ONE OF THE BEST features of the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw is the lead core’s position: it is located in the front of the bullet, with the rear of the bullet being homogenous gilding metal. These bullets work awesome and I have been using them since they were the trophy bonded bear claw. The biggest is the incorporation of a polymer tip that, along with a small cavity underneath it and external skiving, facilitate bullet expansion. The original Trophy Bonded Bear Claw was good in its own right, but since bringing it in-house, Federal has made a number of improvements. This occasionally happens, sometimes because a premium bullet near the end of its travels often doesn’t leave an obvious hole in muscle. Privacy Policy • Contact Us • Warnings • FAQs • © 2021 National Rifle Association of America, Remington Model 700 American Hunter Rifle Project, Women On Target® Instructional Shooting Clinics, Volunteer At The Great American Outdoor Show, Marion P. 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The Federal version, like the original, was designed specifically for larger game, so it often didn’t expand well on deer-size animals, especially at lower impact velocities, which often occurred at longer ranges. The Vital-Shok Trophy Bonded Tip utilizes superior technology to give hunters the ultimate big game bullet. Winchester: Deer Season XP, Soft Point, Ballistic Silvertip, Power Point and Power Max Bonded All-around Bullets for Class 2 and Class 3 game Combination hunts, such as for mule deer, black bear and Rocky Mountain elk or general African plains game, place multiple demands on bullets. On my first safari, I loaded my .300 Winchester Magnum with 200-grain Swift A-Frames, and they served me very well. Sierra GameKing and ProHunterThe traditional cup-and-core bullets, if they are of proper sectional density, can work very well on African plains game. When you plan your safari, picking out the cartridge/bullet combination is a big part of the fun, and I hope this list will get you thinking about some different possibilities. The rifle used was a Benelli R1 semiautomatic .30-06, and the ammunition was Federal Premium loaded with 180-grain TBTs. But there are many more species of what are collectively referred to as plains game—those antelope, swine and other smaller species of game animals—which offer great sport, even in the dangerous game blocks of Africa. Water-soaked newspaper is more commonly used as test media but is comparatively kind to big-game bullets, with even cup-and-core designs normally ending up perfectly mushroomed. Federal started making Bear Claw bullets at its Minnesota factory, switching to what’s known as 95-5 gilding metal instead of pure copper. I have spent a bunch of time with them in my .318 Westley Richards, taking deer here in the U.S., as well as taking the classic cartridge to Zimbabwe, where the Weldcores handled a big Burchell’s zebra stallion as well as a handsome old kudu bull, with one shot each. Federal announced the Trophy Bonded Tip in 2008, and publicized the new bullet through field tests involving various firearms-industry people. Shooting at 35 yards not only results in maximum stress on the bullet, but with rifles sighted-in a couple inches high at 100 is also about where the bullet’s path first coincides with the reticle. If I wind up hunting somewhere that requires lead free ammunition, the Norma Ecostrike line would be where I'd personally start. The two loads listed use charges of Ramshot Magnum and IMR-7977 which have previously proven accurate with other bullets in the 160-grain range. 5. Check out the following articles:• Review: Tikka T3X Lite• Top Bear Rifles and Loads• 3 Rifle Cartridges to Hunt the World• Why My Cartridge is Better Than Yours• Top 5 Handgun Hunting Cartridges• An Ode to the Ruger Model 77• Top 5 Hunting Cartridges of the 21st Century• Top 5 Deer Bullets for 2018• An Ode to the .30-30 Winchester• 5 Reasons to Book a Spring Bear Hunt• An Ode to the Ruger Mini Thirty• Boattail vs. Flat-Base Bullets• How to Build a Custom Rifle• Choosing a Cartridge for North America's Big Game• Top 5 American-Made Hunting Rifles• How to Choose a Buffalo Rifle• An Ode to the .223 Remington• Top 5 Coyote Cartridges• The Ultimate Long-Range Hunting Cartridge• The Greatest Whitetail Cartridge Ever Designed• An Ode to the Browning BAR• Top 5 Bear Bullets• Do You Really Need a Magnum Cartridge?• Why the Ruger No. I’m already making plans to field- test some more. Refine by Product Family: Trophy Bonded Bear Claw Trophy Bonded Tip ... Trophy Bonded Tip Trophy Copper. This does a couple of things, both of which are equal parts of the success of the Bear Claw. If you feel your cartridge is on the light side, load a heavy-for-caliber A-Frame and sally forth. 2• Top 10 Mythical Game Species• Top 5 Monometal Soft-Point Bullets• Top 5 Subsonic .22 Long Rifle Loads• The Most American Rifle Cartridge• Tips for the Traveling Hunter• How to Choose a Gun Safe• Best Gun Cases for the Traveling Hunter• An Ode to the .30-06 Springfield• Top 5 Boutique Bullet Companies• Top 5 .22 Long Rifle Loads• 5 Reasons Round-Nose Bullets Are Still Cool• Top 5 Dangerous Game Loads• Top 5 Turkey Loads• 5 Rifle Cartridges That Need to Make a Comeback• Top 5 Safari Calibers• 5 New Year's Resolutions for Hunters• What Your Favorite Rifle Cartridge Says About You• America's Most Wanted Cartridges• America's Strangest Game Laws• What Your Favorite Rifle Cartridge Says About You, Part II• Top 5 Overrated Rifle Cartridges• Top 5 Underrated Rifle Cartridges• 5 Cartridges You Might Not Know About• Top 5 Wildcat Cartridges• An Ode to the Ruger Mini-14• Top 5 Hog Loads• Why .30-30 Winchester Will Never Die, E-mail your comments/questions about this site to: EmediaHunter@nrahq.org, For questions/comments about American Hunter magazine, please e-mail:Publications@nrahq.org, You can contact the NRA via phone at: NRA Member Programs1-800-672-3888, To advertise on American Hunter, visit nramediakit.com for more information. This equated to longer shots, out to 300 and 350 yards, and I couldn’t keep these bullets inside an animal, including gemsbok, mountain zebra and eland. Swift A-FrameWhile heralded by the big-bore shooters, the Swift A-Frame makes an excellent choice for a medium-caliber plains game rifle, especially if eland are on the menu. I bought some 180 grain Trophy Bonded Tip bullets for my 30/06 and the accuracy is flat out amazing! Some hunters have expressed concern that the TBT might expand too much, reducing penetration, so I shot the .270, 7mm and 180-grain .30 bullets into stacks of dry newspaper at 35 yards. A plains game safari is affordable compared to a brown bear, moose, Cape buffalo or one of the cats, and you probably already own a rifle suitable for most species of plains game, if the proper projectile is employed. These are bonded polymer tipped descendants of the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, and may be a good fit in the 10 yards to way out there all around category. It may not be a coincidence that Federal again decided to supply component TBTs during the first year of the Trump administration as demand for ammunition dropped. The A-Frame is like a Nosler Partition on steroids in that it has the copper partition between the two cores, but the front core is bonded to the jacket. Trophy Bonded Tip's solid copper core and bonded jacket provide the deep penetration and terminal performance of a heavy-duty bullet, while its grooved shank, polymer tip and boat-tail give it the accuracy of a match bullet. One solution Federal tried was some of the first extra-velocity factory loads called High Energy. 1. After taking the quarters home and allowing them to age and tenderize, my wife and I spent a day butchering the meat. However, the 165-grain .308 Winchester load listed was worked up for the Mossberg Patriot before Federal listed Varget in its data. The major reason for enhanced expansion is probably the big cavity required for the shank of the plastic tip. I’ve taken it to 350 yards—and even a bit further—with excellent results. One of those customers was Montana gunsmith Dave Gentry, who proudly showed me a box of Bear Claws he had purchased for elk hunting, though he hadn’t fired any yet. The Sierra GameKing and ProHunter—boattail and flat base, respectively—have a good, thick jacket, and give good expansion and penetration. This list includes good designs, but there are more, too many to list. Refine by Price: $50 - $99.99 Reset Quickview Trophy Bonded Tip 338 Win Magnum. It is designed for deep penetration and for use on Class 2 to Class 4 class game. 6. Federal Premium produces their outstanding Cape-Shok line of ammunition using four different bullets: the Swift A-Frame, the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, the Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer Solid and the Woodleigh Hydro Solid. However, they have bonded the jacket and core, so in addition to being accurate, they are tough as well. The present 180-grain Trophy Bonded Tip .30-06 factory load is listed at the standard 2,700 fps muzzle velocity, yet according to the Sierra Infinity ballistic program shoots just about as flat as the 2,880 fps Bear Claw load out to 500 yards. Granted I have no firsthand experience with the trophy bonded tip, but (even tho I’ve used bonded bullets for deer), a bonded bullet just ain’t needed for our southeast whitetails imo. Accuracy averaged 1.25 inches for three-shot groups at 100 yards, sufficient for big game at “normal” ranges, and the higher velocity did help expansion on lighter animals. Page 1 of 2 1 2 Next > Nov 21, 2011 #1 . Mag., or when using lighter bullet weights in the .375 H&H. some Bear Claws for testing. The front approximately 55% of the bullet resembles a normal soft point bullet with a bonded lead core; the shank of the bullet is solid hard copper. The buck stood quartering toward me at 65 yards, and at the shot made the little leap typical of a solid chest shot, then trotted a ways before falling. In the late 1990s I bit into a mule deer round steak, my teeth encountering what felt like a chunk of bone. Velocity was listed at 2,880 fps, though in the NULA it chronographed around 2,950 fps, probably because of a tighter-than-average chamber. This makes it easy to precisely place several bullets in a single stack of paper. The Trophy Bonded Tip takes its daddy, the highly respected Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, to a new level of performance.It's sleek, accurate and deadly on game. I like the performance of the 235-grain Raptor in the .375 H&H for plains game; it mates well with the heavier dangerous game bullets. The temperature was warm for November, so we skinned the bull as soon as possible. Massive shock wave puts the animal down, massive damage keeps it there. I’ve had excellent results with the Oryx in the 6.5-284 Norma, as well as the .308 Win. The hunt took place a month after the rut, when bulls have resolved their recent differences. I was hoping to find the first bullet under the hide, but did not, so guessed it ended up in the massive left shoulder. I was one of the lucky people invited on an elk hunt on a ranch near my Montana home. Mostly I used Federal’s loading data which, when compared to data for the same powders with other bullets, indicates the TBT develops more velocity (and hence pressure) than some other bullets. I was able to shoot 0.65 inch 3-shot group at 100 yards with them. The bullet’s ogive is designed to break into small blades upon impact, with the blades creating their own wound channel, and the base remaining at caliber dimension for deep penetration. Monday, June 10, 2019. Federal has long loaded this bullet in their factory ammunition, but it is now available in component form for the handloaders. This bullet provides deep penetration and high-weight retention. Aug 14, 2011 #7 mtelkhntr78 New member. The Weldcore is a round nose design, but inside 200 yards that poses no issue. I have shot trophy bonded bear claw in my 375 and loved them, so I was looking at the federal premium trophy bonded tip for my 300 win mag for future plainsgame. The results are listed in an accompanying table, along with the newspaper results from two High Energy 180-grain factory loads. If impact velocities are radically high, the possibility of jacket/core separation exists with boattail bullets, but I've seen the Sierra perform very well in Africa. Still, Bear Claws worked so well on really big game that in the early 1990s Federal began offering them in factory ammunition, which sold so well Carter’s production couldn’t keep up. If you really want the premium bullets, use the Nosler BT. by Philip Massaro - 8. It proved to be very accurate with the 165-grain TBT as well. Available in component form, you should give them a try in your rifle. 3. (Of course, as a rifle loony I also reserve the right to acquire 7mm magnums in the future.) They’re available in both loaded ammunition as well as component form. The 73.0-grain charge of Reloder 19 used in the .300 Winchester Magnum is 1.5 grains less than Federal’s listed maximum, but 72 to 73 grains of RL-19 has shot extremely accurately with other 165s in several .300 Winchester Magnums. Ok so I've used this cartridge for over 3 years now and have shot several deer with it along with my dad. i used a 165 gr. The bullet cracked the scapula just above the shoulder joint and exited toward the rear of the ribs on the opposite side, leaving a big hole through both lungs. This allowed faster production and reduced bore fouling somewhat. The plastic tip on the Trophy Bonded Tip helps it expand well on deer-size game while still retaining enough weight to penetrate deeply on larger animals. ; I wouldn’t hesitate to make this my full-time plains game bullet. We found a group of a half-dozen. 300gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw 300gr Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer Solid. I'm getting ready for an October Elk Hunting Trip to Colorado. And everything I’ve said about the Trophy Bonded Tip can be said about its cousin, the Federal Edge TLR. Federal’s Trophy Bonded Tip bullet uses exactly the same interior construction as the Bear Claw ammunition in the 1990s, but with modern exterior changes. Shooting the 140-grain .270, 160-grain 7mm and 180-grain Trophy Bonded Tip bullets into stacks of dry newspaper resulted in penetration and retained weight practically identical to Trophy Bonded Bear Claws from 20 years ago. Mag. Woodleigh WeldcoreAustralia’s Woodleigh Bullets have embraced the traditional bullet profile used in the Kynoch ammunition of yesteryear. Refine by Product Family: Trophy Copper Price $20 - $49.99. It also arrives at 500 with about 250 fps more velocity, and it drifts 6 inches less in a 10-mph cross breeze. In 2014 the 180-grain .30 caliber version provided a dozen one-shot kills for me in Namibia, including a superb kudu bull, and in 2015 I used the same bullet to drop a huge public-land bull elk in Utah—a tag that took me 17 years to draw. Refine by Price: $20 - $49.99 $50 - $99.99. The Bear Claw (it's really what the Trophy Bonded bullet is) and Partitions are two of the 'hardest' bullets made by their respective manufacutures and retain a very high % of weight. The Trophy Bonded Tip expands very well on deer, even at moderate velocities. Both are excellent choices. Get the American Hunter Insider newsletter for at-a-glance access to industry news, gear, gun reviews, videos and more—delivered directly to your Inbox. Some shooters believe plastic tips “wedge” deeply into the bullet, but high-speed video of bullets shot into clear ballistic gelatin shows the tips moving ahead of the bullet almost immediately after expansion begins, then drifting off to the side. I enjoy trying new bullets, and finding new combinations that work well; I’ve had some PHs start out as doubters, and by the time I left, I’d changed their minds. 7. cy912 Well-Known Member. Federal planned to offer TBTs as component bullets, but reversed that decision within a few months, perhaps because Obama’s election increased demand for ammunition so much that selling loading components became impractical. The final touch was nickel-plating the gilding metal jacket, supposedly to prevent tarnishing. The pure copper also tended to foul barrels more than conventional gilding metal jackets, mild brass made of copper alloyed with 5 to 10 percent zinc. Joined Oct 29, 2010 Messages 116 Location Billings, MT. and .300 Win. Originally Posted by domit. Federal Trophy Bonded Tip stands apart from other big game bullets, combining bonded construction, a bone-crushing solid copper shank and a high-performance polymer tip that tightens groups. Posted By: colorado bob Re: Trophy bonded tip. Use a cartridge worthy of the spectrum of African plains game, top it with a good bullet, and you’ll have a fantastic safari. The Ramshot Hunter load with the 180-grain TBT was specifically designed to match the velocity of the High Energy 180-grain load from the NULA .30-06 for the penetration test, and it also shot well. Barnes TSX/TTSXIf you like the monometal bullet designs, it’s hard to beat a Barnes. They worked well on bigger game, precisely what Carter designed them for, but accuracy was mixed. about 180 yard. Federal Trophy Bonded Tip Performance Review Discussion in 'Guns & Ammo' started by cy912, Nov 21, 2011. Federal's Trophy Bonded Tip (TBT) bullet is perhaps my all-time favorite projectile for hunting big game. (At about the same time, a Utah hunter named Randy Brooks was encountering the same accuracy and fouling problems with an all-copper, hollowpoint design he called the Barnes X-Bullet.). Let’s take a look at some good choices for your plains game safari, in no particular order. In 2014 the 180-grain .30 caliber version provided a dozen one-shot kills for me in Namibia, including a superb kudu bull, and in 2015 I used the same bullet to drop a huge public-land bull elk in Utah—a tag that took me 17 years to draw. and 7mm Rem. Three-shot groups with 10 different handloads resulted in an overall group average of .79-inch at 100 yards. If your rifle shoots them well, there’s no good reason to leave the Sierras at home. The plastic tip on the Trophy Bonded Tip helps it expand well on deer-size game while still retaining enough weight to penetrate deeply on larger animals. Federal’s tables don’t include data for the .280 Ackley Improved, the largest 7mm cartridge chambered in any of my present rifles. If your hunting list includes a wide variety of species—you could very easily see kudu, impala, duiker and zebra in the same day—opt for the bullet which will handle the toughest out there, and the Barnes duo will fit the bill. Both my wife and I used the 180-grain High Energy Trophy Bonded loads in a New Ultra Light Arms .30-06. This idea allows the front of the bullet to expand like a standard cup-and-core bullet, yet prevents jacket/core separation, so retained weight stays high and the bullet can penetrate deeply. The present Trophy Bonded Tip component bullets come with printed loading data, and more powders are available on Federal’s website. Among those hunters was Jack Carter, a guy who primarily wanted a tougher expanding bullet for African game such as Cape buffalo. Trophy Bonded Tip. Some loads shot even better, like this .300 Winchester Magnum using 73.0 grains of Reloder 19 and the 180-grain TBT from a Heym SR-21. Federal's Trophy Bonded Tip (TBT) bullet is perhaps my all-time favorite projectile for hunting big game. They are very accurate, and while they don’t possess the highest BC values, they’re sleek enough for general hunting work. My .300 Winchester likes the 150-grain Raptor, giving a very flat trajectory, yet giving enough penetration for a quick kill.
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