I have 2 - .454`a. A Red Hawk and a raging Bull and I also have a .500 S&W. Eather round I would feel safe takeing any thing in North America short of Grizzle and for them I would want the .500. I`m a big bore freek so I prefer the .500. I also reload all of my own ammo and so far everything I`ve loaded for the .500 has been to the max., includeing the 440 grn. bullets, the largest I`ve loaded so far. My white tail load this year is a 350 grn. Hornady JHP over 43 grns. of Win. 296, book vel. about 1,875 fps. In the .454 max. load of Win. 296 with a 300 grn. bullet is 30 grns. and the bullets are alot cheaper so I can reload the .454 for about 1/2 the price of the .500. I would guess that the spred is even wider with new ammo. Another big advantage with the .454 is that you can fire .45 LC ammo in it. The other day I fired 45 round from the .500 from the bench, that`s all I wanted, and as I said I`m a big bore, ie. recoil freek.