Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Trophy Bonded Bear Claw recovered bullet pics

My primary deer rifle is a Remington 700 Mountain Rifle in .280, with a Sightron SII Big Sky 3-9x42 mounted in Talley lightweight rings (quite possibly the perfect deer rifle). A few years ago, Midway ran a clearance sale on Federal High Energy .280 ammo with 140gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw bullets, so I bought 10 boxes. I've chrono'd the ammo through my 22" barrel, and if memory serves me correctly, MV was was over 2950 fps.

I've taken several deer with the ammo, and all have been one shot kills. This weekend, I was able to use the load again with similar results. Distance was 88 yards, and the deer dropped in his tracks. The bullet entered the front right shoulder broadside, but did not exit the other side. I was surprised by this, as every other deer taken with the load has made an entry and exit hole (with no recovered bullets).

Bullet was recovered on the opposite side, just under the hide. It passed through both shoulders completely, but stopped just short of passing through the hide. The internal cavity was a complete mess, although the impact shoulder wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Here are a few pics:






Initial bullet weight was 140gr, with a recovered weight of 116.8gr. I honestly thought bullet weight would be well over 125gr, but 83% weight retention with no separation of the jacket or core is about as good as I could ask for.