I'm building a 450 marlin on a s/a ruger mkII with a boyd's laminate stock,Just wondering if anyone has used the 350 gr speer on big critters @ around 2200fps,which is what i hope to load them at.I want this for a close range moose/bear gun and a cast bullet rifle.
thanks

I've used this bullet at about 2000fps in a Marlin 1895 45-70. Very powerful, would be strong medicine for bears or moose close in.

I think that the Hornady 350 RN holds up better than the Speer. That's been my experience on hogs.

Check out this site:

http://www.mindspring.com/~ulfhere/ballistics/wounding.html

This is a very large paper on terminal ballistics. Go to the section on big bore rifles and look at the pictures of recovered bullets.

The 350gr Speer seems to be very tough.

Here is the summary on the Speer:

The Speer 350 gr. FN is billed as a high velocity soft nose for the .458 magnum, so I did not expect much expansion at the 1930 fps impact velocity out of the .45-70, but it performed well. It also performed well at a near muzzle velocity (from the .458 Winchester Magnum) of 2400 fps, but at a very low impact velocity of approximately 1400 fps it apparently did not expand or did so only to a very slight degree and unfortunately exited the test box (Incidentally, this is the sort of hole that would be made by a non-deforming hardcast flatnose bullet, hence the need for a very broad flat point). It is a good bullet in the .45-70 where deeper penetration is required but needs a minimum velocity probably closer to 1600 to 1700 fps for expansion.