Gun Review: Taurus Raging Hunter .460 S&W Magnum Two Tone

Anything chambered in .460 S&W Magnum is an outlier, but the 10″ Taurus Raging Hunter in .460 S&W Magnum is an extreme outlier. With its two-tone finish, 10″ barrel, and a massive muzzle brake, this largest of Taurus’s already giant “Raging” revolver line is like nothing else, both in appearance and capability.

Although they can certainly generate immense forces, and cartridges like the .454 Casul and the .460 S&W Magnum generate high pressures as well, it’s rarely the explosive forces that destroy revolvers. It’s the very slight gaps and imperfections in mating surfaces that move bit by bit under fire.

The more they are allowed to move, the more force those bits of moving metal impart on other pieces of metal, widening the gaps and moving more and more each time until the gun locks up, or won’t lockup, or goes out of time. In that case, the round either fails to fire or, in the worst case, is no longer in-line with the bore upon ignition, striking the breech end of the barrel. This ends poorly.

The Taurus Raging hunter in .460 S&W Magnum is unlikely to suffer that fate, at least not anytime soon. Upon full lock-up, cylinder play was unmeasurable. There’s also the dual cylinder retaining system, keeping the cylinder locked firmly in place under even the heaviest recoil. Your wrist will give out long before the cylinder does.

The factory iron sights are perfectly adequate. A stout adjustable rear is paired with a bright red fiber optic front that allows for precise aiming, even in failing light. Even so, the whole point of the .460 S&W Magnum is to deliver authority at a distance and for that, and optic is required.

The Raging Hunter accommodates a wide range of optics via a Picatinny rail cut into the top of the barrel shroud. It’s easy to mount a magnified optic, but a simple red dot is likely a better idea. At 100 yards, there’s nothing on God’s green earth you can’t ethically take with a red dot and this revolver, save maybe the largest of Africa’s dangerous game. As it is, you could run the 10-inch Ranging Hunter with a higher magnification long eye relief handgun scope for precision shooting and swap that out with a red dot for most of your work.

An additional Picatinny rail, this one removable, is located under the barrel shroud. That makes a bipod easy to attach, as well as a range of tripods with Pic rail attachments or Pic-to-Arca variants.

Each cylinder throat measured to .452″, as did the minimum bore diameter, using a minus pin gauge set and the cylinder gap measured .003″ using a feeler gauge. That tight cylinder gap would be a challenge for a duty gun or something you wanted to run a course with, but it’s great when you want to wring every bit of performance from your big bore. The late great John Linebaugh proved that tightening the cylinder gap from the standard .005-.006″ increased the velocity of heavy .45 Colt loads by as much as 100fps. It only gets more important as the pressure increases.

The double action trigger pulls measures 11 lbs. 10.4 oz. The single action pulls at 7 lbs. 4.2 oz. Both of those are too heavy. There’s a good bit of squish right a the start and some stack in the middle. After that, the trigger almost pulls itself. Still, if there was one thing to change with this revolver, it’s the sheer weight of that pull, especially on a hunting focused gun.

Even with a heavy trigger, though, the Raging Hunter provides plenty of precision with the right round. That right round tended to be big and fast. No .45 Colt round scored well, printing 5-6″ groups at 50 yards. That got significantly better when loaded with the hotter, heavier .454 Casull cartridge. Buffalo Bore’s excellent 360gr wide nosed hard cast bullet (SKU 7C/20) printed 4.2″ groups at 50 yards.

I’m still unclear as to exactly why, but all of the .460 S&W Magnum rounds, from the cheapest to the most expensive, shot tighter groups than any of the other calibers, even using the same bullet. Buffalo Bore’s .460 S&W Mag 360gr bullet at an advertised 1,900fps printed 3.2″ groups at 50 yards. All of these groups were the result of four strings of five rounds, averaged and shot off the bipod and a rear bag, untimed at 50 yards, using a 4X optic. That same 26B/20 cartridge, with a 6X optic, produced a 6″ single five-round group at 100 yards as well.

The recoil, although significant, isn’t nearly what you would think given the overall weight of the gun. At 71.2oz, it’s no lightweight, (and you’d never want anything chambered in .460 S&W Magnum to be a lightweight), but it’s lighter compared to many other revolvers so chambered. For instance, this Taurus gun is 6 oz lighter than Smith & Wesson’s excellent 460XVR (77.8oz) and this Raging hunter has 3 inches more barrel length. It’s more than 13oz lighter than Magnum Research’s BFR with a 10″ barrel (84.8oz), and that’s a single action gun.

Given the Raging Hunter’s fluted barrel, much of the recoil mitigation of the Raging Hunter 10-inch is due to its massive muzzle brake. That brake does a fantastic job of converting recoil into noise and blast. That’s absolutely necessary for fast(er) double action shots on game, especially if it’s dangerous game.

Of course, there’s a tradeoff. You’ll need good hearing protection no matter what conditions you shoot in or you’ll be very sorry. Although warned, a member of the film crew for a hunt in South Africa thought that standing 10 yards behind me would be good enough when I verified my zero at an outdoor range. He didn’t wear hearing protection and his ears didn’t stop ringing until after he left three days later.

The terminal effect produced by .460 from the Raging Hunter is spectacular. At its full potential, the 10″ barrel in .460 S&W Magnum will launch a 360gr .460 magnum bullet at 2,050fps (chrono’ed). That’s over 3,000 ft/lbs. of energy from a handgun. And there are five of those rounds on board.

Given that level of power and precision, there’s no animal on Earth, (or for that matter has ever walked the Earth) this Raging Hunter can’t handle. Even hunting the Cape Buffalo, with this Raging Hunter, there’s no reason to feel under-gunned.

Over the last two years I’ve had this gun, I’ve taken game from 30 lbs in size to a hair under 2,000 lbs. with this big boy revolver. That’s not hyperbole. The exact same 360gr Buffalo Bore round that plowed a tunnel clean through a common duiker at a bit over 100 yards dropped a massive Cape eland at 80 yards the day before.

The eland was a quartering away shot that started behind the close rib, through the top of the heart, and embedded under the skin after passing through the opposite shoulder. You can see it protruding under the skin in the photo above. That’s several feet of travel through a heavily muscled antelope from 80 yards away. On the same hunt in South Africa, it took all manner of game within 200 yards.

Back in the US, whitetail and pigs were taken with the same gun, but loaded with a .454 Casull ammunition. All of these critters were quickly dispatched as well, with not a single round recovered. That highlights the versatility of the 460S&W revolver. Especially from a 10″ barrel, the .454 Casull generates plenty of power to ethically take deer-sized game out to 100 yards, farther if you’re talking about the 100 lb. whitetail we see around Texas Hill Country.

Indeed, I got this revolver for the eland hunt and until then had no real interest in it. And yet, two years later I’m still taking it on hunts just for the fun and challenge of it. It’s a giant, weird looking gun, but the 10″ Taurus Raging Hunter in .460 Magnum is one of the very few revolvers that fully capitalizes on the potential of the .460 S&W Magnum cartridge. It’s like nothing else.

Specifications: Raging Hunter, 460 S&W Magnum Two Tone 10″

Caliber: 460 S&W Magnum
Capacity: 5 Rounds
Front Sight: Fixed
Rear Sight: Adjustable
Action Type: DA/SA
Frame Size: Extra Large
Barrel Length: 10.5 In.
Overall Length: 16.22 In.
Overall Height: 6.40 In.
Overall Width: 1.80 In.
Weight: 71.26 oz. (unloaded)
Twist Rate: 1:20 – inch RH twist
MSRP: $1,303.99