Fall hunting seasons are a few short weeks away. I can hardly wait and am quickly getting prepared. My Mossberg 6.5 PRC and 7mm PRC rifles are topped with Stealth Vision scopes sighted-in shooting 1 MOA and less groups at 100 yards with Hornady Precision Hunter. My Rossi lever-action, Model 95 .30-30 Win is finely tuned as is the over 100-year old lever-action Winchester Model 1895 .30Govt06 I bought this summer.
I plan on hunting with several guns this year and will likely also be doing a hunt with a TenPoint crossbow in prep to using one on black bear in Canada next spring. However, when hunting older large-antlered, mature bucks, as well as moose in British Columbia I will be carrying my Mossberg/Stealth Vision/Hornady combination rifles. Hunting moose, I plan on using my .375 Ruger, Mossberg rifle shooting Hornady Outfitter ammo. I will be using some of the other rifles and crossbow primarily while hunting does and management bucks, as well as wild hogs. Thankfully I get to hunt several properties where we are “under” Texas’ Managed Land Deer permits, which allows me to harvest several deer on those places.
If you’ve noticed, I have not yet mentioned handguns…. You do know I love hunting with handguns! I do have some strictly handgun hunts planned. The two handguns I will be using are two Taurus Raging Hunters; one a .44 Mag and the other a .454 Casull. Both are topped with long-eye relief scopes which were manufactured years ago.
My long-eye relief scopes were manufactured by Simmons, and, Thompson/Center back in the past century. They are still the best, even today, due to their ruggedness in terms of retaining accuracy, but also because of their excellent longer eye-relief capabilities, meaning if you hold them up close to your eye you see only a pea-sized image. Moving the scope away from your eye, the image fills the scope. But move the scope too far forward and you lose the image.
When first I got my .44 Mag and .454 Casull Taurus Raging Hunter handguns, complete with their integral Picatinney scope/red dot sight mounting rail and their integral muzzlebreak, I mounted 2.5 MOA red dot sights on the guns. I loaded them with Hornady 240-grain XTP Custom ammo. From a bench at 100-yards, I learned with that combination was quite accurate. I could shoot 2-inch and less, 5 and 6-shots groups. That always amazed me because the 2.5 MOA red dot at 100-yards covered 2.5-inches of the target. Somehow I was able to shoot groups tighter than what I could see on the target.
Years earlier hunting with T/C’s break open Contender and Encore handguns, topped with long-eye relief scopes and shooting appropriate Hornady ammo I often shot at milk jugs and steel out to 500-yards. With several of my Encores I could shoot 1-inch groups at 100 yards…at 500-yards I was shooting essentially 5-inch groups.
Shooting targets at 500-yards with my single-shot handguns prompted me to see if I could do the same with my .44 Mag and .454 Casull Taurus Raging Hunter revolvers, shooting 240-grain XTP Custom Ammo. Initially I had 2.5 MOA red dot sights on these guns. Amazingly, I did hit the 500-yard 20-inch circular steel gong several times with that combination. Then I replaced the red dot sights with T/C and Simmons long-eye relief 2.5-7X scopes from the past century. After doing so, I regularly hit the 500-yard steel gong with both guns.
Would I shoot at an animal at that distance with my revolvers? No way! At the range distances the bullets no longer produce sufficient down-range energy to kill quickly and humanely. But, hitting steel at that distance with a revolver is quite a bit of fun!
My love affair with the .44 Mag goes back quite a few years. I have long used .44 Mags to take numerous whitetail, mule deer, pronghorn, numerous exotic species, antelope and wart hog in Africa, even several elk. I used my .454 Casull on deer, several elk and Alaskan brown bear.
This coming hunting season I will probably spend a bit more time again shooting my .44 Mag. At least that’s the thought now. That could change...
Over the years I learned a lot about hunting handguns. One of the things that always tickled me when I showed up in a hunting camp and we headed to the rifle range to make certain our guns were properly sighted in, was the questioning looks I got when hunting with a handgun. Fellow hunters and especially guides and outfitters had concerned looks on their faces. Most considered handguns inaccurate and ineffective firearms when it came to hunting.
At the bench, from a solid rest, my .44 Mag revolvers were always as accurate as, and in numerous cases more accurate than rifles that were being used by other hunters shooting at the 100-yard target. Using Hornady ammo I could consistently shoot less than 2-inch groups and often 1-inch groups or less dead-on at 100-yards.
I often invited guides and fellow hunters to shoot my handguns. With a little bit of coaching I soon had and have them shooting 2-inch groups at 100-yards. I too remind all, my handgun was just like their rifle, “The bullet goes where the barrel is pointed when the trigger is pulled!”
While my Taurus Raging Hunter revolvers are double-action, as someone who has long shot and hunted with single-action revolvers, I still shoot them single-action, meaning I cock the hammer each time before pulling the trigger. Were I being charged by an animal, no doubt I would shoot double-action, but that very seldom happens. Although, I have been charged by enraged wild boar hogs a few times.
Shooting revolvers at animals, I always take a rest. That rest might be a tree, a limb, a rock, a fence post, the crown of my western felt hat, crossed shooting sticks, tripod shooting sticks home made or commercial, anything that helps me shoot accurately from a solid position. Unless the range is extremely close, 10-yards or less, I am going to find something to rest my firearm on.
When shooting a revolver…never, I repeat NEVER, place your hand on the cylinder or in front of it. ALWAYS keep your hands back where they are only on the handgun’s grips. There is considerable hot gas that is released at the front of the cylinder where it meets the barrel, when a round is fired. Putting your hand on the cylinder or in front of it, will cause severe burns and lacerations, and possibly loosing a finger or two…
If you are not already into handgun hunting, there is still time to get started. Once you procure your own Taurus Raging Hunter .44 Mag or .454 Casull and start shooting it with Hornady ammo, no doubt you too will quickly develop a love affair with handgun hunting!
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