Revolver Hunting: 460, 44, or 357?

[Tradmark]

Degrees of dead are tongue in cheek. I see doa, might make it thru trauma surg to live to we got plenty of time.

 

[buck460XVR]

No, folks don't need a .460 to kill a deer. Actually they don't need Craig's .41 mag to kill deer. That too could be considered overkill. Wonder why he made that the cut-off point? Just like folks don't need a 30-06(bit more powerful than a .460 handgun) to kill deer, but it is probably the most popular deer hunting cartridge in the lower 48. Why then do folks feel the need to use them? Could be it comes down to being humane. Comes down to puttin' deer down as quickly as possible. Ain't really about shortening the blood trail.....more like shortening the misery/pain trail. For some reason, I wonder just how much actual real deer hunting some folks have done here. A 10-50 yard tracking job? IMO, that's a Bang-flop. I'm not talking about shooting a deer off a feeder at a high fence ranch, but actually sitting in a woods, where deer have not been trained to come to a feeder and to ignore human scent. Claiming one "needs" a .460 because just they are a poor shot, or a poor blood trailer is ridiculous. I shot my first buck with a bow at the age of 14 back in 1968. 55# Shakesphere Super Necedah with wooden arrows and Bear razorheads. Hit him a tad far back and with the excitement of a 14 year old, I jumped on the bloodtrail too quickly. 3 miles and 7 hours later I finally was able to gut him out. Even at 14, it wasn't my first rodeo when it came to blood trailing deer. Coming from a poor hunting family where often the hunting party consisted of a dozen folks, many with borrowed rifles and little shooting experience, you learn how to blood trail or you go hungry. If I want a gun that gives me a "Bang-Flop" it ain't cause I can't bloodtrail a deer. It's cause I don't want to. Sometimes it's cause 40 yards means chest deep water in the swamp, where finding any blood among the wild ice and cattails is impossible. Or like some have said, it could be the fenceline of the one neighbor who refuses to let anyone on his property. Along with that, for some reason deer in Wisconsin don't act like those tame deer behind high fences. After the first hour of gun season big bucks don;t stop in the open. They stop in the thick crap or they keep moving. Try to stop a walking mature buck after he has been pressured by grunting or whistling and he goes from a walk to a dead run in one step. So shots, even those carefully chosen, aren't always ideal. Unlike high fences, if you don't take those shots, you come home empty. Sneak hunting in the big swamps where I live, means odds are you are only going to be presented a running shot, regardless of how well you are at still hunting. Bucks hole up on little islands or even just a bed of tall grass and getting to them thru the water means they've seen or heard you from a mile a way. Your only hope is they sat tight hoping you would walk by them. If you're lucky the water may be frozen and you can sneak up on 'em, but odds are their escape route(even when mortally wounded) is open water. As for what is needed for a 150 pound deer, the average weight of a 2 1/2 year old buck in Wisconsin is 150#. That ain't my goal during gun season. The mature bucks I'm after are 50-100% heavier. And yes, I would prefer a Bang-Flop for dem big boys. Must be a Gypsy fortune teller to be capable of telling me what I or anyone else should use without walking in their hunting boots.

So I use my .460 for more distance and more knockdown. Like when I used my ought-six for deer, I liked the extra margin of error it gave me. Sorry, but anyone who has actually hunted' knows that no one makes the perfect shot everytime. Easy to misjudge distance and wind in the field. A 10 MPH wind will move my 300 gr Deep-Curl three inches @ 100 yards, when the wind picks up to 30 MPH, it's 9 inches. Get past 100 yards and every 10 yards is another inch of drop. My personal max distance to shoot a deer with the .460 and open sights is about 125 yards. Little more oomph when the bullet hits the outside of the pie plate target area instead of dead center is nice......and sometimes needed. Oh now I know, that some folks never miss, never make a poor shot and the only time they've ever not recovered their animal is because of bullet failure. Yeah....okay.

I've shot plenty of deer with my .357s and a few with my .44s. They did a good enough job, but are not even close to the same class as the .460 as far as flat shooting and power.The accuracy of my .460 is comparable to my carbines, yet it is still as much of a revolver as my 629s and my 686s. Suggesting the only reason I or anyone else here "needs" a .460 is because we're a poor shot or we can't bloodtrail, is as foolish as dressing up in safari gear and shooting a domestic cow. BTW....one only needs a .22 for that too. Anything else is just overkill. Watched my dad and Grandpa do it all the time, did it myself a few times too. Just didn't post any pictures.

 

[Bristol Mt.Man]

I highly recommend purchasing a book, "Trailing whitetails" by John Trout Jr. If you intend to hunt deer with any kind of implement be it a rifle, handgun or bow, understand that once you pull the trigger, the hunt is rarely over, but often, just the beginning.

 

[Tradmark]

It wasnt that long ago there was a testy thread on another site about how wary bears are, what type
Of handgun is quieter to cock and bring to the ready, etc. a brawl erupted, turns out the main contestant in the fight has never hunted a bear. I hope, but i am pretty sure thats what we are dealing with here.

 

[CraigC]

That was a fun one! The question was whether it was quieter to cock a single action revolver or flick the safety off on a 1911. It is possible to do the latter with ZERO sound whatsoever. There is nothing you can do to muffle the audible clicks when a revolver is cocked. The game being hunted was of no consequence. Anyone with both guns can easily test this for themselves, no bears necessary. But thanks for playing.

I also COMPLETELY agreed that the .460 kills `em quicker so I'm not sure where the rub is there either. I'm just not so averse to a 0-50yd tracking job that I need to hunt with a wheeled cannon to keep deer from moving after I shoot them. Normal revolvers work just fine thanks.

 

[Tradmark]

Perfect. Point proven

 

[CraigC]

I don't think I need a bear to tell me which is quieter. Think I can figure that out on my own but I realize some folks might need some help.

 

[WisBorn]

I highly recommend purchasing a book, "Trailing whitetails" by John Trout Jr. If you intend to hunt deer with any kind of implement be it a rifle, handgun or bow, understand that once you pull the trigger, the hunt is rarely over, but often, just the beginning.

Thanks for the recommendation! After shooting truck loads of deer. I know that the work begins once the trigger is pulled.

 

[Tradmark]

I don't think I need a bear to tell me which is quieter. Think I can figure that out on my own but I realize some folks might need some help.

Reminds of the guy yelling what he thinks mayweather’s opponent should do and hasnt even laced up a pair of gloves. Very telling

 

[CraigC]

Reminds of the guy yelling what he thinks mayweather’s opponent should do and hasnt even laced up a pair of gloves. Very telling

Draw the hammer back on a revolver and there are at least two, if not three to four clicks.

Of course, there are ways around that. You can sit with the hammer cocked and your thumb between the hammer and frame. You can press the trigger as you cock the hammer and silence 'some' of the clicks but not all. If a single action with a half cock notch you can cock the hammer all the way back and lower it into the half cock notch, then hold the trigger as you draw it back preparing to fire. Which is the quietest. But none of that was part of the discussion. The discussion was about cocking a revolver from the hammer down position, which is impossible to do silently. The safety on a 1911 is not only easy to manipulate without any audible sound at all but also much safer. Nice try though. It's always fun to educate those who aren't quite as experienced in the fast & efficient handling of a revolver.

You need the bear to count the clicks for you or what???

 

[Tradmark]

I dont understand explain it again?

 

[Huntolive]

Nice pistols Carpman62
You're practically rifle hunting at point I doubt my 460 with any more than that excessively long-barreled Super Redhawk 44 and with the heft of the 460 and standard Hogue grip I don't have any more recoil than 44 Magnum
And I enjoy muzzle blast
It's still inspiring though even w those Scopes and long barrelsand that you're killing coyotes at 200 yards and by the way thanks for killing them

 

[Huntolive]

Wow I guess I'm glad this thread has kind of gone off the deep end
At least it shows people have plenty of time during COVID Times.
I guess that's why the prices of all the handguns are skyrocketing
One thing's for sure I will never sell my 460xvr but I will probably sell one or two of my 44 Magnums and one or two of my 357s at some point.
That said I'll always keep at least two 44 Magnums and to 357 and probably only have one 460

For me the 460 makes sense because I already had 454 Casull and 454 Casull quite frankly it's a lot snap here and less controllable out of my other revolvers then 460 is out of my Smith & Wesson xvr.
It's a damn good shooting gun.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to let my 357 44s all collect dust.

Hell I'm even planning on hunting who are the 10 mm semi-auto this fall.

I definitely think people that think there's a conspiracy or collusion here are very susceptible to falling victim to conspiracy theories

 

[Huntolive]

Buck 460xvr you said it all!
I'm glad I took the time to read the essay you wrote

That's exactly why I'm with the 460 but also keep my adorable 44s and 357s around for fun and occasionally hunting.

 

[WisBorn]

@Huntolive with your great selection of hunting handguns I would pick three that are ready to go. Look at where you will hunt the night before and select the gun you will be using.

@MaxP said it best, if your comfortable with longer shots the 460 is the gun to have in a location that would present that.
A stand or area where a 75 yard shot would be a maximum the 44 magnum.
If you are hunting in an area where archery equipment would work well I would grab that new XDM 10mm.

Have fun preparing for the season and be safe!

 

[Carpman62]

As far as my hunting pistols having "long barrels" they are factory barrels with the addition of a muzzle brake!

Pistol scopes!?!? I had one eye blown out of socket and destroyed during war while serving overseas, and "good eye" has cataracts and will not allow me to focus in on neither the front sight or rear sight, let alone both sights, so that is why I have scopes on my pistols.

I am very grateful to the gunsmith who built these and other guns for my wife and I to enjoy, because if it were not for him and his beautiful gun work and kindness, I would have given up a long time ago! So, you guys just keep arguing, and I'll keep hunting and killing stuff with my puny little 44 magnums, and enjoying them for as long as I can.

And the muzzle brake, they do NOT increase the noise level of the gun, but what they do is keep my eye from feeling like it is going to explode everytime I pull the trigger! And so far, both guns have well over a thousand rounds through them, and I for one get a lot of enjoyment out of them.

 

[CraigC]

Suggesting the only reason I or anyone else here "needs" a .460 is because we're a poor shot or we can't bloodtrail, is as foolish as dressing up in safari gear and shooting a domestic cow. BTW....one only needs a .22 for that too. Anything else is just overkill. Watched my dad and Grandpa do it all the time, did it myself a few times too. Just didn't post any pictures.

Personal, non-THR comments (against the rules) aside, I don't need to guess or speculate why folks are using the .460 on deer. Their words are right here for all to read. Since they have said that it is so deer expire more quickly, for whatever reasons or because it has a greater effective range, that is what I have responded to. There really is no argument here at all, because I have ALWAYS contended that speedier jacketed bullets put deer down more quickly. No need to get testy or personal just because you use the .460 in the capacity described. The words are on the screen. I guess folks want to choose the .460 for those reasons but they don't want to talk about it, I don't know. One more time, you can choose to use the .460 for whatever reasons you choose, or none at all. My point here is that cartridges like the .460 and the 5lb guns that chamber it are not necessary to kill deer. I think we all agreed they are not.

If you'll read the post I quoted, you will see that it was implied that choosing a "lesser cartridge" was somehow related to poor shooting. Which makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Where I must set the record straight, is that there must be a reason for all these references to high fence ranches. I know that at least three of the .460 fanciers in this thread have hunted those places but I see that they are deafeningly silent here. For me, I have hunted high fence ranches three times in my life. THREE. One of those places I will never go back to, because it is like shooting fish in a barrel. I've been hunting wild critters with handguns since childhood and on my own property for 13yrs. So the number of free range, wild critters I've taken with handguns outnumbers those taken on high fence ranches by a HUGE margin. Let us dispense with all that rhetoric about shooting deer off feeders, behind high fences. That said, hunting water buffalo where I have hunted water buffalo is NOTHING like shooting cattle in a pasture. I've raised cattle off and on since childhood so I do have some frame of reference. It's also nothing like hunting Cape buffalo in Africa. It is somewhere in the middle. Which is fine because when your intent is to test bullets on game larger than deer, it's a good idea to do so somewhere in between those two extremes before spend $10-20,000 on a trip to Africa. It's usually a good idea to find out what your bullets and loads are going to do on a appropriately sized animal before putting your life and that of your outfitter in danger. No one involved has any delusions about what we're doing, far as I can tell. Apparently the only delusions exist with those who have never done it and would never do it. I will say that water buffalo do not have the same mentality as beef cattle. They don't like being hunted, they are often not easy to find and they will charge. So I take such inflammatory (and ignorant) comments as those above with a grain of salt but if you want to go after them with a .22LR, be sure to get good video.

As for "dressing up in safari gear", I needed a good laugh. 99% of my hunting clothes are suited to cool, if not cold weather. So I am fairly certain that the poly/cotton 5.11 Stryke pants I wore in Texas (and everywhere in the summer) are far more appropriate to 100° temperatures than wool pants. The thin cotton short sleeve shirt much cooler than my wool long sleeve shirts and coats. I learned a long time ago, working outdoors in hot & humid Florida, that a snug fitting cotton undershirt coupled with a lightweight collared shirt was far better for dealing with the heat/sweat than a T-shirt alone but you might think differently. The lightweight, ventilated Tilley fishing hat is also much better suited than a wool cap or felt hat. The full brim also protects the face and neck from the sun better than a ball cap. As Mark's friend found out, no hat at all is a bad idea when you're not accustomed to heat. Feel free to chase them in your Goretex lined boots if you like but I prefer lightweight, mid-top hiking boots. You may look at a picture and think you have everything figured out but I think we all see that your CNN-level assessment is not congruent with reality and purely driven by personal motives. But thanks for the fashion critique, I needed a good laugh.

 

[Huntolive]

Craig C
What a joke

 

[Huntolive]

Thanks guys for your interesting replies.
This thing has gone way off the rails at this point s o blessings to everyone and happy Hunting.