Taurus Raging Bull

[Nightcrawler]

Who here has a Taurus Raging Bull in .44 Magnum?

I'm just curious. I'm not planning on buying a .44 Magnum anytime soon, but if I did, this one is under consideration.

The most obvious choice for my would be a 5" 629 Classic. That way I could use the same holsters and such as my 625. But...

I've shot a 6" .41 Mag a bit (my former Model 57). For something powerful like that, you want something kind of heavy. And the long (6.5") barrel would give good long-ranged performance, yet still be handy enough for woods packin'.

Besides, the Raging Bull has a little more meat on it than the 629. Better for the real hot loads (if I wanted to go there) or for long strings of normal .44 Mag stuff.

It'd be a REAL tossup between a .44 Mag and a stronger .45 Colt for a wilderness packin' gun. I already have .45 Colt, but having my poor Model 25-5 get beat up on the trail would break my heart.

So, who has one, and how does it shoot? Anybody put optics on it? How does it compare to a S&W in handling, trigger, and accuracy?

Thanks.

 

[P95Carry]

NC - cheating really but I have one in .454 and it's a good gun. Trigger pretty fair and accuracy also. Since having a SRH in .454 the Bull sees less use but still a nice gun to shoot. I doubt it is quite as tough as the Ruger but well adequate for hot loads. Pretty good feel to it.

If you want to go .44 hot then overall a used Ruger would be a bit tougher IMO - either an SRH or SBH. But doubt either you'd be disappointed in a Bull.

Having mentioned the Bull gives me an excuse to once more post my fave pic of mine belching fire!!!

 

[Nightcrawler]

Holy crap.

 

[Hawken50]

P95Carry-

did you use a really long shutter speed to get that or are you just insanely lucky? what asa film? and what f-stop?

 

[P95Carry]

Hawken - despite many years freelancing with film - and using a darkroom etc - I am now (with relief) all digital

I had my son with the camera - supported on adjacent bench. It has some manual settings so we set for half second. I waited for his shutter release ''go'' and fired. What was amazing was the apparent lack of blur - must have gotten everything right by luck. Never have (so far) managed to equal or better this pic. Gods were smiling!

I do confess I love it - almost a chance in a thousand!

 

[Hawken50]

p95-
thanks for the reply. i have a digital with manual settings and a high school photography class under my belt. i'm gonna have to give it a try with my .44mag tracker and some slow powder. one more question, did you do it at night/dusk, or did the camera auto adjust the light balance?

 

[unspellable]

blur or lack thereof

The absence of blur is because the photo is illuminated by the flash. It's short duration so works just like a photo flash. This would require a manual exposure in most cases.

 

[P95Carry]

Unspellable - there was no flash!!! It was disabled!

 

[mtnbkr]

He's talking about the flash from the fireball. Same effect, different "source".

Chris

 

[P95Carry]

I hear ya Chris - true re light source but - my thinking was, re my surprise at lack of blur, that an electronic flash when it ''freezes'' motion is running at anywhere from 1/1,000 sec to 1/10,000 sec - real short duration.

This flash from burning gasses is relatively very long duration by comparison - guessing but maybe covering as long as at least 10msec (or 1/100sec) - enough time to expect blur, which I have seen on some muzzle flash shots in past - even if just a hint of muzzle rise.

Whatever - I still reckon I was darned lucky the way it came out!