Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Brown Bear with a 7 Rem Mag questions

Can't say I've caught one, but in general, Barnes don't kill as quickly as lead core bullets IME. There's something about the grenade effect of lead core bullets. That said, Barnes do penetrate, no doubt about it.

Location, location, location...

IME, shooting through shoulders tends to lead to more DRTs than any non-CNS shot. I do not shoot through shoulders if using lead core bullets.

Agreed....


just for the record,the bullet shown above was fired into the shoulders and did a good job. But then again a Bitterroot is not your average jacketed bullet,and will not fragment or shed weight. 95%+ weight retention is common.

The only X bullets I have seen stopped were in heavy service for their size... 80gr TTSX from a 25-06 into a huge-bodied bull moose coupled with finding the biggest bones in the whole skeleton. Two there.

The other was flukey in that a Sitka buck was bedded against a big rock. The bullet went all the way through the deer and got hung up in the hair on the opposite side after hitting the rock the buck was bedded against.

I do not understand how so many have caught so few NPTs and so many Xs... it does not work that way in my anecdotal World.

My post didn't directly pertain to bears. I've never hunted a brown bear and I certainly defer to folks like Phil on that subject specifically. Good point on the exit hole often being much larger, although on elk and such, when using a tough heavy penetrating bullet, it may not be all that much larger. On a deer with a more rapidly expanding bullet you may have a huge exit hole, but that type of bullet may not make it all the way through an elk or moose for instance. Not sure where the mono issue comes in? That is what I prefer and use, Partitions, Barnes, A Frames, so no argument there. My point on the energy and momentum was that it can be a mistake to look only at energy like many do so maybe we actually agree on that part? A bigger slower heavier bullet with more momentum like a 9.3x62 will do a better job of staying on path within a large big boned animal. Although that doesn't mean you need a 45-70 and we know that the 06 is quite capable with the right bullets and shooter. The elk I shot this year was with a 300WM using a 200 grain partition. It went in one side and out the other, and I certainly didn't object to that. Exit wound however wasn't all that large, nor was there much blood on the ground. A good number of the elk I've shot have fallen to a 270 using cup and core bullets, many had no exit hole but the boiler room was mush. No doubt bullet placement and construction are first priority by a huge margin. Some like to have a bigger hole both entering and exiting and I've read that mid bores like 9.3 or 375 on up have a better chance of leaving a good blood trail with a bear given the thick layer of fat and hide.

You want some game catchin' bullets?



The middle one on the far right is a 1999 model 250 gr .375X that stopped a woods bison that weighed over a ton.

Ted

Only thing I would suggest here is that the Partition is not a mono. It has a lead core and tends to lose 40ish percent of its weight in the critter. That weight loss does several things in addition to shedding E and p. It changes the shape (especially the length) of the bullet and importantly the length to width ratio, a huge factor in stability.

I have caught a huge number of Partitions in critters...

Yukoner,

What was the bullet in the second column from the left, third from the top?

I like the frontal diameter.

I've caught Partitions....deer to brown bear. They have been in the minority. But of course, it happens.


I have found the 160-7mm and 200 gr 30 cal tough to stop.


I bet Ted's wood bison would stop about anything.

Wasn't sure what you meant by mono, figured you were just generally referring to bullets with tougher construction, my mistake. Was aware of the lead core in partitions. I caught an 250 grain A Frame from my 9.3x62 in an elk two years ago. It expanded nicely but didn't go out the far side.

Sorry, but I will have to find it in the jar after I get back home, and then try to tell you.

It may be a Matrix Bonded Core, made here in Canada. That is pretty typical expansion for them. Here's one, a 270 gr 9.3 taken out of a big grizzly I got in 2011. It broke the big tubercle on the near shoulder, chopped up two vertebrae and stopped against the hide. Almost made it through, and still weighs a bit over 240 gr.



Ted

Bitterroot Bonded there Bob?

raybass: Yes.

The ones I have are still on the shelf waiting. Thanks bsa BTW

Other than that type of story seems to appear on every Weatherby hater thread, I'm sure they were the exception. There's almost never any mention of the likes of Elgin Gates or AFrican PHs like Grant who've used them all of their lives..

Mornin Ted -

Am I to understand that ALL the animals died when ALL those bullets didn't exit?



Jerry



Sitka, Yukoner, Bob--everybody
The WHOLE intent of my ? is humor.


I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion by THOSE who have experience shooting/killing BIG game with diff. bullets. Please don't stop.

An ADDENDUM:

In 42-43 yrs of WT deer hunting and using GOOD c/c bullets, I have NOT recovered that many bullets.

Thumbs UP!


Jerry

I also have a large collection of recovered bullets, all from animals that died. Since these discussions always seem to come down to Barnes X against every other bullet, here are some statistics from my collection:

Many people state that Nosler Partitions retain around 60% or 65% or 2/3 of their weight. In my collection, 20% retained 60% or less, and those averaged 57.8%. All of those bullets were relatively light for caliber, ranging from 100 to 150 grains in calibers from .25 to 7mm.

There's a reason for this: Nosler designs the lighter, smaller-caliber Partitions to retain less weight, figuring they'll mostly be used on "deer-sized" game. John Nosler always believed (based on considerable experience) that deer die quicker with more bullet fragmentation.

But I should probably also note that the lightest retained percentage of a recovered Partition in my collection is a 150-grain .270, shot into a medium-sized Shiras bull moose. The bullet entered the left rear of the rib-cage and ended up in the right shoulder, retaining 53.7% of its weight. Yet the bull took a step-and-a-half before folding up dead.

The Partitions over .30 caliber have the partition moved forward to retain more weight, because the folks at Nosler figure they'll be used on bigger animals. I've recovered some in calibers from .338 to .416 from animals like bull moose, musk ox, bison and Cape buffalo, and they average 86.3% weight retention.

Have also shot some Barnes X's into animals here and there, and recovered some, though not as many as Partitions, mostly because I've been shooting Partitions since the mid-1970's and Barnes X's--from the original to the blue-coated XLC to TSX's--since the mid-1990's. (Actually did shoot a few at targets before then, but never could get them to shoot well enough to want to take them afield.) The recovered X's average 90.6% in weigh retention.

Have recovered a higher percentage of X's than Partitions, but only because I've tended to use lighter X's for various sizes of game than Partitions.

Have done considerable experimentation with bullet penetration in consistent media of various sorts, and eventually came to the conclusion that depth of penetration is more tied to frontal area of the mushroom than percentage of weight retention. This is due to testing the same weight and diameter of various bullets at the same velocity: In every instance some bullets that retained less weight penetrated just as deeply as bullets that retained more--and the difference was in the measured diameter of the mushroom.

Whether or not all of this makes any difference in "killing power" is debatable. I've only noticed that expanding bullets placed in the vitals kill stuff pretty quickly--but do know that extrapolating the penetration of some bullets of a certain make to ALL bullets of a certain make is a mistake. Some Partitions simply penetrate better than others, even if not one of the over-.30's with the partition moved forward. I'd put the 160/175 7mm and 200 .30 in this class, but have also seen consistently deeper penetration from the 250 .338 and 286 9.3 than some other over-.30 bullets.

I'd have to say the same about Barnes X's. The 100-grain .25 TTSX hasn't penetrated any deeper than the 100-grain .25 Partition on the game my wife and I have shot with both--though both penetrate plenty, especially for the size of game they're usually used on.

Can't say that my hunting notes reveal any pattern in how far game has gone after a good hit in the vitals that exited or didn't exit. Have seen plenty drop very quickly, like that moose my wife killed with a lousy .270, from lung shots that didn't hit any major bone. Have also seen the same thing with bullets that did exit, whatever the make of the bullet, but can't find any statistical pattern.

The Barnes I have collected have either been stopped by heavy bone - which tends to put the animal down fast, or they have been stopped due to distance of penetration through atmosphere and/or flesh and often with minimal expansion. The latter tend to be slow killers, not surprisingly.

But my Barnes collection is all non-bear kills, mostly ungulates. The few bears I've killed have involved mostly full penetration, and mostly with various non-monos. Where the first bullet lands and what it does seem to matter more with bears. If they can recover from the first shot and build up a head of adrenaline, they become a very different creature than the ungulates tend to do. (Although a rutting moose which is already high on testosterone when it is first struck can try to be sporty if you don't slap him correctly when the curtain opens.)

I've had just a handful of one-shot instant drops with moose. A couple were monos; one was a 'stay-in' which broke both shoulders. The other was a 'thru-thru' which separated the spine. Cup and cores have also dumped them straight down a couple of times. They have also done it both ways. However, 'shock' has seemed to be the process involved with cored bullets - IOW, who knows exactly why they went straight down?

I think we missed the point and are not looking at the same place at all. We were talking about folks with limited trigger time on a rifle because they just bought a big one because someone told them they needed it. And then they take it on a brown bear hunt.

I used the 340Wby example only as the opposite side of the equation. Obviously you bring experienced shooters into the equation and it is a whole 'nother discussion.