Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Speer Grand Slam .338 cal 250gr vs. Brown Bear

Anyone here killed a big bear with this bullet? How was results? Thanks

I wouldn't be troubled if the older two part core was loaded in my magazine. I've run a couple into moose which worked with aplomb.



I found this one (leftmost) on the back side of both shoulders of a big bull shot with a 340. I ran a 180 (30-06) through the neck of a young paddle-horned bull; that bullet severed the spine and kept going.





The downside is that the simple cup jacket can be sliced open under the wrong circumstances as this 145 7mm did on a caribou scapula after being fired from a 7mm-08.

I don't know anything about the newer version of the Grand Slam. FWIW, I think Brian Pearce wrote up a brown bear hunt involving the 250 in a 338.

There isn't a 250 grain 338 bullet made that I would fret shooting at a brown bear. I'm no Phil Shoemaker but have skinned more than a few brownies!

Thanks. The .338 bullets I have in 250gr are Swift, Nosler Part and Speer GS. Don't hear much about the SpGS so I was wondering if they were used up there.

Out of that lineup, the GS would be my 3rd choice by a large margin. So many better mousetraps out there. Partition Gold and TSX/TTSX being my top choices.

The old style worked quite well not so sure about the new version although they might be fine at typical 338 Win Mag speeds.

To add to what I posted previously, and along the lines of what MM just posted:





When things go bad - as they did for the 145 GS I previously posted, and on a moose shot with a 250 A-Frame in 35 caliber; you can see that both bullets did some side and/or aft end digging. Single drawn cup bullets are easier to compromise under these less-than-usual circumstances.



It's not that the A-Frame didn't manage plenty of damage in the process of becoming a tumbleweed. But the bullet didn't lose it's integrity either.

A second bullet, a 250 Partition shot from the same 358 Norma, continued on through, fully penetrating the animal.

The average moose is probably a tougher bullet obstacle than the average brownie. But big browns might not be the smartest place to gamble when choosing bullets. I'd take a Grand Slam over a regular Hot-Cor, Interlock, or Pro-Hunter, but the same money will buy a bullet with more integrity, so it isn't a difficult choice IMO.

FWIW, more bears are probably wounded by excellent bullets than by lesser ones, but a 250 grainer recoils the same whether it is an ordinary cup and core or a bullet with more integrity. IOW, placing a good bullet well is just as easy as placing a bullet of lesser integrity.

I have both new style and the old turned style Nosler Partitions in 250gr. I generally shoot Swifts but thought I would look at my option for this hunt.

Thanks for the photos.

Mine fell from a meeting with a 338 250 gr a frame out of a 338-06. He did not care for it one little bit!

Isn't there a 275 grain GS too?

Isn't there a 275 grain GS too?

Can highly recommend the 275 on spike moose at 16 yards and 4 inch black spruce pole at 70 (shooting at running wolf).

Toppled both, caused wolf to swap ends and go warp 10, about 8 inches tall and 18 feet long. Laughed so hard as spruce toppled behind it that I never got another round chambered. Managed to kill the moose next day, however.

Swift makes a 275-grain A-frame. Now, the 250-grain A-Frame is supposed to be a stronger bullet than the 250-grain Partition.

And a 285gn TSX and a 300gn Woodleigh Weldcore.

True.

I can barely imagine a need for the very long 250 TSX in my 340, let alone in the 338 Win Mag. And the 285 would nearly block the flash hole if one wasn't careful in the Win Mag. Shoot, Barnes hasn't made a 250 weight even in 35 since the demise of the XFBs in that weight.

The 285gn TSX javelin shoots well and just over 2600fps in my 24" .338. I set the seating die for the 225TSX and use the same setting for both the 265gn and 285gn versions.
John

A couple of comments on what's been posted so far:

The old-style Grand Slams were pretty tough bullets, thanks to the dual core and a very heavy jacket shank, plus an Interlock-type ring inside the jacket. However, he latest version (which has been out a few years now) is essentially a heavy-jacket cup-and-core. I tested 5 of the new-style 200-grain .30's in dry newspaper at close range (my standard test for supposedly tough bullets) from a .300 Winchester Magnum and 3 of the 5 lost their cores. A 250 from a .338 Winchester Magnum would probably hold up better, due to lower muzzle velocity, but probably is an odd word to use with dangerous game bullets.

In my experience Swift A-Frames are not tougher than Nosler Partitions, due to the rear core not being bonded. (Yes, only the front core is bonded, something most people don't realize.) The rear of the jacket and the jacket wall between the cores on A-Frames is thinner than on Partitions, and the A-Frame's jacket is also pure copper, instead of the tougher gilding metal used on Partitions. This is why the rear end of A-Frames often bulges to the point of expanding almost as much as the front end, and occasionally the rear core breaks through the rear jacket. i have yet to see anything other than a slight bulge of the rear half of a Partition, and have never seen the rear core break through the rear jacket.

In a way, the two bullets built on opposite ideas. Noslers are designed to make sure the rear of the bullet doesn't come apart, and A-Frames to make sure the front end of the bullet doesn't come apart.

The .375 Grand Slam bullets I have used were all the older double core bullets John described and not the newer ones.