting threads: Should I use a .375 H&H or a .416? The answer usually boils down to which one you shoot better, as they are all adequate. JMHO.

Looking forward to hearing all about it! And take lots of photos!

Marko can tell you about my grandson, he is 21 and thinks he is a good shot plus a tough guy. He talks a good story but when we were making penetration tests at about 15 feet into wet newspapers, I handed him my .475. He shot twice and flinched so bad he shot two holes in my metal sawhorses.
Better make sure the kid can handle what you hand him.

just to clarify, my son would only shoot the buff if we decide to use the 44 mag. if it's the casull it's my shot. that's where the question comes in, if it was just me i'd use the casull or the 475. i just prefer the casull due to it's trajectory but on buff it doesn't matter, but i may be taking some axis at distances up to 200 yards so it's 454 time.
(it's nice to have so many choices, 460 up next)

anyway, funny story, i told him for christmas i'd get him his choice, a 44 mag, 454, or a 475. as we reload they could all be loaded to whatever level he could handle. (he's quite the marksman btw) he shot my 629 and he handled it well enough the owner of the range commented how well he shot. he picked up the casull next (10" barrel) and when he came out of recoil on a moderate load and the gun was over his head. he just put it down, said he wasn't ready for that gun or the 475 with 5.5" barrel. he said the 44 would do nicely. so he shot several they had there and liked the feel of my smith and the trigger best so i got him a 6.5" barreled powerport 44 mag. i think he made the right choice.


i have ever confidence in his shooting ability and in the load to kill the buff, just not quite sure how he'll handle being within 50 yards of an animal that big though.

Your son is wise.
Now let him shoot the Buff with his 44, cuz that is what Dad's do.

My .475 shoots flatter than my .454.......same gun (SRH), same barrel length, higher velocity out of the .454......... Given the opportunity to take a long shot on a big animal like a bison, I would want the big bullet, not the smaller, faster one. JMHO.

i guess it's how hard you drive them. i have loads that in my 10" 83 shoot just over 2100 fps with 260 grain bullets. i can drive my 300's right about 1800 fps. i have nothing that touches that trajectory from my 475, nor my friends 475 that is a 7.5" i do however prefer 240 grain xtps at a sedate 2000 for a great deer/hog load.

to me the beauty of the 475 is the ability to find the middle ground b/w the 500 linebaugh and the casull and retain the best attributes of both. if i was that concerned about needing bigger lead downrage i'd just have gone with a 500 smith or instead of the 454 83 i just ordered i'd have gone with the 500 WE. beats the 475 in all ways.

but..........i already have the 475 and anything the 500's beat it in doesn't matter in any realworld way imho. plus, i find the bfr to be the best platform for the 475 and larger calibers (though the M83 in 500WE is nice) and i didn't have to pay the custom shop extra for a non standard caliber. 420 grains at around 1100-1200 fps on the hip is alot of piece of mind when fly fishing and hiking.

How many inches do your Casull loads drop at 200 yards if you don't mind me asking?

Yes, the 83 is nice, but for my money I'll take that BFR in .500 JRH.......

the 260's if i have them running right at 2100 and sighted in for dead on at 25 yards they drop less than an inch at 100 and about 13-14" at 200.
the 240's at a nice 2000fps (which is hornady's standard but right near 2000 in the 10" gun) they drop right about the same 14-15" according to hornady's tables. now if i run the 240's all out they drop less than a foot at 200.

best i've gotten out of my 475 is about 3ft of drop at 200, but that's also a 5.5" gun and to really push bullets of 370-420 grains it gets unshootable. the casull is fairly sedate in a 10" gun and lighter bullets. btw, they smash deer and elk and i've not had a failure. the 260grain partitions hit like my 375H/H does only harder on the little stuff b/c they open.

I get 18 inches of drop at 200 yards with a 420 grain bullet at 1,350 at the muzzle -- consistently. Those light bullets pushed fast scrub off speed at an alarming rate.

what's the ballistic coefficient of the bullets you're using? also, what range are you zeroed. using every single ballistics calculator and chart i've gotten my hands on show a minimum of 36" of drop at 200 if zeroed at 25 yards if the 420 grainer is coming out at 1350 fp. for example, on hornady's charts for their xtp, a 400 grain xtp at 1400 fps drops 36.7" if zeroed at 25". if zeroed at 100 yards, it's 2.3" high at 50 yards (it's highest point) and only drops 25.6" at 200. though if i sight in the 240 at 100 yards and run them at a ripping 2150 i get 50 yards .8" high and a drop of 11.7" at 200 yards.

certainly not starting a pissin war but i'm curious b/c every single chart and calculator i've gone through says you gotta push a 475 bullet alot faster than 1350 to get that drop.

i just ran it through another calculator i bought a few years ago and according to it you have to run a .475 caliber bullet with a bc of .233 (which is relatively high) at 2000 fps to get 18" of drop if sighted at 25 yards dead on. that bullet at 1350 fps would drop just a tick over 40" at 200 if sighted dead on at 25 yards.

my bb 325 grainers will drop 31" at a very very mild and sedate 1600fps. the flattest shooting .475 rounds i've found that are factory loaded are 370's at 1500fps and they drop 34.86" at 200 according to the above paramenters.
the winchester nosler partitions at 1900 fps out of my 10" barrel drop 23"

I don't sight anything in at 25 yards. I sight them in at 100 yards, and it shoots a little high at 50, but my drop is only 18 inches at 200 yards. I sight them in at the distances I hunt. Doesn't make sense to me to sight in at 25 yards if I plan on hunting out to 100+ yards. I don't know what the BC is of my 420s -- maybe bfrshooter knows as he designed the bullets, but I doubt it.

Do you plan on hunting bison with 260s??

Who in the hell is going to sight their revolver in for 25 yards? Might as well use a slingshot if you limit yourself to that distance.

Best bet would be to go with a heavy for caliber cast bullet and get it going around 1,200 fps. That should get through a bison unless you are hitting a lot of heavy bone (shooting up the neck). This fast and light stuff is best left to backpacking.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
what's the ballistic coefficient of the bullets you're using? also, what range are you zeroed. using every single ballistics calculator and chart i've gotten my hands on show a minimum of 36" of drop at 200 if zeroed at 25 yards if the 420 grainer is coming out at 1350 fp. for example, on hornady's charts for their xtp, a 400 grain xtp at 1400 fps drops 36.7" if zeroed at 25". if zeroed at 100 yards, it's 2.3" high at 50 yards (it's highest point) and only drops 25.6" at 200. though if i sight in the 240 at 100 yards and run them at a ripping 2150 i get 50 yards .8" high and a drop of 11.7" at 200 yards.

certainly not starting a pissin war but i'm curious b/c every single chart and calculator i've gone through says you gotta push a 475 bullet alot faster than 1350 to get that drop.

I can see from your response that you do not shoot your revolvers at long range. Forget those charts, there are meaningless when shooting a revolver.

quote:

I can see from your response that you do not shoot your revolvers at long range. Forget those charts, there are meaningless when shooting a revolver.

I agree, charts are crap.
The 420 gr boolit we shoot from the .475 is a WFN and the drop as measured at 200 yd's with a 100 yd setting is 18". The .44 with a 330 gr WLN boolit drops 35". The 45-70 BFR drops 16".
I can see where a light for caliber bullet from the .454 at high velocity will drop less but those are bullets I would not use for very large animals. Velocity and bullet drop never killed an animal! Range estimation, experience and the proper bullet kills everything.
Personally I would not shoot at any animal beyond 100 yd's with a revolver unless I had sandbags.
To sight a gun in at 25 yd's is nothing but silly. Those of us in the know, sight at 75 yd's minimum or at least 1" high at 50. Yesterday I made a perfect center hit on a 16 oz bottle of water at 100 yd's with my BFR .475. Results were amazing with the water blowing everything else off the rail. The gun is sighted 1" high at 50.
I hate it when people talk high velocity, light bullets, flat trajectory and all kinds of book figures.
Experience, constant shooting and testing wins hands down. I know where my boolits hit out to 500 meters but being smart I limit my hunting shots to 100 yd's and WAY under if possible.
Tradmark, a challenge for you. Come shoot 500 meters with me. I will use my 45-70 BFR and even though it drops 26 FEET, I want to see what your .454 does. Then I will show you what a BFR .475 does at 400 yd's. Creedmore, no sandbags!
Some of us ACTUALLY shoot that far and never read books.

i would have nooooo problem hunting the bison with the partitions, but there's much much better options. i've killed one with a 300 grain xtp about 7 years ago. i really liked the performance of the corbon 320 grain penetrator better, much better. that said, in one breath many on here bitch and moan whenever someone talks about shooting at game over a hundred yards sans whitworth or bfrshooter, then suddenly having a revolver zeroed at 25 is somehow akin to a slingshot?
so to answer the question who sights in a gun at 25 yards..........whoever hunts hogs in the thick stuff and makes most shots at 50 or less and wants their gun dialed in dead on the close stuff.

jwp -- you've made more assinine comments and presumptive nonsense flows out of your mouth than anyone here. you've made crappy comments before and i'm sure you'll do it again...aint keyboards wonderful to sit behind.
i was actually just at the range shooting the longrange silhouettes this afternoon....hence the gap in response time here. it's 4 clicks on my FA 83 10" to suddenly be dead on at 100 instead of 25. i used that as a standard and i've found the ballistic table to be pretty close in most instances.

that said, whitworth, i bet your 454 has a larger cylinder gap than the custom 475. of course i could be wrong. my bud's FA 44 mag 6" gets over 100fps faster velocity than my 629 6" with the exact same loads.

anyways..thanks for the info whitworth, jwp -- more of the same assumptive nonsense.

OK D.A, I didn't figure that you'd get it. A revolver has barrel rise and the more the rise the less sight adjustment. It's just like Redhawk posted the other day shooting 45 Colts out of his 460, hit 12" higher than did with 460 ammo when sighted in for the 460. Of course I don't consider 100 yards long range and I shoot open sights.

My comments only seem dumb to the inexpereinced.

Tradmark, only one way to solve this. Post photos of groups shot at 100 and 200 with the Freedom .454. Measure drop with a 25 and 100 yd sight setting.

I am NOT afraid to post groups. This was my .44 mag, 200 yd drop test with a 330 gr boolit. Notice the group is 1-5/16".

I have found that all of my SRHs have been pretty tight, and accurate. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Super Redhawk is still Ruger's flagship revolver and they are all put together pretty well. My .454 is accurate, and it's not slow judging by the chronographing we have done with it. But alas, it has been sacrificed to the big-bore gods and is in the process of becoming a .500 Linebaugh........

I've shot plenty of hogs in the thick stuff and I still sight 'em in farther than 25 yards. You can't always count on a close shot in my experience.

I stear clear of expanding bullets nowadays as they're not consistent penetrators in my opinion. But that's just me. On bison-sized game, I'd go heavy hardcast........

The left can was shot twice at 100 yd's and the right can was shot once at 200 with an 18" holdover, .475 BFR, 420 gr WFN.
Tradmark, you HAVE to put you money where your mouth is. Post results and be truthful. I have witnesses for my shots, Marko is one.

Tighter, looser gaps, 100 fps more or less doesn't mean a thing. Book figures, drop charts, BC's, please turn it off!
SHOOT THE GUN AND SHOW ALL OF US! Or dig a deeper hole.

fair enough, not a problem. i'd love to shoot as far as you have a range. i've loved shooting at the whittington center when i was there and unfortunately never ever had a big bore pistol at that time. and no i don't think that i'd shoot those smaller bullets at that range on anything larger than deer either. the elk are shot closer. i'll post some pics tomorrow though i'm not sure how who's the best shot has to do with how far a bullet drops.

and heavy hardcast is what i'm using no matter what the caliber is. appreciate the info. good luck with the .500

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
and heavy hardcast is what i'm using no matter what the caliber is. appreciate the info. good luck with the .500

Thank you sir! I will post up as soon as it is done. In fact, another member here (TBEAR) is also having an SRH converted to .500 Linebaugh by J. Huntington simultaneously........

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
fair enough, not a problem. i'd love to shoot as far as you have a range. i've loved shooting at the whittington center when i was there and unfortunately never ever had a big bore pistol at that time. and no i don't think that i'd shoot those smaller bullets at that range on anything larger than deer either. the elk are shot closer. i'll post some pics tomorrow though i'm not sure how who's the best shot has to do with how far a bullet drops.

It's not about how far a bullet drops. It's about how much the barrel rises before the bullet exits. Different people allow a revolver the jump more than I do and tohers allow it the jump less than I do and this will affect the amount of sight adjustment needed at longer ranges. No chart can calculate this.

i'm well aware of that jwp, and that sure has nothing to do with a given bullets trajectory. it's the same as sighting a gun higher. if you allow one gun more rise you can do the same with another. that gives really no baseline for comparison. charts do however allow that and do allow for some baseline comparos which are more useful than showing how good a shot someone is and then using that to prove that someone knows more about physics.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
i'm well aware of that jwp, and that sure has nothing to do with a given bullets trajectory. it's the same as sighting a gun higher. if you allow one gun more rise you can do the same with another. that gives really no baseline for comparison. charts do however allow that and do allow for some baseline comparos which are more useful than showing how good a shot someone is and then using that to prove that someone knows more about physics.

Whitworth posted eailer in this thread that when he shot his 475 at 200 yards he required 18" of correction to hit the point of aim.

You posted the following in responce

quote:

what's the ballistic coefficient of the bullets you're using? also, what range are you zeroed. using every single ballistics calculator and chart i've gotten my hands on show a minimum of 36" of drop at 200 if zeroed at 25 yards if the 420 grainer is coming out at 1350 fp. for example, on hornady's charts for their xtp, a 400 grain xtp at 1400 fps drops 36.7" if zeroed at 25". if zeroed at 100 yards, it's 2.3" high at 50 yards (it's highest point) and only drops 25.6" at 200. though if i sight in the 240 at 100 yards and run them at a ripping 2150 i get 50 yards .8" high and a drop of 11.7" at 200 yards.

BFR posted the following,

quote:

I agree, charts are crap.
The 420 gr boolit we shoot from the .475 is a WFN and the drop as measured at 200 yd's with a 100 yd setting is 18". The .44 with a 330 gr WLN boolit drops 35". The 45-70 BFR drops 16".

I'd say that the charts are meaningless when shooting a revolver, especialy when sighted in at "slingshot" distances

Okay, okay.

Being a good shot does help but some of my friends shoot better then I do. My whole point is to show the gun's accuracy is more important for long range and very important when shooting at an animal.
It is also important when making drop tests because if boolits spray all over there is no way to measure anything.
Accuracy also counts when shooting off hand because we can never eliminate our movements and hold the gun still. An accurate gun will reduce the size of long range groups. In other words if your gun only shoots a 6" group at 100 yd's and you wobble 6", you only can shoot 12" groups. But if your gun will hold 1" then your groups will average 6". What it amounts to is I want my hunting revolver to shoot at least 6X better then I can shoot it.
From sandbags or a Creedmore position I have enough confidence in my revolvers to shoot extreme ranges. I can't do it off hand past 100 yd's or from shooting sticks either. Sticks do not take away enough wobble for me, too old I guess!
When someone talks about shooting animals at 150 to 200 yd's from sticks, my question will be--can your gun hit a pop can at 200 yd's from sandbags? If it only shoots 12" to 14" and you add in your wobble, best think a lot more before squeezing the trigger on game.
Poor accuracy makes boolit drop a moot point if your gun can't shoot good enough, you add in wobble and then also have to figure drop even if you know the exact range.
The reason I posted those pictures is to show what is needed to hunt long range. Even though I can make my guns shoot like that, I still will not hunt beyond my capabilities. Sure I can kill a deer at 200 but I need sandbags and I don't carry a shooting bench into the woods. I could do it from Creedmore but I need to carry a blast shield and be able to drop to the position. Due to grass, uneven ground, brush and moving animals, I have never seen the opportunity to make use of it.
Until a guy can show me what his gun can do, I will always say to cut your hunting range down by 3/4.

i fully understand how important accuracy is, thanks, the question wasn't about that. the question was about bullet drop. then the assumptions about accuracy, ability, and all that come into play. simple question about bullet drop. and no holdover is not the same as bullet drop and this is magnified whenever long long rifle shots are made or even better, when someone sights a gun dead on at 300 and it has a loopy trajectory. this is discussed ad nauseum in the david tubb long distance shooting series and despite perhaps claims to the contrary it does apply to pistols as well, especially if they're scoped.

where i hunt in w texas it's very very common to have a shot over a gully or sendero and very very easy to misjudge range. if you don't have a range finder what appears to be 100 yards can easily be 150. there's several sizes of deer here as it's where the northern strains overlap the texas and throw in the random muley and the bucks will range from 100lbs to 200+ in bodyweight which throws it all off. knowing your gun and how it will react at given distances is great. the problem comes in when you can't pin the distance down to better than +/- 25-50 yards.
and yes, 6" is about what i can hold at 100, however, i've got a stick to shoot off of that allows me to hold a little tighter. anyway, the fa 83 with a scope will hold about 1" off the bags with the most accurate loads and that has been witnessed several times. some people will do better and some worse.

It sounds like you are good to go but I have only one suggestion. Sight for 100 and then actually shoot at 150 and 200, then write the drop on paper and tape it to the side of the scope.
I have never found paper figures that match what a boolit actually does.
And don't forget to hold over from where you want to hit the animal, not from the top of it's back.

ive shot and watched shot probably 20 buffalo now. Buffalo die slow no matter what gun you use. I love my big bores but have to say that theres not a pinch of differnce in the reaction of a buff to a 44 bullet compared to a 454 or even a 500. As a matter of fact the quickest kill i got came with a 44 mag shooting 250 grain lyman devestator hps cast out of ww and shot at 1200 fps. Its the only buffalo that didnt casually walk away after being hit. Now on the other side of the ticket ive seen them take multiple hits from a 500 without much reaction. does that make the 44 better? of course not. Point is that the 44 shooting heavy bullets will penetrate plenty and if you put the bullet in the right stop it will definately do the job.

i've got my casull sighted in .5" high at 25 yards which puts me almost an inch high at 75 yards verified and right at about 2" low at 100 which puts me point blank out to 100. these loads are pretty mellow buffalo bore 325's at are a real pleasure to shoot and are dead on accurate. i did some shooting at 200 but the winds here were just freaking horrible. constant 10-15 cross wind with sustained gusts from 20-40mph. no good groups being found at 200 and i'd never ever shoot in those winds that far. 100 is pretty much the absolute limit this time. my son was shooting great at 50 off hand and getting better all the time at 100. he hit 50% on 10x10 inch plates at 100 offhand with his .44
his limit is 50 yards. there he is about 95-99% on the plates and that was in the bad winds.

remember we're bowhunters at heart and 50 yards isn't really much of a problem to get to. i got some nice pics of the shooitng range, too bad the owners are aggravating. it was packed and just plain hard to get some good practive in but it finally cleared out and we got some good shooting in, but the winds worsened at that time.

The object of hunting for me is not how well/far I can shoot but how well/close I can get to the animal that I'm hunting.

I don't preset limits on how far I will shoot. Each set of circumstances is different. Under the best conditions I may take a shot at 100+ yards or pass on a shot at 15 if I don't think I can make it.

Shooting at long range with a handgun (iron sights, light, short and in a belt holster for me) is for fun and to have the skills necessary if it's ever needed in the real world. Shooting at 200, 300, or 500 yards is knowing how to hold the sights for the distance you are shooting. I have the skills to make it interesting for someone/thing if I choose to. Defense, wounded game, destructive critter ect.

TEXASFIVGUN/Chad