Tales of the Freedom Arms 454

Back in 1986 I was at my home in the southern mountains of Arizona. One afternoon a young man drove into my place and after introducing himself he said, "I heard that you have a Freedom Arms .454." I said that I did and he then asked if he could see it. I retrieved it and he looked it over and then wondered if I would let him shoot it. I said, "Sure" and got some ammo and we walked out back of the house.

I began to explain to him that you needed some conscious muscle tension in your forearm when he interrupted with "Oh I shoot a .44 Magnum." so I shut up and let him learn. He lined up a shot and when he fired the gun recoiled pretty straight back, the barrel smacking him just at the hairline. He looked startled for a minute and then said, "Oh! That kicks harder than I figured."

I give him credit. He fired the remaining 4 without hitting himself again.

One year we held the Shootists Holiday in Cody, Wyoming. John Linebaugh hosted it and arranged for us all to be housed in local motel on the outskirts of town. The ranges were set up across the road from the motel. John had put steel targets out to .. I think it was 800 yards. I may be wrong on that but they were a heck of a long ways out there.

I had loaded some 454 ammo with a 430 grain cast bullet over a light charge of Unique. They ran about 730 fps if I remember correctly. They were pretty slow. And they hit quite high at 100 yards. That big heavy bullet flipped the barrel up a ways while it was still coming down the bore.

Bud McDonald laid back in his lawn chair and using my 454 and the 430 grain loads, shot at the farthest target. I was watching through a pair of binoculars to see if I could spot the bullet strike. Bud fired. He put the gun down. He looked at me. I looked at him. I picked up the glasses to look again and we both heard "CLONK!" as the bullet hit the steel target. He shot up quite a few and pounded that target with most of them. The time of flight to the target seemed very long.

There is a video of me, John Taffin and other notorious individuals at the first Shootists Holiday in 1986. On that video Dick Casull gave us a demonstration of what he said was about the most you could do with a .454. Using his personal long barreled Freedom Arms .. I think it was 12" but may have been 10" ... he fired a 260 grain cast bullet through a piece of 3/8" steel plate. The bullet punched a clean hole.

Dick oiled the cartridge bodies before he loaded them in the chamber. He said if he didn't, the cases welded themselves to the chamber walls. The pressure of those loads had to be tremendous. Dick said that the FA 454 had a 40% margin of safety at the pressure he was running.

During that first Shootists Holiday Freedom Arms made a bunch of their guns and ammo available to us. I don't remember anymore just how much ammo there was, but I do clearly remember watching John Taffin on the ground, laying back on one elbow, 454 rested close to his upraised right knee, firing most of the day. Steadily. We shot up most all of their ammo. We were younger and more bullet-proof in those days.