- NOTE: This was not THE FIRST Deer taken with a 454. This was MY first deer with a 454.-

It was Opening Day for Mule Deer and I was going to hunt using the then-new handgun, the 454 Casull by Freedom Arms. I had shot it quite a bit by the time Deer Season came around and had settled on the Keith Semi-wadcutter cast bullet #454424 over a fairly heavy load of H110. Velocity was a bit over 1500 fps and accuracy was amazing. The barrel of the 5-gun was mirror smooth, very accurate, and never gave me a leading problem. I cast the bullets of hard alloy and dropped them in water from the mold to add to the hardening.

I was up before dawn, had a good breakfast and then loaded my pack and headed out. I was aiming to go south of our place down into the lower canyons. I drove about 6 or 7 miles down the highway and then took a dirt track for several miles that led to huge steep canyon. This was my “jumping off” spot. Parking the truck and making sure I had everything I needed with me I headed down into the canyon. It took me more than an hour to make my way down into and across it and then climb up the other side. I was heading for where I had seen quite a few deer. There was a small valley with a stream in it, good vegetation and lots of cover. There were mountains on 3 sides of it. I had always seen deer there and I was coming in the “open” end of the valley, working towards the hills at the other end.

I made my way toward the upper part of the valley, I was seeing deer sign but no deer. About 9AM I stopped and had a sandwich and some water and waited, looking around and letting things settle down in case I had stirred something up. After a bit I got tired of sitting and eased my way on toward the mountain at the end of the valley. When I got within a couple hundred yards of where the ground started to rise rapidly I saw some deer above me, maybe 300 or so yards. I started moving slow, trying to use cover so I could close with them. It took me awhile to make the steep climb and as I passed through the area where I had seen the deer I slowed down even more. The brush was thicker and I tried to move through it without making a lot of noise.

After working my way through the brush and trees I came to a more open area and as I did I saw deer in front of me, out in the open. I stopped and caught my breath and counted 3 bucks and 5 doe. There was a nice forkhorn nearest to me, maybe 60 yards, so I slipped off my pack, pulled the 454 from the shoulder holster and put the sights on it. It stepped forward, turning more toward me and was almost perfectly broadside. I put the sights just behind his front leg, up in the bottom quarter of the height of his body and squeezed the trigger. At the shot the deer stood there, then put his head down like he was going to take a bite of the grass in front of him. I thought, “Did I miss? How could I?” and I played the shot back in my head. The squeeze was good, the letoff was solid, the sights did not wobble. What was going on? About that time he started walking toward a mesquite tree and I was going to shoot again when I noticed he was staggering. He got to the tree and laid down, sat there for a minute and then his head fell over. A couple does eased up to him, sniffed him and then took off. I waited a bit but he never raised his head so I went up and found him stone dead.

Opening him up while cleaning him I tracked the bullet. It had entered the left chest, gone through the heart and out the other side. Tissue damage was comparable to high velocity rifle wounds from my wife's .243 shooting the 95 gr. Nosler Partition bullet at around 3000 fps.

The whole episode after the shot was probably not more than 30 or 45 seconds but seemed a lot longer at the time. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing!

Getting him down off that hill and across the hills and canyons to my truck was another story, but in those days I was young and thought I could handle most anything. And in the end the venison that Twyla made from that deer was wonderful and worth all the work.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.