Taurus Raging Hunter Review: Giant Killer

We field tested the Raging Hunter in the wilds of Africa.

As I steadied the revolver, the eland bull stood.

BOOM … a hunk of lead sacrificed to the unknown. BOOM … another clean miss. I’d spent two months and no less than 300 rounds practicing for this shot, and it wasn’t going well.

I had nothing but my own nerves to blame. This 10.5-inch Raging Hunter in .460 S&W Magnum is an absolute monster of a revolver, capable of delivering massive payloads well beyond the range of the now-escaping eland. The gun had already proven itself capable of delivering potent projectiles well beyond the range of the now-escaping eland. Me … not so much.

I booked this trip with Ndloti Safari Adventures before my last safari had even ended. Tucked in the highlands that butted against the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, this Free State property featured a maze of mountain valleys rich with abundant water, producing verdant fields of native grasses.

And giants.

Raging Hunter Specs

Caliber: .460 S&W
Capacity: 5 rounds
Barrel Length: 10.5 inches
Overall Length: 16 inches
Weight: 71 ounces
MSRP: $1,300

Raging Hunter Build

The eland is one thing in a photo, but it’s an entirely different thing on the hoof. They’re massive, with bulls weighing a full ton. They’re weird, looking like they belong in a James Cameron movie with their long faces, intelligent eyes, and thick, spiral horns. And they’re incredibly powerful, with a neck like a draught horse, and the entire beast rippling with muscle. There’s nothing remotely like them in North America.

I was preparing for my eland hunt with a traditional safari rifle, right up to the moment I laid eyes on Taurus’ newest Raging Hunter. It’s massive. It’s weird. It’s incredibly powerful. It’s like nothing I’d ever seen. It’s perfect.

Like the eland itself, the Raging Hunter is built like a tank. The bead-blasted frame can double as a chock block for your truck. The molded rubber grip demands size large hands or bigger. It has a five-shot black cylinder Sisyphus would groan to turn.

All that’s important. It’s extremely rare for big-bore revolvers to blow up under standard pressures. Instead, they shake themselves to death. In the best-case scenario, the cylinder releases after firing and swings out on its own. In the worst case, the repeated high energy slamming of the cylinder back and forth just gets worse and worse, bang after bang, until the cylinder gets wobbly and is no longer aligned with the bore at ignition. That doesn’t end well. Taurus addresses this not just with simple mass, but also with a double-cylinder locking mechanism and minimal end-shake.

Raging Hunter Recoil

The great thing about any longer-barreled revolver in .460 S&W Magnum is that you know, right off the bat, it’s plenty of gun. At its top loads, there’s nothing walking God’s green earth that round won’t put down. Even better, the .460 S&W Magnum boasts a feature uncommon to the other big magnum pistol rounds, that of versatility. Using commercial rounds from just one manufacturer, the shooter can fire mild 255-grain .45 Colt bullets at 1,000 fps, 300-grain .454 Casull bullets at 1,650 fps, and 360-grain bullets from the .460 S&W Magnum at 2,060 fps.

All that power comes at a price paid in recoil. Given this revolver is a little more than a pound lighter than a S&W 10.5-inch revolver so chambered, the fact that the Taurus is anything other than just painful to shoot is impressive.

Much of the credit goes to Taurus’ proprietary muzzle brake. Other than the sheer size of the gun, that muzzle brake is the 10.5-inch Raging Hunter’s most distinguishing feature. It’s a big, triangular, multi-ported thing that’s not just screwed in but locked into place with Taurus’ dual retention system.

It does an exceptional job of turning recoil into blast and noise. Sure, the recoil is still there, but it’s not nearly as bad as some other 460s. But be aware even a single .460 S&W Magnum round fired from this Raging Hunter will almost certainly result in hearing damage without hearing protection, and you’d be well advised to double up in confined spaces.

Raging Hunter Sights

Taurus delivers a bright and tall three-dot adjustable fiber-optic sight set on the Raging Hunter, and they’re perfectly adequate, as far as irons go. But you don’t want to stick with the irons. The only real reason for the .460 S&W Magnum in the first place is to deliver authority at a distance. For that, you’ll need an optic of some sort, and Taurus makes that easy. Forward of the frame, you’ll find a full 11-slot Picatinny rail. It’s ideal for a magnified optic, which would radically increase the capability at longer ranges for most hunters.

Raging Hunter Range Test

At the range, I mounted a 4X long eye relief scope atop the Raging Hunter. When using mild .45 Colt rounds, the Raging Hunter rebelled, printing 6-inch five-round groups at 50 yards off bags. It turns out that the Raging Hunter craves power, and the harder I pushed it, the more I was rewarded. The hottest .454 Casull round I had scored 4-inch groups. Cor-Bon’s 395-grain hard-cast murder rocks hurled out of the barrel at just over 1,500 fps. That round shot a five-shot group right at 3 inches at 50 yards, followed just behind the 360-grain Buffalo Bore round at an as-advertised 2,060 fps with 3.2-inch groups.

Of course, long eye relief pistol optics aren’t usually fast to target since getting your head in just the right position is a bit slow. That wouldn’t do for the hunt I had in mind, as I’d learned fast shots on moving game were far more common in the area I’d be hunting. A simple reflex/red-dot sight is perfect for that role. For this hunt, I mounted a dirt-cheap green dot optic from Viridian atop the rail and got to shooting.

No matter what sight I used — the magnified optic, the 3 MOA reflex, or the quality factory iron sights — all the groups were about the same size. Off a bipod attached to the bottom Picatinny rail, the Raging Hunter hurled big chunks of lead real fast into 10-inch groups or less out to 100 yards, on paper.

Raging Hunter On The Hunt

Eland aren’t made of paper, and I wasn’t at the range. This much was clear.

I’d now spent five days hunting, taking several other game animals while on the lookout for a particularly large bull. We’d seen him several times, but each time at least triple the 100-yard maximum I’d set on myself. If we saw him in the valleys, he’d head up into the hills. We’d spend the day climbing and scaling the cliffs, only to reach the top in time to see him leading his harem back down by some new and terrible trail.

It was on our way down one of these ankle-breaking trails, following the herd’s tracks and spoor, when my PH spotted him again, far down in a dell below. The entire herd was bedded, taking a break from our annoyance. There was no questioning this was the bull we were after — a titan among giants, with a striped, gray coat and a neck like a toad.

We took the long way around at him, covering the better part of a mile to trace our way across the ridgeline to the only position we could possibly get within 100 yards. For once, it worked.

Hugging tight against a bush, I could see the herd spread out before us, with that one massive bull laying down within 60 yards. With the wind at my face, all I had to do was prop up the tripod and wait for him to stand so I could get a solid shot on his vitals.

He beat me to it. I had just set the revolver on the tripod when the big bull stood, looked right at me, and started walking away.

After the first miss, he wasn’t walking anymore, he was running. The second shot, landing somewhere other than in the bull, didn’t slow his pace. The herd thundered in a wide arc away from me.

I turned 90 degrees as the bull was making his escape. My arm resting on my knee, everything disappeared but him. Before, I marveled at his raw size and beauty — the mass of his horns, the dewlap of his neck. Now, the only part of that massive beast that existed was a tiny gap in his heaving ribs. I squeezed the trigger.

A dull thud from the fat round striking his body was followed by the bull’s high kick in the air. There was no mistaking the hit.

The results were immediate. Although he continued to run, he went from leading the herd to quickly falling behind. As his harem and the junior males made, once again, for the hills, we watched the bull turn away, downhill, toward a watering hole. He didn’t make it. A short walk away, we found him piled up at the embankment.

I’m convinced African game somehow gain mass in death; he was impossibly bigger than when I shot him. As I stood there, I was even more impressed with the animal — and with the revolver. The heavy round slipped through his ribs at a sharp angle and drove several feet through the viscera, lung, and top of the heart to end up in front of the opposite shoulder, from about 80 yards away.

The short distance we ran to the bull didn’t account for our breathlessness. We were just in awe. As our tracker retrieved the bakkie, we spent the time inspecting the bull. A “trophy” by any standard, he’d also be providing over 1,000 pounds of high-quality meat to local elderly living homes in the area.

Setting the Taurus down next to the eland bull, it looked tiny. The Raging Hunter, a Goliath only minutes before, now David next to the felled bull. It seems “giant” is all relative.