44 Rem Mag vs 454 Casull - Ruger Alaskan

[swamp]

Question: Would the extra powder in the 454 Casull be wasted mostly as muzzle flash and recoil since the alaskan only has a 2 1/2 inch bbl and add only a marginal increase to muzzle velocity over the 44 Rem Mag ?

Does anyone know about the Wolf spring kits for the ruger alaskan?

[Just a Hunter]

Even if the velocity was close you cannot negate the ability of the 454 Alaskan to send a larger, heavier bullet than that of a 44mag.
Dont forget the 44 mag is actually around .429--.43

[rimrock]

theres no doubt the 454 will hit a bit harder, but with a 2.5" barrel neither cartridge will reach near its full potential, power level, and recoil and accuracy will suffer, now obviously your talking about use at extremely close ranges, but Id doubt many people will not have started firing at 7-10 yards and at the speed of a mad or aggressive bear, youll be lucky to make more than one or at most two hits, on a moving target with your adrenalin peaked, I doubt your accuracy will be top notch, if you started firing at 15-20 yards Id doubt your accuracy will be great with a 2.5" barrel revolver and marginal hits may only serve to piss off the bear further
personally Id be thinking about using a 10ga Ithaca road blocker,
http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/6/68/Roadblocker_a.jpg/500px-Roadblocker_a.jpg
throwing 2 oz slugs or at least a 6" barrel to gain some hitting power

which do you think will be more effective a couple 300 grain slugs of .45 caliber or a couple 75 caliber slugs that weigh 875 grains at similar velocities

the object here is to protect yourself and survive, your choice

[Rich]

Even if the velocity was close you cannot negate the ability of the 454 Alaskan to send a larger, heavier bullet than that of a 44mag.
Dont forget the 44 mag is actually around .429--.43

Lasrry Kelly said he noticed about thwice the killing power when he switched from the .44 to a .454 when he hunted Africa. It may seem a bit absurd, but I used to do a lot of jack rabbit hunting with a .454. Then or a lark I decided to give the .44 mag a try. The .454 tended to never wound them no matter where they were hit. The .44 on the other hand definately wounded with a hit in front of the back legs.

[swamp]

Just a hunter... you are right and i almost lost sight of that point....

Rimrock, the idea of a slug gun has merit in some situations but it doesnt allow one to fish or hike and at the same time have hands free....

Rich interesting that the 454 has much more killing power than the 44 ....

I was about to settle on the 44.... but now i have to reconsider

[Waidmann]

Yeah, Swamp,

That .44 Rem Mag hasn't got enough power to kill a jack rabbit unless you hit it just right. I'm thinking maybe you need a Desert Eagle in .50 cal to hunt rabbits. That way, if you only wound it with the first shot, you have a quick follow-up shot to finish them off. I hear they sometimes attack when wounded. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

[swamp]

Waidmann, very true, but i'm not worried about jack rabbits.... i do believe that the 454 probably does have a leg up on stopping power over the 44 mag

According to the article found at the link below... the 454 in the ruger alaskan over all delivers about 40% more energy as compared to a long bbl'd 44 Mag.. that is significant.

http://www.shootingtimes.com/handgun_reviews/rgrRH/

[Waidmann]

Swamp,

I've read repeatedly that if it's alive, you can kill it with a single shot from the .454 C. So if you're looking for a round that will kill, bury and plant the flowers in one shot, you can't beat the .454 with a handgun. I've also heard shooting it is like working an air hammer with one hand, and the ammo will backrupt a normal person, but...hey, you only have one life. Plus, to save $$ on ammo and wear and tear on your hands, you can shoot .45 Colt ammo in it for practice, and the .45 Colt isn't exactly small caliber itself. Are you really limited to something with a 2.5 in barrel?

Waidmann

[GF.]

Another point in favor of the .454 is that there are hot loads for the Colt that don't have quite the power of a Casull... so even without handl-loading, there's a pretty full range of power levels so that you can find the point of what is/is not truly controllable by you.... Unless you're counting on the pistola to knock you out cold with the first shot so that you won't feel it when the bear starts eating....:laugh:

[bill m]

I tend to think that increased power goes without saying. For a short barrel, homeloading with some faster powders might be an option. I'm not a 454 reloader. So maybe there are reasons that wouldn't work.
I believe the accuracy question is illegitimate. I handgun with a snubnose 44 Special. Accuracy isn't measured by the gun as much as it is measured by the holder. It is a complete wive's tale that a snubnose handgun; or any handgun, is not accurate beyond a certain amount of yards. 25 seems to be the number I hear all of the time. If you are practiced, you will hit.
I don't remember the guys name. I saw this on Versus. He was shooting a 38 Special snubnose at 9 inch balloons at about 200 yards off-hand and was hitting. I started practicing long range targeting with my 44 Special. I came to find that "I" was the only limit to range.
For the range that you would use this 454 to protect yourself, the gun will do it. The rest is up to you.
Practicing your solid grip, getting the grip quickly, and pulling off your shots (all one of them probably) will make it work.
The only other thing that's important is having that thing really available. REALLY AVAILABLE. As close to quickdraw as possible.

[bill m]

Here we go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tied-t1fFsk

[Just a Hunter]

PS: There are plenty of hot 45 colts you can load into a pistol that fires the 454 casull if you dont care for the recoil of casull

[swamp]

Thanks guys for all the comments, i think after all this discussion, I'm going with the 454....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhcSRHd3JXs&feature=related

[swamp]

i am definitely in love...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTqo-4KUbA0

[Waidmann]

She's gota be shooting .45 Colt ammo with that. It's not jumping enough for it to be a full .454 Casull round. I understand that her wrist and forearm is soaking up a lot of recoil, but that still seems light to me.

[bill m]

That's a gun that would take lots of practice to get good with.
I used to like that kind of stuff. But I have no need so I stick with comfort.
But for the guy that wants a "Best Chance" for a suprise in the woods, you probably can't beat that in a compact package.
It's a beautiful thing.

[swamp]

Waidman, according to the video she is shooting 454 casuall rounds with 300 grain bullets.... and I think that the video is correctly stating the facts

Bill M...Yes indeed a thing of beauty LOL

[Waidmann]

Yes, according to the video. I just have a had time comparing the two previous videos and believing it's the same round. The first looks about right. The second seems a bit too...posed?

[swamp]

Waidmann, I think that the woman in the 2nd video is indeed shooting 454 casull 300 grain rounds.... she is an experienced shooter in my estimation...

some 45 LC rounds being shot here.... and in a lighter handgun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1xr_1bjDRk

[Waidmann]

Swamp,

I suppose. She certainly is an experienced shooter.

Waidmann

[GF.]

Nasty flinch there... but vastly preferable to the potty mouth on the first girl.....

Tell ya, though, I don't think I'd want to be caught zooming in on the backside of a girl who handles that pistol that well.....

[GF.]

And FWIW; the spec weight on the Vaquero is around 40 oz. vs. 44 for the AKn... That's either just a couple measly ounces or 10%, I guess, depending on how you wanna look at it, but the power:weight ratio is a lot friendlier-looking in the LC.....

[Craig]

The answer is "YES"! I have owned 2 Ruger Super Redhawk revolvers in 454 Casull; one with the full length 7 inch bbl and on Alaskan model with 2.5 inch bbl.. The Alaskan model wastes a lot of powder and doesn't achieve much more than the same gun in 44mag. The long bbl gun is a different story! 454 Casull is made for use in 6-8 inch bbls and it loses about 100fps for every inch of bbl shorter than that. I shot a moose with 454 Casull - it is a truly badass round!

[AK-49]

the short .454 Casull Alaskan has a 40-percent energy advantage over a long-barreled .44 Magnum.

http://www.shootingtimes.com/handgun_reviews/rgrRH/

[GF.]

I just skimmed that article, so forgive me if the author made any mention, but.....

Energy, schmenergy, right?

The question (IMO) is whether - given comparable barrel length - a heavy .44Mag load can deliver a bullet of comparable mass and sectional density, and what the difference in the feeps works out to be...recalling that penetration - which is what we're really after, here - tends to be inversely proportional to impact velocity....


"Energy".... :hmmmm:

Is it possible that how hard a gun kicks might not tell you all that much about how hard it hits???

[AK-49]

GF, i would disagree that a bullet's penetration is inversely proportional to its impact velocity... that would mean that a slower moving bullet would have greater penetration than a fast moving bullet...

[Dennis Keith]

Depends upon the construction of the bullet. There is a point that increased velocity does produce diminishing returns.

[GF.]

AK-49…

All within reason, of course. As Dennis said, it depends.

But think it through. An expanding type of bullet striking at higher velocity will expand more, creating more resistance to its passage through the animal or test medium.

On one end of the scale, it doesn’t matter, because if you’re dealing with enough ‘power’, you’re going to blow a big hole clean through .

On the other hand…. Once you drop below the impact velocity at which you get some appreciable expansion, then of course your depth of penetration will decrease all the way down to the velocity at which the bullets literally do bounce off.

So if you’re shooting a truly non-expanding design like a solid, then driving it faster will drive it deeper – right up to the point where the bullet fails entirely. Like when the Mythbusters guys shot a .50 BMG FMJ into a swimming pool and got shrapnel, but found that a muzzleloader or slug gun can kill you at some appreciable depth under water…

[Bushman]

That was the most amazing finding for me in the extensive .30 caliber 180 grain bullet test into wet newspaper that Gary Sciuchetti did for Handloader Magazine some years back. Here is a quote from the article:

"With a reduced frontal area, these bullets gave deep penetration, but a relatively narrow wound channel. Note that lower impact velocities for almost all lead core bullets gave greater penetration than the same bullets at higher velocity. This is primarily due to the higher velocities that force the bullets to expand quicker giving more frontal area for resistance and weight loss. When comparing a .308 Winchester and a .300 Weatherby Magnum, the former out penetrated the latter about 2 to 1 but the diameter of the wound channel was substantially greater in the .300 Weatherby Magnum than the .308 Winchester."

Even today I have a little trouble accepting that last sentence, but the test media said it was true. It is probably more applicable if we are shooting at wet newspaper however.

[AK-49]

this is what i'm talking about

http://www.takdriver.com//showthread.php?t=723

[GF.]

Didn’t that whole griz shooting story catch a lot of scrutiny? I remember seeing it quite a while back, and folks were asking an awful lot of questions….

Anyway….

Bush – resistance is resistance; if the work done by the bullet on the medium is used less to push ‘wide’, then it can be used to push ‘deep’. The Mag is capable of doing more such work, but resistance to passage goes up very suddenly when impacting water, or a medium which is mostly water. Because it sticks to itself, water is only capable of getting out of is own way just so fast, and when you try to move it too far, too fast, it sets up like cement. Which is why many backs have been broken on impact with water when the ‘diver’ has come down wrong…

So look at your extremes…. Even out of the same cartridge, we know that a HP can create a shallow, crater-type of wound that will not kill cleanly; we know that ‘solids’ are used only when you really need to drive very, very deep; and we know that controlled expansion bullets strike a nice balance. We also know that every bullets is designed to expand ‘properly’ only across a certain range of impact velocities, so a 180-grain bullet designed for a .308 is going to blow to pieces if used at close range in a .300Whupass.

It takes two things to penetrate, right? Velocity and mass. So don’t forget that when a bullet expands a lot, it tends to fragment; that scrubs off a lot of speed (velocity) and reduces the mass from a single, sizeable hunk down to several smaller, less massive bits with far lower penetration potential.

But getting back to that bear….

Yes, if the bullet is designed not to expand at either the .44 or the Casull velocity, the Casull will drive deeper when used at design velocity. Question is, can the shooter put that to good use? It’s my understanding that very few handgunners are really capable of managing that kind of recoil effectively, and I’m not convinced that the Casull is really potent enough for the first round to prove adequate in a charge scenario – at least not unless the shot placement is so darn good that the .44 would have been just as effective…

And FWIW… I saw a show one evening about a guy who works with the wildlife biologists year-round to track brownies up there in AK, and he guides bear hunters in season. He didn’t carry a pistol at all.

But he did have a thick-barreled rifle in one hand at all times…

[Dennis Keith]

Well DUH! If I were going into an area where I, or a party of friends, were intending to ANGER Big Old Bears then a Rifle makes for a far more logical choice than ANY HANDGUN because extra ammunition for the rifle is a lot lighter than a pistol. Rifles were made for big old dangerous game. Only fools, or those not intending to anger DANGEROUS GAME would rely solely upon a pistol, any pistol for protection from dangerous game. Pistols of any kind would not be my first choice for HUNTING BEARS, but for working in or around my own property near town, then perhaps.....

[AK-49]

another article on this incident... http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/survival/animal-attacks/2009/08/charging-grizzly-killed-alaska?photo=0

[GF.]

I noticed something in there about his pistol jamming… I wonder if it was a SA or DA model in the Ruger…. ?? And what would have gone wrong that it would have remained jammed long enough for his wife to show up with a rifle?

But about rifles… this reminds me of the old-time cowboy’s practice of carrying a rifle and pistol chambered for the same round…. Does anybody know if Marlin might be building one of their levers around the Casull, or is that case just too long for the action? Or maybe there’s a custome shop doing rechambering and other necessary modifications?

CT has finally authorized revolvers during the firearms season for private land over ten acres – same restrictions as for rifles – and that got me to wondering if I might someday consider it. The .45 LC aspect is the only thing that makes a Casull remotely practical for anyone not up to his arse in big, scary bears, but the range of loads from basically subsonic LCs to hopped up LCs to varying degrees of insanity for the Casull would make for a mighty versatile little rifle….

[Bushman]

Big Horn Armory, Inc. is making one in .500 S&W, but I agree with you that a .454 Casull would give a guy more ammunition options. It is the same reason that I shoot .44 Specials in my .44 Magnum. We can use a pistol here too during our gun season, but that M629 has never seen the light of day if I can be carrying a rifle instead.

We were talking about bear defense a couple years back and I mentioned that the daughter of one of the guys that I called on used a shotgun in AK. when she worked for the DNR up there for bear tagging duties. The first round was going to be bird shot to the face and eyes that would disorient the bear, then slugs to put it down if they encountered a bear charge.

[GF.]

Personally, my chances might well be a whole lot better with the birdshot.... Sorta like pepper spray with some SERIOUS bite to it!

The TV bear-tracker guy with the rifle actually got charged on-camera and had to kill the bear; he gave it every opportunity to break off, but I guess he draws the line at getting bitten. Can't say I blame him..... But at that range, I guess accuracy's not so much an issue, and no sense in pissing the bear off after it's got your leg in its jaws.

[AK-49]

I've been in contact with Mr Brush after reading the article, he said he was using ammo that was made commerically in kenai. The 4th round is the only round that hit the bear and the fifth round jumped the crimp and locked up the cylinder. He says he now only will trust buffalo bore ammo in use with his 454 ruger alaskan

[GF.]

So the answer is that he was shooting DA… That makes sense….

Hmmmm….


Thinking this through… Only the 4th round struck paydirt. So the question is… 1) In the same spot, would a .44Mag have done as much good? And 2) Would the lighter recoil of the .44 have made it possible for him to put more rounds on target in the same amount of time? Because – and of course we’re taking his story at face value here - he was damned lucky to get 4 rounds off, so getting on target sooner would have been helpful…

That’s some pretty serious recoil when you start shaking the bullets right out of the case…

[AK-49]

i don't shoot from the hip, it comes down to personal choice, i've never been charged by a bear but if it should happen i hope i am prepared, for me the ruger alaskan in 454 with 360 grain buffalo bore loads moving out at 1220 fps gives me my best chance at stopping the charge.

Yes we are taking his story at face value. if you live in alaska then you understand that there is nothing to be gained from taking a bear out of season. its a paper work night mare and the hide and scull become possessions of the state after you do all the work of skinning out the bear!

[GF.]

Just a guess, but having seen a bear charge at close range on a video clip, you might very well find that you either start firing from the hip, or you don't live long enough for it to make a lot of difference.

They say that G Gordon Liddy could drawaimfire and hit his target in .6 seconds, which is about twice the amount of time the guys in that clip had before the sow turned at about 10 feet. One of them had had the good sense to pull his gun when they surprised her cubs, and if not for that, it would have been down to one of these guys shooting the bear to get it off of whomever she had latched onto.....

Personally, I did a little homework on the question I'd had the other day about a Marlin in the Casull, and it turns out that they just can't handle the pressure. OTOH, there are heavy loads for the LC that are more than adequate for any non-dangerous application I can think I'd undertake with a light, handy rifle. So a lever in the Casull would be kind of redundant. And I guess now, if I were looking at it myself, I'd probably go the same route that you're looking at. Practice all you want with standard LC, heavy LC, or whatever you can manage, and then yeah, you might well carry those mastodon-killers just in case... I suppose the adrenaline would make up the difference between the two, and it's probably going to come down to the first pop anyway....

[AK-49]

since the ruger in 454 casul can be loaded to 44 mag levels by shooting 45 LC its a more flexible choice for me. the 454 is not a plinker and neither was it intended as such. check out www.buffalobore.com sometime

[GF.]

That was the point I was just making – heavy .45s will outmuscle a .44 mag and light .45s probably plink just as well as .44 SPCLs, so the “better” choice in a lever action/wheelgun combo is the .45 (unless you already own a .44 in one or the other ;) )

It’s a little odd that the revolver will handle stouter loads than the lever in this case, though I have to wonder how a heavy .45 + 20” barrel stacks up against a .454 + 1/10 of that…..

And if anybody wants .454 Casull rifle ballistics, there’s this neat new round called the .45/70 they really ought to look into…..

[Bushman]

Then too bullet diameter comes into play for knock down power. The difference between a .44 Magnum and a .45 LC or .454 Casull isn't .010" like the name would suggest, it is .023" because a .44 Magnum is .429" and a .45 LC is .452".

[GF.]

So you really can't lose with the Colt-Casull Combo unless you're already invested in a foty-fo... :D

Probably a moot point for me, though... I just don't foresee doing a lot of shooting with two kids with hearing issues.. :p

Nowadays I'm spending a lot more time looking at #45 longbows and recurves than anything made of steel.... Kinda nice, though, to have the rifles as another option if the bowhunting doesn't pan out this year :cool: