Gary Reeder
having hunted Alaska a couple of times with some of the guys
Thursday, November 04, 2021, 11:27

on here I have seen where the hard cast fail miserably on large bears. In fact George Faerber, our guide and one of the most experienced bear guides up there has banned the hard cast bullets in his camps.
It seems when the bullet hits the bear it pushes a column of air in front of it, which tends to push the vital organs aside, not doing much damage to the internals before exiting on the off side. I have personally shot one big bear twice with the 510 GNR and the heavy hard cast bullet and both bullets went thru the bear from 2 hits just behind the shoulder on each side exiting in front of the hind quarters on the off side. He had 4 large 50 caliber holes in him and he just ran off and I had to go in the alders after him. When we skinned and gutted him the vital organs were for the most part undamaged even though the 2 bullets had gone right thru them. He died from massive blood loss.
Anyway, George said he had had more than one bear to do the same after being hit with a hard cast bullet. This doesn't mean all hard cast are bad, just that he had had more than one bear run off after being hit in the right spot with one. And there were 2 of them on our hunt to do that. So I would go with either a Punch bullet or a Hornady 265 grain jacketed soft point. Whichever your 44 shoots the best.