Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 35 cal. bullets v. black bears

I haven't killed much game with my 358 Winchester Savage 99, yet. I put four bullets into 2 black bears in Alberta this past spring and did not recover the slugs.

I used Double Tap ammo, which according to their website is loaded with 250 gr Speer Hot Cor bullets at about 2450 fps. I did not chrono this ammo out of my rifle, so I can only report the factory reported velocity. Both bears were shot through the shoulder and into the chest cavity with the first shot. Both bullets went through-and-through. The black was shot again after he turned to run, and I hit him high in the left shoulder above the shoulder blade, the bullet exiting the brisket. The color-phase was shot again after he turned to run, but this time he ran across my front so I belted him in the shoulder and again the bullet exited the off side of his chest. Both bears fell to the second shot, but I don't think they would have gone far based on the amount of blood from the first shots on each bear.





The black black bear was over 400 pounds, so the performance of this cup-and-core bullet was pretty impressive to my mind. I would not hesitate to use this bullet on any other bear including griz.