Taurus’ Raging Hunter Handgun and Coyotes - Larry Weishuhn

It’s no secret I really like hunting with handguns.

Three black hogs ran into the food plot I was sitting watching. They immediately began to feed

on the lush triticale and turnips. The trio was made up of two hundred pound sows and a boar

about half again as big as the sows. I studied them through my Stealth Vision 10x42 binoculars.

I was seriously tempted to take one of the dry sows. But, I was really hoping to take one more

whitetail doe before our Texas Managed Land Deer Permit season came to an end the following

day, February 28. Shooting a hog might spook any nearby deer…

To my far left, I spotted a whitetail doe crossing a narrow sendero. She disappeared into the

wall of trees seemingly headed toward the food plot. I raised my .454 Casull Taurus Raging

Hunter to my tripod shooting sticks, pointing it in the direction where I hoped the doe would

appear.

Just then I heard several coyotes sound off in the woods just beyond where I had seen the doe.

They were relatively close. I leaned back against my pulled together ground blind and waited,

hoping the doe would momentarily appear in the food plot. I glanced back at the hogs. All three

were staring in the direction of the yapping coyotes.

Suddenly the doe burst out of the brush running toward the three hogs. They spooked and ran

as she got close to them. As I started to reposition my tripod and handgun, a large, fully haired

coyote erupted out of the line of trees following the same path the doe had taken. Moments

later the doe again ran across the food plot, the coyote not far behind. Unfortunately, he was

there and gone before I could get my crosshairs on his and pull the trigger.

Hopefully another doe would appear, and hopefully too the doe could evade the coyote. I

settled back against my log ground blind. My intention was to stay in my blind until near noon,

then head back to camp for about thirty minutes and then return to spend the rest of the day

hunting.

At 11:30, I was ready stretch my legs, grab a bite to eat and then come right back to my ground

blind. I started to get up, then remembered the Burnham Brothers C-3 Long Range Predator call

in my pack. Actually and frankly, I do not go afield without one.

I pulled the mouth blown call out of the pack, took several deep breaths, raised it to my lips and

did my best to sound like a dying rabbit, or at least on in distress. I had blown into the call

possibly 15 or 20 seconds when I spotted movement in knee-high bluestem grass one-hundred-

fifty yards distant. It was coming my way. A heart beat later a large coyotes stepped clear on

the grass, stopped and stared in my direction.

I had previously ranged the grass at 127-yards using my Stealth Vision Rangefinder binocular. I

also knew, thanks of spending much time at a range, my .454 Casull Taurus Raging Hunter

revolver, topped with a vintage 2.5x7x28 Thompson/Center long-eye relief scope, shooting

Hornady Handgun Hunter, 200-grain MonoFlex was possibly one-inch low at that distance.

I blew one more plaintive call, then cranked the scope’s magnification up to 6x, then settled the

crosshairs on the now broadside coyote’s vitals. I cocked the hammer of my double-action

revolver, crosshairs, thanks to a solid rest using my tripod shooting sticks, planted exactly

where I wanted to place my bullet. I started squeezing the trigger.

The shot sounded, the coyote dropped in its tracks. Even so I quickly again cocked the hammer

and brought my crosshairs to bear on my target. No movement, but I kept watching for

another minute before standing up and walking to where my coyote lay.

At its side I could not have been more pleased, particularly with my shot and taking a predator

that likely a little while before had been chasing a whitetail doe. Closer inspection revealed my

coyote was a mature male. When David Cotton arrived, I asked him to take some photos. Then

later I back at camp I weighed my coyote on our “deer scales”. He weighed 39-pounds.

Calling and shooting coyotes with handgun is something I truly enjoy. I have long enjoyed

calling coyotes and other predators. I have done so not only through much of North America

but also in England, Austria, Sweden, Australia and several African countries. Unfortunately,

most places do not allow hunting with handguns. Thankfully we can do so in Texas and

Oklahoma.

Hunting coyotes with a handgun. I much prefer using my Taurus Raging Hunter double-action

revolvers in .44 Mag and .454 Casull loaded with either Custom 240-grain XTP loads, or in the

case of the .454 Casull 200-grain MonoFlex Handgun Hunter loads. In my Taurus handguns

these loads are supremely accurate, capable of 1 MOA accuracy at 100-yards.

Accuracy when calling coyotes is a paramount requirement. Their vitals are essentially an area

encompassing about 4-inches by 6-inches, when standing broadside, looking at one dead-on,

those vitals shrink to about 3-inches by 4-inches. Such a rather small target requires excellent

accuracy. My Taurus Raging Hunter, topped with my vintage (prior to 2000) Thompson/Center

long-eye relief variable scope and Hornady ammo are always up to the task.

While some hunters to prefer to call after dark, I really like calling during daylight hours so I can

see the predator approaching and too watch its reaction to the call. I regularly use Burnham

Brothers’ new FREQ electronic call duplicates and broadcasts the Hertz (how sound is

measured) of the sounds made by prey species in distress. No other electronic game call on the

market can do this. This is one of the reasons coyotes and bobcats respond to the FREQ call

after they no long respond to other electronic game calls on the market.

While I love using the FREQ, there are times when I am hunting where carrying an electronic

call is impractical. For that reason, I always carry at least one of Burnham Brothers’ C-3 Long

Range mouth blown calls with me whenever and wherever I am hunting. When I fail to see the

game species I am after, I pull my mouth-blown predator call out of my pack and start blowing

it to attract coyotes or bobcats. I have also used that particular call with great success luring in

mule deer, and California’s Columbian blacktail deer, as well as javelina in South and West

Texas.

When calling, while hunting with my Raging Hunter revolvers, I occasionally also hunt with my

.357 Mag and .44 Mags, I set up so I can watch downwind, with shooting lanes to my left and

right. Not always, but more often than not, when coyotes come a predator call they tend to

come in or at least circle and approach from downwind or a quartering wind. I like to sit on the

ground when calling so I am on the same level as the approaching predator, with my back

against a log or tree trunk. This breaks the human form, but also helps me steady my shot.

Meanwhile back on the ranch. I spent the afternoon hunting back in the woods where there

were still, amazingly, a few acorns. I did that afternoon take a doe with my .454 Casull at less

than fifty yards. Unfortunately, I could only hunt the following and last morning of our deer

hunting season, after which I had to leave for meeting at the DSC office to discuss our Summer

Expo in July. But I would be back on the ranch with my predators calls and my Taurus Raging

Hunters in two weeks, hoping to remove a few more coyotes to help save fawns which would

be “hitting the ground” in May.