275 TSX on a black bear.

[fox400]

My boss was headed up to Ontario for a black bear hunt with his CVA 450 single shot. He reloads and we had been discussing that I had been playing around with the 275 grain TSX bullets from Barnes in my 450. He wanted to give them a try. I loaded him some with 38 grains of H110 and told him to see how they shot. Not knowing his gun, I figured that 38 grains would be a safe load for him based on what my AR was liking. We didn't get crazy into trying to find the "perfect" load for his gun because his shots were going to be 30 yards or less. He shot 5 from his gun and got it dialed in for that particular range. At that range is wasn't hard to put them all in one hole.lol Well, he ended up dropping the hammer on a nice 200lb black bear and was thoroughly impressed with the TSX. It literally anchored the bear where it stood. It died with its hand in the bait barrel.lol He didn't get any good pictures of the entrance and exit holes, but he said the entrance hole was close to 3/4' and the exit was easily over 1". The bear died in less than 10 seconds from the time he squeezed the trigger.

Now he wants to start working up the "optimal" load for his gun....I think he's sold on the TSX.lol

[Bmt85]

Those 275 TSX are no joke! I also shot a black bear with one, at about 40yds, and no one could believe the damage. When the bear was hit, it dropped and rolled around for about a second or two, then kicked its way across the road (about 10-15ft), and he was done. Entrance hole a bit over an inch, exit was the size of a cue ball, and it started to pull the lung out with it! The bear was weighed at 225lbs (which didn’t seem right), but my taxedermist showed me one of his rugs that was slightly smaller than mine and he said his was just over 300lbs, on a calibrated scale.

My load is probably pushing similar velocity to your bosses, as mine was loaded hotter, but was shot from a 16” barrel. Everyone at camp didn’t really think much of me running an AR, a couple even seemed to turn their nose up at it. That was until we saw what happened to the bear. They were VERY intrigued after that. Lol