Next month I will be hunting black bear over bait. I will be using a .375 Ruger (a little light I know).

Which would be the better round:

a) 270 gr Hornady SP-RP at 2840 fps

b) 300 gr Swift A-frame at ~2500 fps.

I'm thinking the Hornady would open up more and leave a better blood trail, but I tend to like shoulder shots and the SAF would probably break the shoulder a little more consistently.

What say you??

Thanks.

BH63

Either would be fine.

On my Colorado Black Bears over bait I use a 30/06 with 180 round nose factory loads from Winchester & Remington. Both killed bears. Shots were from 75 yards.

For a baited grizzly hunt in 2017. I used a 375 Ruger with the 270 grain factory load from Hornady. One shot kill. Shot was from 100 yards. The bear went about 30 yards before piling up. I didn't recover the bullet it was a pass thru. Shot was a quartering to me. Inside left shoulder thru the lungs & out in the right shoulder. No major bones were hit. Exit wound was about the size of a half dollar.

I would use which ever one is the most accurate. Shooting baited bears is all about shot placement.

Don't you have a baited grizzly hunt scheduled for next year? I would use the same load for black bear-----use this black bear as a practice run.

I took the 375 Ruger on a Cape Buffalo last summer and I used a 300 grain Nolser Partition. I would serious look at that for your bear hunt. I've got another grizzly hunt scheduled with Jake Jefferson in the June 2021. That will be my choice. 81 grains of IMR 4350, Winchester Mag Primer & a 300 grain Nloser Partition bullet.

That is a lot of gun and both of those are pretty hard bullet options. Something softer and faster will give you a big hole and a little more blood pressure. Something like a .270 with a 130 pro-hunter or core-lokt or a .243 with a 90 grain Accubond will get that bear to stop twitching faster.

Not sure how you could make a poor choice with a .375. Well, maybe a solid or that 200 gr Sierra FP......

Maybe see what shoots best? My GG seems to shoot 300s slightly better, but the difference is not enough to worry about.

Actually this hunt will be kind of a tune up for next years grizz over bait.

Although I booked the black bear hunt back in January. LOL

Since the SAF is a little tougher bullet,
maybe I will do something similar to the old rule of thumb for Cape buffalo, using the Hornady for the first shot and the SAF for the follow up shots.

That should pack a double wallop. Both seem to shoot about the same out to about 100 yds anyway.

Thanks.

BH63

quote:

On my Colorado Black Bears over bait I use a 30/06 with 180 round nose factory loads from Winchester & Remington. Both killed bears. Shots were from 75 yards.

Hey Colorado Bob, how recent are those Bears?

25 years or so. I killed one the last year we had a spring season. Baiting was banned via a voter ballot.

My 12 yr old son killed a black bear in early June with a 95 gr BT. 243 win. 30 yrds bound and dead.

My black bear gun is also 375 ruger. I use 250 gr sierra's. what ever you choose will work.

Yeah it has been quite awhile since we lost the Spring Bear hunt.

I took a 400lb black bear with a 376 Steyr using 270 Hornady. I had a quartering shot and hit the bear near the last rib and the bullet exited the neck. The bear dropped at the shot and never moved.
I think you are good to go with either bullet you have selected.

A 30-30 with a 170g CoreLokt is plenty. A 300g Woodleigh Weldcore would be lovely in your 375 Ruger. Opens up quick, large mushroom, great weight retention and penetration.

270 gr Hornady should work well, opens quick and drives on through I would think. I've used plain old 270gr Federal Powershok in .375 that did great too.

Either bullet is great. Bears can be tough. Shoot him through the shoulders and anchor him.

Asking which bullet to use for black bear in a .375 Ruger is like Kim Jong Un trying to decide whether to use a fragmenting or armor-piercing round when he executed his uncle with an anti-aircraft gun.

By the way, a black bear isn't a big or tough animal. It will die quicker and closer if you shoot it with something like a .270 Win 130 grain Power Point; but the .375 will do if that's all you've got.

Admittedly, I've only killed one black bear and seen one other killed. But our guide in Alberta cautioned us that whatever caliber we used to bring ammunition using quickly expanding bullets. He had seen plenty of bears run off into the wilderness when shot with big chunks of hard metal.

In the Maine bear camp I've hunted in over the past two years, several bears are lost each year because they were not anchored on the first shot.

Last year I knocked a bear down with a 45-70 using 350 gr SAFs. The bear got back up and took off.

It was a slight, quartering shot facing me and I tried to break the near shoulder and punch through into the heat/lung. A big strip of fat was found on the track, but after about 75 yds the track was lost in the thick, wet cover. A rain had washed most of the blood trail out.

It appears the heavy leg bone was hit at just enough angle to deflect the bullet. Would a faster, harder hitting bullet have broken the bone and not deflected? Maybe.

Another guy shot a bear right between the shoulder blades with a .458 Socom. It knocked the bear down, but it jumped up and ran off. No doubt in my mind a heavier caliber would have killed that bear.

Hence the 375 Ruger.

I know I could have waited a little longer for a broadside shot, but the bear, which was huge, was getting really nervous and I am past the age whee I take shots at unwounded, running game.

I killed a bear a couple of decades ago with a shoulder shot at about 70 yards using a 154 gr, PSP in .7mm Wby.

This bear was in Colorado, and even though it ran off into some scrub oak, it was easy to track in the dryer, more open terrain. I found it dead within 50 yards.

I know most black bears aren't that difficult to kill, but unless you break both shoulders, or make a spine or brain shot, they seldom do bang flops.

Although I've done it, following a wounded black bear in the dark, wet woods of Northern Maine is not the most fun thing to do IMO.

BH63

I posed the question of “What’s the best all around bullet for the 375 Ruger” to Phil Shoemaker (458Win on here)a few years back. He recommended either a 270 grain TSX or 260 grain accubond.

People that don't hunt heavy covers can easily confuse killing and retrieving. Why not? Those two things mean about the same thing in open cover. Not in typical Maine cover.

The .30s are about as good I want out back. Will never knock a .270, but there is nothing even slightly silly about a .375. Yes, you can overemphasize penetration at the expense of wound channel. Big and fast is better than either a) big and slow or b) small and fast.

I will never again use a .243 or .224 up here in this cover - bear, moose, or deer. Certainty about shot placement is little consolation if I fail to locate the animal.

For me, Black Bear is .30-06 and 180 grain partition. Then again, Brown Bear was a .330 Dakota, not in the same league there.

If you are set on using the .375, I’d get something with a relatively soft bullet. A lighter partition or such. Cup and core will work just fine.

If you want it as a trial run for grizzly, use what you are for that bear- just realize that it’s not the ideal bullet for the lighter animal.

Best for 375 HH to

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
I posed the question of “What’s the best all around bullet for the 375 Ruger” to Phil Shoemaker (458Win on here)a few years back. He recommended either a 270 grain TSX or 260 grain accubond.

Sorry no legal bears in Texas! I have shot many a feral pig with the 375 Ruger. Several have been over 300 pounds. Some have run but most did not. None of them have been too big or small for the 375! It will work just fine on both bears your are going to hunt. I hand load, so after trying several different bullets, I settled on the 250 grain Sierra Game King. It is a pig thumper! I had more runners with the all copper and Nosler partitions. If your are stuck using factory I would go with the lighter Hornady on the blacky. The 300 would be well suited for the Grizzly. If you can shoot them, the bigger bores just have more thump! Good hunting, enjoy the 375 Ruger.

i ve shot few bears over bait in Quebec many years ago. i used 270 win and 150gr corelockt, 30-06 and 300hh with 180 nosler partitions , 300 win mag with 200 grains swift a frame, 2 with 300 savage in 180 grains factory remington and 1 with a 9.3x62 and factory lapua mega all bang flop and never lost one.

quote:

People that don't hunt heavy covers can easily confuse killing and retrieving. Why not? Those two things mean about the same thing in open cover. Not in typical Maine cover

For sure.

On non snow covered ground I like to break animals down.

Over the last 50 plus years of hunting I spent a lot of time helping find game that has been shot.

It is a lot easier when they have been busted down.

Next best thing is two holes and a great blood trail.

A blood trailing dog is wonderful also.

For the 375 I most likely would choose the Hornaday.

Probably being from a ranching family Ive seen many a black bear killed with 30-30s and they work just fine..I suppose the 30-06 with a mid to heavy bullet would be about as good as it gets..but any bullet suitable for deer will work on black bear..MOst bear are targets of opertunity during deer or elk hunting seasons, or shot from stands over bait at under a 100 yards it seems.