250 grain Hornady XTP first, 300 grain XTP second. Partitions work like wad cutters in their pistol loads and you sure as heck don't need hard cast for bears. JJ put it well in that respect. My results echo his.
JJ, the .45 ACP doesn't fire a 240 or 250 grain bullet. You have your facts wrong on the police officers bullets. The biggest common factory load is a 230 grain hollow point at about 850 fps in .45 ACP. There are few good performing 230 grain .45 ACP loads on the market that penetrate animals, since they are engineered to kill humans, which are wimps by comparison. I am willing to bet he was shooting Speer "flying ashtray" 200 grain hollowpoints, which are engineered to penetrate about 6 inches, like most .45 ACP "personal defense" loads. Were you able to recover any of the bullets? Had he used a bullet designed for expansion and penetration for critters and not humans, the round would have performed better....much better in my
experience.
One other correction you may want to make is, 9mm bullets are not the same diameter or weight of .357 bullets. 9mm's are .356/.357" diameter (depending on the use, mostly .356" diameter) where .357 bullets are .358" diameter.
The .357 performs extremely well with 158 and 180 grain Hornady XTP bullets. I have shot other soft points into critters fired from .357's and they go clear through like wad cutters with very little tissue trama. Hollow points work the best with deer and black bears in all pistol calibers. Leave the cast and hard cast bullets for extreme penetration in big tough critters. Black bears as JJ stated, are not hard to kill and have very soft, thin skin. Their bones are not large and heavy either. Good hollowpoints driven as fast as possibly safe work extremely well.
My favorite load is a 240 grain Hornady XTP moving along at 1,500 fps out of my 10.5" barreled Ruger Super Blackhawk. It simply crumples everything. A 250 grain XTP in your .45 LC at 1,200 fps will be the ticket for sure. Flinch
