Well ya, 454 fodder is expensive. From any source.
But, that gun will also eat 45LCs.
45LC "cowboy action shooting fodder" is *usually* available in bulk at pretty much any gun show, because it's common for that particular sport. These are lead loads, 200 - 250 grains, typically doing 700 - 750fps. They will be absolute pussycats in the recoil department in a Raging Bull. A few reload sources are actually reasonably cheap (Miwall I think?). Mind you, they're...well, dirty. Usually dead-soft lead
and cleanup is a bit..."extra".
(Bulk reloads aren't considered a good idea by some folks, but in THIS case...you know what you call it if somebody double-charges a 45LC cowboy load? Yup. A 454
. I seriously doubt an accidental double of that stuff would hurt your gun. Try that in an Italian SAA clone and you'll be picking up Ubertibits or ArmiSanMarcoscrap for days
.)
If you ever have a need to set that thing up for personal defense, there's a number of defensive hollowpoints in 45LC that will be perfectly appropriate. Proload takes a 230grain Gold Dot meant for 45ACP use, and loads it to 45ACP spec of about 850fps.
Winchester's 225grain Silvertip is also pretty good, Cor-Bon has a 200grain JHP pulling 1,100fps, there's a few more but those three are among the best.
All those "defense loads" are hotter than the cowboy stuff, but in THAT gun you'll still hardly feel 'em. Not a crazy choice for the wife's "go to house gun" if she can get her hands around it - just the looks of the sucker will scare the hell out of some sumbich late at night, recoil will be minimal, power will be "all that".
There's also a bunch of 45LC+P loads that are either a hair under or at 44Mag horsepower levels. They're priced almost like 454s but without quite the full "crash and boom" effect. For some types of hunting at moderate ranges compared to 454, these might be worth considering.
The same set of reloading dies handles 45LC and 454 in most cases. The latter is just a "magnumized" stretched version of the former.
Somebody out there may be doing moonclip conversions for that gun, that would allow you to fire all of the above plus 45ACP in that gun
. Several people around here have 454 Rugers (6-shot) so altered, and there's no reason it couldn't be done with a Taurus...IF anybody is making 5-shot moons for it, that is.
The other option is to reload. Which is REALLY what you oughta do for either 45LC or esp. 454.
What else...on a few recent threads, I've disparaged one "feature" of that gun - you have to release two switches to open the cylinder. I feel this is "silly" - the Rugers lock up at both ends of the cylinders too, but have an "interlink" to control both latches with one switch (at the rear). However, for the gun's mission (which isn't personal defense/combat), double release switches don't really hurt and might be a bit more positive (since the front latch has a more direct contact with the front lockup point).
Taurus probably realized that if these blew up under full-house 454, it would seriously hose their reputation in general
. So they seem to have taken extra care with 'em, and to date we've heard few complaints and I've not heard of a K'boom at all.
Last point...I'd recommend a lot of 45LC, only modest amounts of 454. NOT because I distrust the gun, but because I distrust human wrist cartilage. John Taffin was (still is) a gun magazine writer who specialized in "big boomers" for years, shot a lot of 44Mag and above, and he's basically got no wrists left. He types in all UPPERCASE online because use of the shift key hurts. I don't think anybody's been crass enough to ask what his home defense guns are these days but I would guess a high-cap 22 rifle
. He's not the only one this has happened to. Upshot: go easy on the superheavyduty stuff, 'kay? 'Cuz you've got enough gun there to follow JT's path if you overdo it and go all macho on the resulting pain
.
