The mentioned tree was a tamarack. A number of years later I was testing some handloads from my Marlin (45-70) during the winter at my no.1 bear-bait location. At the time the bait was much closer than later years, at 36 yards from the blind. At 40 yards there was a dead-fall - a 10" spruce. It was showing it's age as most of the branches had fallen off or been broken by game - mostly deer. When a bear was approaching the bait it had to step over the dead-fall, giving away its distance from the blind. I did kill one bear there using my Ruger #1 45-70 LT.
However, what I'm talking about here is that test of bullets from the Marlin. The depth of snow was about to the lower side of the spruce, and I was shooting at the middle of it's diameter. These were not "pussy cat" loads, but Hot! In passing through the tree they were slowed enough to drop a bit and the frozen snow acted as a trap. I would then dig them out with a shovel (those I could find). One find was a 405gr Remington, with a slight mushroom, retaining 398.6 grains. I'll post a pic of it someday - that will be a first for that bullet.
A number of years ago I purchased 200 of those Remingtons. I'm down to about 40 now. I bought them at a bargain-basement price! Yet on bear and deer they are gold at appropriate ranges.
The point of this being we shouldn't despise bargains - they may turn out to be a bag of gold!
