The 454 Casull reigns supreme in packable sized revolvers for use against dangerous animals

Transcript

Intro: Thoughts on the .454 Casull

Hi folks, this is Tim Sundles. We're in our Idaho office and I want to talk about the .454 Casull for a second.

I used to have many, many more .454s than I have now. I purposely thinned down the herd because if I'm going to use a revolver or any handgun to dig my butt out of trouble with a dangerous animal, I probably consider the .454 my entry level.

They work really good, but they just aren't my first choice. My first choice is a .500 Linebaugh or a .500 JR. They're in the same size guns, they just hit a lot harder.

The History and Role of the .454 Casull

But we do need to talk about the .454 because it's a significant cartridge. When these things came out in 1983, Freedom Arms brought them out in conjunction with Dick Casull—who, by the way, was another one of those people who had no reason to teach me good things, and he did just because he was a good man.

I had many long talks with Dick Casull before I was ever Buffalo Bore Ammunition.

So in 1983, Freedom Arms brought out the Model 83. Both the ones I currently have—this is a very old one here, this one was made in 1986—one's a field grade, I believe, and the other one’s a premier grade. They’re very, very good revolvers.

Performance and Power

If I want to load ammo at full power—hand loads, not factory ammo—I can shoot 300 grain jacketed bullets or hard cast bullets out of these 6-inch barrels at over 1,700 feet a second.

I don't do that. I don't see a need to do that.

Where the .454 has the advantage over the bigger bores like the .475 Linebaugh or the .500 JR or .500 Linebaugh is that it shoots flatter.

So if I was actually going to be a handgun hunter, and handgun hunt with a revolver, I would probably buy a 7.5-inch Freedom Arms, or maybe a BFR—BFR makes a really good revolver. I don't have one chambered in .454, but I'd get a 7.5-inch barrel gun. They’re great for handgun hunting. They’re very flat shooting.

Why I Keep a Few .454s

Let's talk about why I have the .454s I have. At one time I had nine of these Model 83s. I kept two, sold the others. I had them in varying barrel lengths.

I just don’t have that much interest in the .454 like I do the .500s and the .475s.

But folks, they're very effective. As a giant bear stopper, they work. They just don't work quite as good as a .500 Linebaugh, assuming the ammo is proper—but they work.

There’s absolutely no flies in the ointment with the .454 as a big bear stopper if your ammo is right.

Modifying the Ruger Redhawk

Now, this is a standard Redhawk. Everybody knows they don't make the standard Redhawk in .454 Casull, right? You have to get a Super Redhawk to get a .454.

Well, I won't own a Super Redhawk, 'cause they're just a big old boat anchor. I think they're ugly, I think they're clumsy and unwieldy. But I'm a fan of the standard Redhawk. They're very strong.

So I bought this standard Redhawk with a 4-inch barrel. I sent it off to Jack Huntington and said, "Hey Jack, lengthen the chambers on these so I can shoot .454 Casull ammo out of it."

Jack said, "Sure." Two weeks later, I got the gun back. I've been shooting .454s out of it ever since.

People are going to say, “That's not safe.” Whatever. You know, I get to hear how unsafe things are—on paper. I get to hear all kinds of things from people who haven’t done it, and I get really tired of it.

I get told I use the wrong shooting stance when I shoot. I won’t get into it—I’ve been told some really stupid things on YouTube.

The Rossi Carbine Setup for Kim

Rossi makes an 1892-lengthened model chambered for .454 Casull. This one is for my wife Kim. She hasn't started shooting it yet—I just got it set up, got the length of pull right for her. Little 16-inch barrel, and I put an aperture sight—a big aperture sight.

It’s a Skinner sight, so that when she hikes in the woods, she has something that, if she has to get into a nasty bear, this is far more than capable when fired from a carbine.

I'll show you why.

Revolver vs. Carbine Performance

If we take, for example, this Freedom Arms Model 83 with a 6-inch barrel and we shoot—you can see the four loads I typically shoot myself.

The one on the far end is a 360 grain—it’ll be on your right in this video. It’s a 360 grain flat nose hard cast. It says 1,425 feet a second. That’s what it does out of this Freedom Arms revolver.

But remember—revolvers not only have a shorter barrel, they’ve got a barrel-cylinder gap right here. When you shoot the revolver and the gas pushes the bullet down the barrel, a ton of gas escapes out of that barrel-cylinder gap.

You have to have a barrel-cylinder gap or you couldn’t rotate the cylinder. It's pretty minimal on Freedom Arms guns—usually around two-thousandths of an inch.

Whereas this Ruger—if I’m looking at it here—it’s about five-thousandths of an inch. A bigger barrel-cylinder gap will lose more gas and hence lose more velocity.

But there’s no barrel-cylinder gap here on this little carbine. Never mind it's got a 16-inch barrel.

That same 360 grain bullet that does 1,425 feet a second out of the revolver does a little more than 300 feet a second faster out of this carbine.

Now we’re talking 1,750 feet a second out of a little five-pound carbine.

Functionality, Capacity & Recoil

It barely weighs more than the revolvers. It has no safety except for a half-cock. Kim can carry it in half-cock. I believe it holds—I want to say eight rounds, seven rounds.

And if she has to swat a big bear or a big anything with this—or for that matter, a small anything—it’s quite the setup.

And I won’t be reporting it.
Yeah. She won’t be self-incriminating. Again, you’ve got a Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate. And I don’t care what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. They’re lying, they’re cheating bastards, constitutionally violating almost everything they can in the Constitution.

They say you have to report it if you kill a grizzly. No you don’t. You have a right not to self-incriminate.

Legal Advice from Kim (Ret. DA)

You can take the Fifth on the stand in a courtroom. You can take the Fifth right in front of an officer. You don’t have to tell them squat. Tell them to get lost and that you want an attorney.

Because as soon as you tell them, they are not going to say, “Thank you, goodbye, thank you Mr. Citizen, you’ve been very helpful.”

They’re going to have five binders of evidence against you and they’re going to cause you so much trouble—it is not worth it.

Kim is a retired district attorney, and she told me that the Fish and Game cases that would get put on her desk had more DNA evidence and forensics than typical murder or rape cases.

Smith & Wesson X-Frame .460 (Bonus Mention)

This is a Smith & Wesson X-frame chambered in .460 S&W, which means you can also fire .454 Casull or .45 Colt, and if you wanted, I suppose .45 Schofield.

I have it as a test gun for developing .460 S&W ammo. That’s the only thing I have it for. I have no use for a handgun like this personally.

Some people like to scope these and shoot long range. I support whatever you like to do with guns. I’m not going to knock it—handguns, archery, fishing—anything outdoors, I support.

Ammo Selection & Use Case

If you look at the ammo lineup, you’ll see a variety. Some are made for lighter game—like the hollow points and the 300 grain jacketed.

You could hunt up to moose with them. But this little Rossi I gifted Kim shoots the 360 grain hard cast load better than any of the others.

It actually shoots them all quite well—certainly well enough to defend yourself, and certainly well enough to kill deer or elk out to 100 yards.

That 360 grain hard cast at 1,750 fps out of the carbine is a bear/moose stomping machine.

Training Plan for Kim

Kim will start training with this real soon. I’ve just got to find the spare time. We’ve only been back from Africa four or five days and I’m swamped.

But soon she’ll start training. I have a .357 Magnum version of the same rifle to start her with. Once she’s warmed up with that, we’ll step up to the full power .454s.

Kim’s not recoil sensitive—because no one ever told her she should be.

Closing Thoughts

These are my current .454s. Highly useful cartridge. Good hunting cartridge because they shoot so flat for a .45 caliber.

Nothing at all wrong with this cartridge for bailing your butt out of trouble against big bears or moose—or anything in North America.

With the right ammo, even Cape buffalo. I believe Shane John killed a Cape buffalo with one of our 360 grain hard cast loads.

One of the most useful woods cartridges ever designed, by Dick Casull, who was a good man.

If you’ve got a .454, pick your ammo right—and you can do anything in North America that needs doing.

Subscribe and Sign Off

Folks, I wish you the best outdoors. Oh yeah—Kim’s going, “Tell them to subscribe.” So please subscribe to our channel.

Thanks—I appreciate it. I’m not much of a promoter that way.

And by the way, I’m starting to take notes for some of the really numbnuts comments we get. We’re going to do a program on the dumbest things I’ve been told in the YouTube comments—some of them rude, some of them dumb, some of them rude and dumb.

No wonder our nation is having problems.

We want everybody shooting to have a good time, to do it safely, to get trained, and to go in the field or carry in public with knowledge.

And I’ll leave it at that. God bless, and we’ll see you on the next video. To each his own.