Hi Guys,
Would like to get some opinions from people who have hunted Bison with a handgun. I am getting ready to go Bison hunting with my S&W 500 I been told the range will be between 75 yards to 125 yards.
I have two choices of bullets to used either the Barnes 400 grain Buster or the Barnes 325 grain XPB bullet.
Out of my gun I get the 400 grains at the muzzle is 1515 fps the 325 grain is going 1735 fps.
Which one do you recommend ?

Oh I can consistently put the rounds on a 6 inch plate at a 100 yards with my shooting sticks.

Thanks,

borntohunt

I’d use the Buster between the 2

Between the two, I’d go with the heavier bullet. Inserting my opinion....I’d use a hard cast, wide metplat, bullet of 400 or more grains. I’m running 400’s in my 460. At normal handgun velocities ( not rifle velocities), it’s difficult to beat a heavy, hard cast bullet for big and or dangerous game! memtb

I like the 325's however, I have never shot anything with it of that size.

I'll share the story of my friend Joel who took two bison with a handgun.

First was from a Linebaugh Custom 500 with 4 3/4" barrel. His load was a 400 grain LBT LFN style cast from Montana Bullet works at 1080 FPS.
The shot, as I remember, was 118 yards. Bullet went completely thru both shoulders and exited. One shot, DRT.

Second was shooting an Encore pistol in 378 GNR with 260 Accubond at 200+ yards. Again one shot, DRT.

Pic links.

Look at the ballistics of the rifle that actually killed off the umpteen millions of bison, and compare to that.
Basically, a heavy bullet of 500 grains, at 1100-1200 fps, More or less.
And they were 1-20 tin to lead, usually.
Last one I killed was with a 45-60, 350 lead bullet, velocity, who knows. Bullet went right through. They are hollow inside. Dropped and died. Another one with the same load started walking in a circle for a few seconds, then fell down. They aren't hard to kill, if they want to die. If not, they can go for miles. Point is to just deflate the lungs. If you want to hit the heart, then that is very low, under the shoulder. Don't hit the hump.

Have killed quite a few bison with 45 colt, 475 and 500 Linebaugh’s. The 500 worked the best using a 450 grain Keith at 1100 FPS. Shot placement matters the most of course, a bullet across the top of the heart puts them down quickly.
I’ve alsokilled them with rifles from 223 to 505 Gibbs.

In your case I’d use the heavy bullet as once in a while the can get mad at you

My son got one with a Toyota Corrola. Very lethal.

Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:
My son got one with a Toyota Corrola. Very lethal.

Grizz

How many times did he hit him? memtb

quote:

My son got one with a Toyota Corrola.

What was the range??!! What shape was the projectile in? Flattened I bet!
Peter.

The buster is tougher than any hardcast. That said bison arent tough and are fragile. The barnes will penetrate just fine and will do waaaaasy more damage. I ko’d a big one with a swift aframe........from a 41 mag. 210 whopping grains at less velocity than either of your loads. The buffalo hunters werent after quick kills. Just shoot a bunch and wait for em to eventually die. Put it in the heart or big vessels and anything will die. Hit the periphery of the vitals and the barnes will serve u better though the 275 gr 500 load opens bigger and more readily.

I shot one with a S&W .500. Hand load with brass 420 grain bullet. Hit him in the neck and he dropped like a sack of Potatos. Made a nice clean .50 cal hole through and through.

Bison are rather narrowly constructed compared to other bovine so maximum penetration isn't all that critical. My biggest complaint about the Busters are the narrow meplats they feature... I too think the XPB with do a lot more internal damage. tradmark is right about the buffalo hunters of the past, they shot them en masse and let them die at their own pace. We can do better than that.

I do not agree that Bison are easy to penetrate. Many big bore African dangerous game expanding rifle bullets fail to exit on them. Phil Shoemaker shot one with his 458 Win 3 Times without an exit if memory serves.

I. Fact I spot a bull Bison with a 416 Rigby 400 grain Nosler through the rib cage without an exit

Exit or not the xbp is the way to go imho. Ive personally killed 15 bison now. A solid is not needed nor wanted. Hit the “hot zone” and any of the aforementioned bullets will do it. Hit lung periphery then you will wish for a bullet that does more damage without question. Cape buff and waterbuff are much more thickly constructed with thicker bone and hide and i dont recommend solids from even smaller calibers. I use expanding bullets, the right kind, out of 454’s. A 500 smith is a no brainer. Use the xbp.

Btw, phil musta used crummy bullet bullets or poor placement to need 3 shots from a 458. Never needed more than one for any bison ive seen shot, even by the little girl at a ranch we were hunting with a 308.

If memory serves Phil used North Fork bullets they ar3 not crummy bullets. In my experience and opinion a large Bison is not easy to penetrate.

This guy weighed near a ton and he had large bones as do all 2000 pound bovine.

I think its just a matter of what you are compring it to. Theyre big but not thick when compared to cape buff or big waterbuff. Not arguing just remembering my first capebuff and i was shocked how tough the hide and even the muscle was compared to the bison i had shot. Its kinda like eland and cape buff. Big bones in both, hide and muscle are sooooo much tougher in a cape buff despite similiar weights.

http://animaliaenthusiasts.pro...n-bison-cape-buffalo

Savannah Cape Buffalo are the largest and a record one weighed 2200 pounds. The Woodland Bison is the largest and a record wild Bison was 2200 pounds. Ones raised for market have it weights up to 3800 pounds. There are smaller versions that top out around 1000 pounds. But a woodland Bison takes a back seat in bone size to no one.

Weight does not equal toughness. If so eland would be tougher to put down than a cape buffalo as well. They most certainly arent. I would recommend shooting a few examples of both and then formulating an opiniom on it. Just cutting through the shoulder muscles of a cape buffalo will make the difference crystal clear.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
Weight does not equal toughness. If so eland would be tougher to put down than a cape buffalo as well. They most certainly arent. I would recommend shooting a few examples of both and then formulating an opiniom on it. Just cutting through the shoulder muscles of a cape buffalo will make the difference crystal clear.

Toughness to put down and toughness to penetrate aren’t one and the same either.

I would go with the CPBC 440gr WFN and expect an exit. Bison have a narrow cross section, as evident by the many reports of exits. If we go by reputation alone, bison are nowhere near as tenacious as Cape buffalo.

My brother shot a bison just over 1800lbs and had his hornady 225 ftx just poking thru on the offside hide of the bison from a 44 mag. After i shot my first cape buff my buddy tried a penetration test with a 475 linebaugh with 420 grain lbt wfn bullet. Didnt make it through the offside shoulder bone. That was on a smaller cape buff. Not a lot smaller but smaller. When cutting up the shoulders of the considerable number of bison i or my children have shot was always like cutting nice cuts of table fare. One of the reasons theyre so delicious. Cutting the shoulders of every ape buff kill ive been a part of they were all like cutting a radial tire. Hide/miscle/sinew all much tougher and bones thicker. Skulls noticeably thicker. Just much shorter and not as long. Hell i had a barnes 250xbp stuck on the muscle of the outside of the offside shoulder of a capebuff and i went through two havalon blades to get through 6-8” of the muscle. Bison presented no such issues as i processed most of them myself. Never needed to cut into anything to recover anything cuz all bullets either passed thru or were in the offside hide.

Are you sure the bullet was a true LBT or a fake LBT “style” all hard cast are not created equal. I’ve used shitty ones before. Nose shape as well as hardness effects performance. You sure have experienced more than you share of negative performance. Bullets do not penetrate as well in dead animals as they do in live ones.

I’ve had excellent performance with hard cast and I’ve experienced shifty performance with some. Instead of condemning “hardcast” I dwelled into th3 details of what makes them perform perfectly and 2hat caused dismal failure.

How does one determine if its a true lbt. Is it, if it comes with lbt on the box? Is there a formula one can use? Before one places a shot on an animal, how do we truly truly know? How do we know if it’s gonna fail spectacularly and not penetrate well? How do we know if it has magical lbt qualities that kill the heck out of everything. Seems complicated, ill just stick to monometal solids running fast, barnes xbp’s, and swift aframes. Nearly a hundred head of game over 350lbs and not a failure. Seems like the way to go.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
How does one determine if its a true lbt. Is it, if it comes with lbt on the box? Is there a formula one can use? Before one places a shot on an animal, how do we truly truly know? How do we know if it’s gonna fail spectacularly and not penetrate well? How do we know if it has magical lbt qualities that kill the heck out of everything. Seems complicated, ill just stick to monometal solids running fast, barnes xbp’s, and swift aframes. Nearly a hundred head of game over 350lbs and not a failure. Seems like the way to go.

How do you know how a jacketed bullet works, before testing it?
LBT stands for Lead Bullet Technologies, a LFN is .120” below bore Dianne and a WFN is .090” below bore diameter. The nose has a specific length. Veral Smith is owner of LBT and his book Jacketed Perfomance With Cast Bullets is a wealth of information.

Ive read what he has written extensively. I have the little blue book and while its got lots of info in it i dont agree with all of it by any stretch. Obviously testing is required but when the same boxes of hardcasts work well sometimes, not so well on others, the “ran it too fast but that one was too slow” kinda thing. Funny these monometal solids dont seem to require these special formulas and exacting shapes to work and work well everytime. I can spare the extra 10-20 bucks or so for 50 or so bullets so it seems easy and certainly makes sense to me at least. That said, to the op, the 500 smith has ample power to drive a 1” diameter barnes with spinning sharp petals into a bison and do more damage than the buster or any solid in existence so i would use the barnes and focus on placement.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
Ive read what he has written extensively. I have the little blue book and while its got lots of info in it i dont agree with all of it by any stretch. Obviously testing is required but when the same boxes of hardcasts work well sometimes, not so well on others, the “ran it too fast but that one was too slow” kinda thing. Funny these monometal solids dont seem to require these special formulas and exacting shapes to work and work well everytime. I can spare the extra 10-20 bucks or so for 50 or so bullets so it seems easy and certainly makes sense to me at least. That said, to the op, the 500 smith has ample power to drive a 1” diameter barnes with spinning sharp petals into a bison and do more damage than the buster or any solid in existence so i would use the barnes and focus on placement.

Well that’s vastly different than my experience, I shoot and the6 die without drama. Plenty of penetration and good wound channels. Very weird.

Yup. I guess it determines by how many times is encompassed by the term always. I dont think its that crazy. Just talk to what some of your fellow hunters from the bash observe. Also, when saying you got great wound channels, what are you comparing it too? In addition to animal numbers, how many have you shot with the bullets and loads i speak of?

I notice that any time the shortcomings of cast bullets are pointed out, 'some' people will make every excuse in the world for it. From the "it's not a real LBT" to "too fast", "too slow", "not hard enough" or "too hard". Sounds like having sex with a bitchy old lady. Just like all the nonsense about the XTP, I don't understand the blind, emotional attachment to certain bullets.

I'd love to know, because I've obviously been doing it wrong, what IS a proper cast bullet? Not as an abstract concept but an actual example.

quote:

Originally posted by newfrontier45:
I notice that any time the shortcomings of cast bullets are pointed out, 'some' people will make every excuse in the world for it. From the "it's not a real LBT" to "too fast", "too slow", "not hard enough" or "too hard". Sounds like having sex with a bitchy old lady. Just like all the nonsense about the XTP, I don't understand the blind, emotional attachment to certain bullets.

I'd love to know, because I've obviously been doing it wrong, what IS a proper cast bullet? Not as an abstract concept but an actual example.

I shot about an 800 pound Bison with a 435 grain LBT like LFN and the bullet out of the 500L at 1350 FPS. It did not penetrate straight and was totally ineffective. The meplat was wider than an LFN not not as wide as a WFN. The nose was shorter than a WFN. I have no idea why it would not penetrate straight or deep unless it was nose shape as demonstrated by Micheal458 in his bore bore rifle penetration test. I’ve never experienced a failure with a true LBT hardcast from a mold from LBT made from a proper alloy

Hardcast are no different from jacketed in the regards that they all do not perform the same.

How do you know a jacketed will work properly without testing it yourself, no different with hardcast they are not all created equal.

I’ve used some LBT copies such as the Cast Performance 45 cal 360 grainier that works very well

All are based on being tested. Many many times. Bullets i recommend have been 100% on performance on many many animals. I am talking about failures with the same bullets from the same box of ones that worked well. I think the problem is in the mythos of the hardcast and all this slow nonsense.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
I think the problem is in the mythos of the hardcast and all this slow nonsense.

And that they do what they do without deformation, fragmentation or loss of mass. The "heavy and slow" is pushed because they have to be slow to hold their wad. I would never use a cast bullet on something big at rifle velocities.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
All are based on being tested. Many many times. Bullets i recommend have been 100% on performance on many many animals. I am talking about failures with the same bullets from the same box of ones that worked well. I think the problem is in the mythos of the hardcast and all this slow nonsense.

It’s about the correct bullet, do all jacketed bullets work perfectly?

All bullets have a performance window. I do not like shooting a 454 with 300 grain bullets at 1700 FPS or loaded tp 65,000 PSI. Anyone that does is fine by me.

I like about 1400 FPS and it works well when loaded with a proper bullet.

quote:

Originally posted by jwp475:

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
All are based on being tested. Many many times. Bullets i recommend have been 100% on performance on many many animals. I am talking about failures with the same bullets from the same box of ones that worked well. I think the problem is in the mythos of the hardcast and all this slow nonsense.

It’s about the correct bullet, do all jacketed bullets work perfectly?

Did i, in anyway advocate for any and all jacketed bullets? Pretty sure ive been very specific. I think every solid copper bullet works well.

quote:

Originally posted by jwp475:
All bullets have a performance window. I do not like shooting a 454 with 300 grain bullets at 1700 FPS or loaded tp 65,000 PSI. Anyone that does is fine by me.

I like about 1400 FPS and it works well when loaded with a proper bullet.

But some bullets have a performance window that fully envelopes what revolvers will do. No questions there at all. So how would that not be the better choice. Faster, the better and bigger wound channel. Why would one handicap their ability to put an expensive trophy fee down asap? I wouldnt, i guess if someone wants to use 1920’s tech then go ahead, fine by me and have it work part of the time. You can ask any of the guys from the bovine bash what hs happened and how many bullets that are run within the parameters you speak of and seen failures. I guess my reply would be to shoot more stuff and see if they keep working everytime. For most of us they dont. This isnt new. It just hasnt been talked about much and quite frankly most in the hardcast community didnt shoot that much big dangerous things anyway and i stand by my statement that bison dont fall into that category either.