Just Curious,

Are most of the loads available (factory and hand-loads) under what the 454 Casull is safely capable of as far as pressure?

I hear and see people say that it is a 60,000 CUP cartridge, yet on the Hodgdon website the highest pressure load I see is around 53,000 CUP.

Just for fun I am curious what you guys/ gals think

oh yeah, the ruger, FA, and the bfr will all handle loads far in excess of what the factory loads produce and i believe all the current factory loads are under 60k cup. they've toned them down quite a bit. corbon and hornady in particular are down a bit from what they were 15 years ago or so.

Grizzly loads their Casull offerings to about 59,000 psi and I believe Buffalo Bore loads in that range as well, except for the 360 grain load (BB) that is loaded to less pressure in order to prevent the possibility of crimp pull. The SAAMI spec is 65,000 psi.

Ok that's what I was thinking. huh...

If the SAAMI specs are at 65,000 CUP then I wonder, why is most of the load data available then also loaded only to 53ish? a good 10,000 ish increase seems a pretty good size cushion.

Is the underlying issue case capacity?

Thanks for the replies guys. This is all interesting to me. I guess that's what qualifies us as "gun-nuts" lol

That's psi, not CUP -- be careful not to mix them!

Thanks Whitworth,
I was unclear on the difference.
Just found a good article on the two

http://www.shootingtimes.com/2011/01/04/ammunition_st_cuppsireloaddata_200905/

So the load data is still short then correct?

yeah, most recent load data is lower pressure for top loads than the older data. i've got old load data from the early 90's and it's much hotter than the new. not sure why, i've never heard of any probs with the old hornady or FA load data, or the old hogdon data but if ya look at speer or sierra it's always been lower. personally i think this is b/c you can load a FA 454 to be essentially the equal of a 460 in the smith platform and never hurt the gun. i know corbon's 454 loads went down in velocity as they added the 460 to the catalog. that said, ya really don't need the top highest pressures at all imho.

look what lynn thompson did to that buff with standard hornady ammo.

tradmark,

that's very true.

I was curious and googled this same topic and found some interesting things. My gosh they loaded it hot back in the 80's. there is a reference in this link to an 80's article by John Taffin on some 340 gr. SSK bullet loads doing like 1800fps out of a 10" FA! that's crazy fast!

http://forums.handloads.com/archive/forum_posts.asp?TID=10149

if you want to see something really funny pick up the Lyman book on pistols and revolvers, they are extremely light. I'm running 7 grains of H110 more than the max they list for the 454 but almost all their data is like that. The book has some interesting stuff in it but the data for the most part is weak.

I have to agree on this one... Their 270 Win data is 300 fps slower than Hornadys and my chrony...

One of the older Speer manuals shows their 200 gr. hollowpoint doing a bit over 2100 f.p.s.

If the loading company's loads are a bit light it is because of the bullet that they are using is not up to the higher speeds and pressure. This is and should be taken into consideration when loading the 454 at the top end

Is there really any reason to load a cartridge to its absolute max?
I have manuals from Speer Hornady Nosler and others and they all differ. I pick a manual with a load the gun likes, and stick to it (not always the hottest load) The bullet company's have the expensive pressure barrels and measuring equipment and they use it. I don't ,so my pressure gauging is only guess work . The bullet and powder company's have to err on the side of caution with there data and we should to. When you make a 1 grn. mistake with a mid range load its not a catastrophic failure, with a max load it can be. I have a 221 fireball case that will take a large rifle primer now because of a 1 grn.over charge, had to beat the bolt open.I pulled the remaining 19 charges and all were 1 grn. over. Any gun can be destroyed and none of us are above making a mistake ,so I will err on the side of caution too.
I only have two eyes and two hands and would like to keep them all. Modern Reloading by Richard Lee has some excelent reading on pressure chapter 7 thru 9 (second edition)

I say not, the only load I shoot that is at max is actually slightly over but it is my 357 Max and isn't going to dislocate your shoulder, but it shoot well. My big bore revolvers are all a grain or more under, but they shoot well, and 1200-1300 FPS with the right bullet will go clean through an animal, with or without transonic turbulences or whatever ;-)