I have a single shot 45 colt rifle that I had threaded for a suppressor. I'm comfortable shooting deer and hogs from a bow stand at short distances, 30 yards max. What is everyones thoughts on longer range, maybe 75-80 yards? Is a 225 grain bullet going around 950 fps at the muzzle enough to humanely take down whitetail deer ? I know that if I shot something that was hot rodded it would probably be fine, but I'm shooting subsonic only. Tell me your thoughts ?

50-60 yards should be good.

Assuming it is a round nose bullet it will still be going 875 fps give or take at 80 yards... should be enough to kill a deer with GOOD shot placement. Sighted in at 30 yards it will also drop about 8 inches. at 80 yards. I would consider it doable, but probably not something I would consider.

Thanks for the opinions. I am shooting Hornady 225 grain leverevolution ammo, supposed to be going 950 at the muzzle. I sighted in at 50 yards and its 3" low at 100. At 50 yards its moving 899fps. think that I will keep my shots at 50 yards and under, most under 30 yards. I have larger calibers, was just curious what everyones thoughts were on the round. Supposedly its going right at 855 fps at 100 yards according to Hornady.

I would urge you to check the trajectory on paper if you haven't.

I ran the numbers through a ballistic calculator real quick and with a 50 yard zero it shows to be about 10 inches low at 100 yards using the BC supplied by Hornady and 950 fps muzzle velocity.

I've killed a lot of deer and hogs with the 45 Colt in a Marlin 1894S and a Rossi 92. I dropped the Marlin in favor of the Rossi, shoot a 290 grain round, flat nose bullet with a charge of Lil'Gun that produces 35.0K PSI and delivers 1775 FPS at the muzzle. The rifle is accurate, has a scout scope on it, and deadly. The longest shot I have taken was on a fairly large feral hog at 197 yards. It ran about 25 yards and folded up in a pile.



The "hole" is the entry wound. A lead round, flat bullet with a good meplat is like a cookie cutter. Cuts a 1" or better hole right through them. I shot this buck at 125 yards.



What single shot do you have? This would be an interesting cartridge to have in that type of rifle.

I assume the op is using a 950 FPS loading because he is using a suppressor and wants to keep it quiet. That 1775 fps load is 65 grains heavier and almost double the velocity.

Oops, sorry.

But it encourages me, a 45 colt lever gun to go with my Blackhawk is always in the back of my mind

The 3" is what I found on paper. It was surprising to me too. I expected about 6" low, but it was between 3"-4.5" with a 1/2" sight in at 50 yards. I wont shoot out to 100, but I was curious.

My rifle is a H&R single shot that was cut back to 16.5" and threaded. I'm enjoying it so far.

If keeping it subsonic the bullet RanchDog suggested would still be a good one for the task. Momentum is you friend with the slow bullets and large flat points rip a big hole through their path.

I reamed the chamber on my H&R single shot, so that I can shoot .454 Cassul.
It's easy and you barely take any metal off using a hand reamer. You can shoot .45 LC and .454 Cassul.
The .454 shoots with a lot of recoil since it's a high pressure round, but it will reach out there if you want more distance.
I shot a mature buck with the .454 at 60 yards with a high shoulder shot and dropped the buck in it's tracks.