HOT 454 casull

[captn-tin]

Friend of a friend passed away couple years back. Freedom Arms 454 shooter. He recently found a couple boxes of reloads. Freedom Arms brass, 300gr cast rnfp gc bullets over 31.5grs H110 for 1780 fps. Sound kinda hot to me. Anyone have experience with this load ? Share...Thanks

['ol shooter]

Hodgdon indicates that the load is overcharged. According to their recommended data, max should be 30gr. So yeah it's a pretty hot load.
casull load.JPG

[Sandspider500]

Hodgdon indicates that the load is overcharged. According to their recommended data, max should be 30gr. So yeah it's a pretty hot load.
[ATTACH]923590[/ATTACH]

That hodgdon data is for a jacket bullet and goes to 53k cup, 454 is a 65k cartridge. His load is lead with gas check, handloader #172 shows 33gr h110 with a 305gr gas checked bullet, handloader 301 shows 32.5gr h110 with a 300gr swift a frame, handloader 232 shows 34gr h110 with a freedom arms jfp and 31.5grs with a Lyman 315gr 454629.

[TKM]

The gun can take it.

The shooter????

454 is strident.

[Sandspider500]

Gonna be a handful. Even buffalo bore doesn't load 454 casull at full tilt lol, recoil is probably insane.

[joeymfd]

When I had a freedom arms , I loaded 35.8 grns h110 under a 240 grn jhp. The gun could handle it no problem. I could not. Lol

[captn-tin]

Thanks to all. I'm sure my soon to be 75 yr old wrists and elbows would cuss me out good if I were to touch off one of these rounds. I'm gonna pull those rounds apart and reuse components for a more fun to shoot load. I can remember when recoil didn't bother me much. In fact my password on a couple of sites is "recoil4fun". No more. HA Thanks again for verifying my thoughts on these loads.

[elk hunter]

Something like that might actually work for fending off a bear or some other critter that is intent in turning you into today's lunch special.

[bergmen]

When I had a freedom arms , I loaded 35.8 grns h110 under a 240 grn jhp. The gun could handle it no problem. I could not. Lol

That is actually the maximum load I have tried so far (only 35.0 grains instead of 35.8). This is below the recommended starting load which is listed at 36.0 grains, maximum at 39.0 grains (listed for H110, W296 for some reason shows 38.0 grains maximum).

This (Freedom Arms Model 83 Premier) is the only firearms manufacturer that I have dealt with that includes handloading information. All bullets shown in the tables (240, 260 and 300 grains) are JHP or JFP, no hard lead loads listed. I settled on Hornady 240 grain XTP Mag as the bullet of choice.

I'm 70 years old (will be 71 this month). I can handle the recoil just fine but one must follow a specific technique to do so without discomfort. Basically, rigidize the arm (do not let your wrist flip up) and transfer the recoil to your shoulder. The weak hand can assist in this.

This is one heck of a fun revolver to shoot, it rattles the shingles and shakes the ground (or it seems like it does). I would like to fire it at night sometime to see the prodigious fireball it produces.

I have only shot this in an indoor range once but I let the range officers and anyone on the line know what I was touching off. I indicated that if it was bothersome, I would quit knowing how disruptive it might be.

After a few blasts I looked behind me and all of the people on the line were watching as spectators. They didn't mind but none of them wanted to try it even though I offered.

I also have a Ruger Super Blackhawk Bisley in .454 Casull as a companion to the Model 83 (see my avatar).

It's all good.

Dan

[bergmen]

Something like that might actually work for fending off a bear or some other critter that is intent in turning you into today's lunch special.

If the bear is close enough and you happen to miss him you might be able to set him on fire with the fireball these things produce. He will definitely be deaf for life at the least.

Dan

[captn-tin]

Gettin ready to pull some (100) bullets. Noticed they were crimped using the Redding profile crimp. Done it before. Very time consuming. Little bit tougher to pull than pulling bullets with the standard roll crimp. Oh well. Might as well start now. It's not like I have to be at work, school, church or protest any time soon. HA

[bergmen]

Gettin ready to pull some (100) bullets. Noticed they were crimped using the Redding profile crimp. Done it before. Very time consuming. Little bit tougher to pull than pulling bullets with the standard roll crimp. Oh well. Might as well start now. It's not like I have to be at work, school, church or protest any time soon. HA

Do you have a collet puller or just a kinetic puller (hammer)? If you don't have a collet puller this might be a good time to invest in one. Very handy especially during load development.

Dab

[captn-tin]

bergman... kinetic is what I have and use. Do the collet pullers damage cast bullets? These bullets are extremely hard. Might just give one a try... Thanx

[bergmen]

bergmen... kinetic is what I have and use. Do the collet pullers damage cast bullets? These bullets are extremely hard. Might just give one a try... Thanx

If enough of the bullet protrudes above the case that is the bullet diameter, the collet will grip circumferentially. I doubt you will see any deformation. The collets are sized exactly for the bullet diameter (.451 or .452 in teh case of the .454).

You may have to crank down on the collet tightener since the crimp is heavy.

Dan

[Swagman00]

OP, if ever you want to light any of those off...wear padded gloves and light off something milder first. When I was loading full tilt boogie 500 S&W 440 gr cast over 37.5 (or maybe a little more) gr H110, I have not found a load to create a bigger flame yet. The only load I tried that was more punishing then that was the same slug over 36 gr AA#9.

Down the road I found there was data for that same boolit over trail boss and it made it a LOT more fun to shoot.