Hello,
What are all of your most powerful 454 Casull loads? I am interested in trying 360-395 grain tips and am wondering what gave you all the most recoil. Thanks for the help.

You better be careful with the heavy loads for the 454, or you're going to look like the guy in your avatar. Unless you are shooting a Freedom Arms, don't go balls to the wall loads.

I do have a Freedom Arms and use a 360 gr bullet under 24.5 grains of Lil Gun. The max is listed at 25.5 which I did load up to but then backed it back down to 24.5. At 25 yds it will keep all five rounds at around 2" fired as fast as I could.

Heavy recoil but not sharp or as bad as lighter bullets. Be sure to use a heavy crimp. I do the seating as one step and then apply the crimp as final step.

If you really want recoil, you need to move up to a 50. Things start getting interesting when you launch bullets in the 500 gr range.

Ken, you are not thinking properly! What you should be looking for is the most accurate loads. I have never, ever, seen any animal that could tell the difference of 100 FPS, but they sure die fast with an accurately placed boolit. The HE-MAN stuff is no use when nothing is hit.
But, then again, maybe you have someone you don't like and want to plant the front sight in his forehead.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Ken, you are not thinking properly! What you should be looking for is the most accurate loads. I have never, ever, seen any animal that could tell the difference of 100 FPS, but they sure die fast with an accurately placed boolit. The HE-MAN stuff is no use when nothing is hit.
But, then again, maybe you have someone you don't like and want to plant the front sight in his forehead.

These loads will be for pure fun. I have no intention of using them for hunting.

I thought so, you want something that rocks your boat! You should have bought a .475 Linebaugh or larger. My friend split his forehead and blackened his eye with mine. After I seen that he was OK, it was a good laugh but I was worried when I seen his face. These were not the hottest loads, but ones that put 5 shots into 5/8" at 50 yd's.
Don't you just love those big guns?

Nothing like a big thumping handgun. There is something about handling the heavy recoil than gets the blood flowing!

Yeah, from the forehead down the bridge of the nose.

Try a 260 gr Nosler over 33.5 gr of W296. It gives me about 1930 fpr from my 7-1/2" FA 83 and I think recoil will be just about what you're looking for (about 36.5 ftlb according to my ballistics program).

bfrshooter, how are you supposed to shoot these max loaded guns? I shoot max loads in my 45 Colt and 44 mag and the guns have never come near my face/head. Are you supposed to lock your arms somehow so that the recoil takes it above your head? Seems to me that you would only hit your face if your arms bent at the elbow.
Peter.

Peter, he was shooting from sandbags! After I hollered at him, he said he likes to hold his guns loose. His fault!
I missed some deer when I first got my .475. I took hair off the top of their backs but no blood. I found out I was relaxing too much and the gun was coming up too fast. I just hold it more firm now and have no problems.
None of them will hit or hurt you if you just use a firm grip, don't choke the hell out of the gun!.I have shot a lot with my .475 and 45-70 using one hand, not too bad.

The only time folks get hurt is when they give a death grip for the first shot, and it doesn't clobber them, and then for the second shot they relax like they are shooting a 9mil. Then they get clobbered.

A firm grip is all that is needed, and some tension in your arms.

THE MOST POWERFUL???? I won't print it here tho I've duplicated some of Dicks olde Triplex loads that literally split brand new FA brass in two.
As mentioned already avoid hot (olde 454 Casull loads in anything except FAs or quality five shot Ruger conversions.

I'll second the idea on avoiding hot loads in the lesser 454 revolvers. I cracked the forcing cone on my factory super redhawk trying to do exactly what you are doing. just my 2cents. wk

When I first got my Taurus Raging Bull, 6.5", I heard about it being weak and might blow up just sitting in the safe next to a box of ammo
I had some 405gn 45-70 bullets sized down to .454" and decided I'd see just how fast I could push them. I got them going just over 1500 fps and had to pound the cases out on the last loads. I'm sure it was way over pressure and I should never have loaded them that hot. The gun did hold up though and is still a very accurate gun.
The funny thing about the 405's is that they would not stabilize. Many went through the target sideways leaveing very pretty key holes. Even at 30ydsish they still grouped in about 3".
In my 4 5/8" 45 Blackhawk, the worst recoil came from shooting 265gn cast bullets as fast as they could go. I don't remember the load or velocity now, but the recoil was way worse than with 300 or 340gn bullets.
The Taurus gun is not bad to shoot at all, probably because of the muzzle brake.
Which gun do you have?

quote:

sitting in the safe next to a box of ammo
I had some 405gn 45-70 bullets sized down to .454"

How big are your Taurus throats??
Every 454 Casull I've loaded for ran .450 to .453, normally ream the Rugers and ****dom Arms to .4525
Longtime no hear LAR!

The Taurus's throats are 3 @ .4525 and 2 @ .4530
I should number them and pay more attention at the range. I have had several targets cluster 3 shots in under .5" at 50 yds(scoped) and the other 2 open the groups up to around 1.5".
It has been awhile since shooters went down. Are you still building revolvers now that Phillips and Rogers closed?