James B,

I also had a hankering for a 480 ruger, so I went out and bought one. It's a super redhawk 7.5 inch barrel. I am pretty recoil shy, so I thought it was going to destroy me...in fact I made my little (bigger) brother shoot it first. When I shot it, I was surprised. It didn't beat me up too bad, and I am hoping to use it for whitetails this season. One thing I noticed though is that on a hot day, the spent cases would not come out of the cylinder without some serious work on my part. I was using hornady factory loads. Does anyone know if there are pressure problems with this gun/cartridge? It took a lot of effort to get the spent casings out of the cylinder.

The 480 kicks hard, but it isn't too bad...I handled it well, and I am a wimp. I love the gun and the round is pretty sweet.

PigDog

I have a freedom arms .454 with a 10" bbl. ggreat handgun, but I would much rather hunt with my BFR 45/70 10"

I hope so. Lot of my friends have 3200's on their encore pistols with 308 and 7mm-08 loads. I plan on building a 300gr XTP load and try to find a good >300gr cast load. And shoot those on occassions, but mostly would like to find a good 250gr light cast load for practice. I found some data for some Cast Performance with Titegroup, I imagine soon, somebody might publish some unique loads as I got like 5lbs of it. If not I can practice alot with 45 colt loads.

Kinda worried to be shooting alot of 45colt loads, as I have seen my gunsmith twice reaming out cylinders of 454 casulls from people who only shot 45 colts and not able to get out the residue and then couldn't put 454 loads in.

I have a Freedom Arms 454 in field version with a 2X gold ring Leupold. I've owned it for a long time (15 yrs?) and shot hundred of rounds through it. I use 260 gr slugs and recoil is really sharp. Nothing goes very far after being hit by those slugs. It and my FA 44 will be the guns that will be with me to the end.

I used to have a Ruger 454 and sold it , it was the hardest kicking pistol I have ever fired. Fairly light and no comp. I picked up a smith .460 and like it alot better. I can still shoot .454 if I want. and even a Cor bon 460 doesn't kick as bad as the Ruger. Due to the weight and the good Comp on the Smith X frames they are very comfortable to shoot.
The .500 kicks hard from what I have heard but I haven't had a chance to try one out yet. Jim