I shoot the Bear Creek in 450. Its worth the extra money in my opinion.

 

Why? Accuracy? Range? Terminal performance?

 

KE at ranges 200+ is the reason I didn't end up buying these, went with the Hornady 165. Sorry, beside the point of this thread. Watching this, curious about this ammo too.

 

I recently purchased 2 boxes of their 140 grain because of the performance I’ve had with their 450 ammo. I’m planning on shooting it for the first time this weekend.

 

1.5 inch groups at 100 with a Savage Axis 2. I don't shoot much and I'm not a great shot... and all my shots are under 150 anyways. Good enough for me.

Borrowed a buddy's Ruger Ranch for a hunt last year and got 0.75 inch groups at 100 with his gun and Bear Creek 160s


Terminal performance is fantastic. Huge entrance holes, good blood trails, longest track was 50 yards. 5 of 6 have passed thru, the one hard quartering-to I found in the offside hide, mushroomed perfectly and retained all weight

 

1.5 inch groups at 100 with a Savage Axis 2. I don't shoot much and I'm not a great shot... and all my shots are under 150 anyways. Good enough for me.

Borrowed a buddy's Ruger Ranch for a hunt last year and got 0.75 inch groups at 100 with his gun and Bear Creek 160s


Terminal performance is fantastic. Huge entrance holes, good blood trails, longest track was 50 yards. 5 of 6 have passed thru, the one hard quartering-to I found in the offside hide, mushroomed perfectly and retained all weight

Thanks

 

Any of you fellows have a benchmark of KE you want to see for killing whitetail? I'm going off 900KE, but have heard such varying numbers. 1000 seems to get thrown around a lot.

I ask because I got a new lease where 250 yard shots will be a possibility. I know I'm pushing the limits of the round, but don't want to buy a new gun until the 400 legend comes out.

 

500ish for me aiming for lungs. Realistically 300-400 will do it but leaves little room for error on shot placement.

A 44 Mag with a 7.5" Barrel with a standard load 240gr Bullet will be around 800ft lb at the muzzle and it will easily go thru a deer. 357 magnum handgun same thing. Around 550 ftlbs at the muzzle.

Everyone likes to throw around the 1000 number but will look you right in the eye and say 44 mag handgun will kill a deer at 30 yards even though it doesn't meet the "minimum ".

Heck the .410 slug that @John Hine is shooting out of the judge must be below 250ftlb.

 

We have three single shot .350 legend CVA's. Two of them are 1.25 inch groups at 100 yards and one is 1.5 inch.

We killed around ten deer with .350 Hornady bullets before switching to Bear Creek and have taken about a dozen more deer since then. Bear Creek is a substantially better performing bullet than the Hornady.

But neither compares to the performance some of my sons are getting with their .450 and Buffalo Bore bullets. I don't anticipate the .350 is ever going to come close to generating .450 type blood trails.

Just for the fun this season we're switching from the 160 grain to the 140 grain Bear Creek.

 

We have three single shot .350 legend CVA's. Two of them are 1.25 inch groups at 100 yards and one is 1.5 inch.

We killed around ten deer with .350 Hornady bullets before switching to Bear Creek and have taken about a dozen more deer since then. Bear Creek is a substantially better performing bullet than the Hornady.

But neither compares to the performance some of my sons are getting with their .450 and Buffalo Bore bullets. I don't anticipate the .350 is ever going to come close to generating .450 type blood trails.

Just for the fun this season we're switching from the 160 grain to the 140 grain Bear Creek.

Are those 450 BM loads from Buffalo the 250 JHP or the lead free? Do they have comparable impact to the Hornady? Lastly, do you truly see a big difference in blood trails and distance traveled with these compared to the Hornady 250's?

You have been a staple on this sit for quite some time so I trust your opinion.

 

Enormous difference in consistency of blood trails between the Barnes bullet Buffalo Bore uses and Hornadys. Hornadys are inconsistent - Barnes are as consistent as can get.

Only ones we've used are the 275 grain lead free - no experience with the 250 JHP.

 

I load them for my buddies 350 legend. I'd have to refer back to my load data on what exact load but his gun shoots them around . 75" at 100 if he does his part. Field accuracy won't be that good. I think the numbers were 2370 for his load. He's got a 22" barrel.

 

Thank you