Gary Reeder
Remember it's all about bullet placement
Tuesday, October 31, 2023, 13:13

a shot in the ass with a 475 Linebaugh is still a shot in the ass. I was talking with one of the Misfits on here this morning about various bullets. He wanted to know if I liked heavy or lightweight bullets. I told him don't change what you are doing if it works for you just because I might use something different. I have taken 11 Bison, Water Buffalo, Yak, watusi bulls and bull elk with the 220 grain 41 caliber bullet in my 41 GNR and have quite a few friends as witnesses, even a video of a couple that Scott Boggs has. Each of these if I did my job were one shot kills.
And in each of these kills bullet placement was the priority. There were a couple of bulls that I didn't hit the exact spot and I had to use 2 or even 3 rounds to put the animals down. But that was my fault. The bullet would have done the job if I did mine.
For the grizzly I would use the 300 grain bullet, probably a solid. I have taken several big bears and seemed to end up dancing with each one. A bear has a tuff hide and quite often 3 or 4 inches of fat under that. So he takes a lot of killing before he goes down. I won't go into any of my bear stories on here as most of the Misfits on here have read them already, but one bear took a hot loaded 510 GNR with a heavy 440 grain bullet at a range of 2 feet, then a second round at about the same distance. I hit him on one side shoulder to hip with the first shot, then he turned and rolled at my feet and I hit him on the opposite side, same thing, shoulder to hip. The bullets did an X inside the bear and he still ran off into the alders and I had to go in after him. The bear was close enough on the first shot that a spray of blood covered my 510 revolver. but the bear didn't slow down or stop and chat. So the big heavy bullet simply didn't do it's job. I really believe a good lighter weight jacketed soft point would have done better. That is just guessing on my part.

George Faerber, my bear guide said he had several instances like that where a real heavy bullet didn't put the animal down. The big bullet just seemed to push a column of air ahead of it thru the vitals and never mushroomed to do any internal damage. He said after that he would not allow the hunter to use a big heavy lead bullet for bear.
This may not answer your questions but it the best I can do.