7/08 & 120gr ballistic tips for black bear?

[motown]

I know the question of the toughness of the 120 grain ballistic tip has been beaten to death around here but i am curious if anybody has any experience with the 7/08 and this bullet on black bear? They are really accurate out of my T3 and i am not afraid to use them for deer at all but i am trying to put together a bullet combo for Deer/Black Bear for here in PA. I know accubonds and partitions would be a better choice but i am curious if the 120 could get it done. I know J E Custom has alot of experience with this bullet so if you read this i would appreciate your input as well.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I would go with a heavier bullet like the Berger 168 or 180 VLD's.

 

[J E Custom]

I know the question of the toughness of the 120 grain ballistic tip has been beaten to death around here but i am curious if anybody has any experience with the 7/08 and this bullet on black bear? They are really accurate out of my T3 and i am not afraid to use them for deer at all but i am trying to put together a bullet combo for Deer/Black Bear for here in PA. I know accubonds and partitions would be a better choice but i am curious if the 120 could get it done. I know J E Custom has alot of experience with this bullet so if you read this i would appreciate your input as well.

After seeing what they will do on 3 to 400 pound Hog I would have no problem using them for Black bear.

Black bear are no where near as tough as big hogs and not as dangerous. If a black bear and a wild boar of the same weight were to square off , My money would be on the hog.

The best thing I can tell you is to shoot one with the 120 and there will be no doubt what it will do.

Bigger /heaver bullets don't seem to have the same stopping power at the 7/08 velocities as the 120
does even though current thinking is that bigger is better. The 120- 7/08 combo seems to be the exception and defies
all logic.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM

 

[MudRunner2005]

I would have figured the 168 would be like putting a 210 VLD in a .308 Win....HP is lower, but the torque is off the charts...Since their based on the same case.

But I could be wrong...It was just a guess.

 

[motown]

JE thanks thats the answer i was hoping for! Just curious do you have any experience with the 120 on elk at all?

 

[elkoholic72]

120s should be fine. My wife shoots the 140 accubond and ct Silvertips out of her T3 with crazy accuracy in front of 43g Varget. The moose she shot didn't care for the load!
Ben

 

[lloydsmale]

about any load that works on deer will work on black bear. Ive shot deer with them out of the 7mag and 280 and they preformed better then i would have guessed. I wouldnt be a bit afraid to put one in a 300lb black bear.

 

[J E Custom]

I would have figured the 168 would be like putting a 210 VLD in a .308 Win....HP is lower, but the torque is off the charts...Since their based on the same case.

But I could be wrong...It was just a guess.

As I have said many times before, Logic dictates that a larger bullet should be used. But at
the velocities that a 7/08 can produce Bullet performance is greatly effected. Foe paper targets
there is no doubt that the 150 to 168 bullets have the edge but they are to slow at distance and
just don't deliver the energy to the game.

Most of the time I have shot game with heaver bullets they always ran 20 to 60 yards. The bullet
exited and left a small(1'' average exit wound) the 120s always leave a 1 to 2'' exit wound (if they
exit ) and knock the game off there feet.(No tracking).

I once heard that perfect bullet performance on game was to find the bullet just under the skin on
the off side. This meant that the bullet had spent all of its energy in the animal and did not waist
any by passing on through. There must be something to this because bigger 7mm cartridges always
pass through deer and they almost always run 30+yards.

Interestingly enough, I have tried 90 and 100 grain bullets with very little success because the
bullets lost to much energy on impact. I have also tried other brands of 120 grain bullets and
found them lacking the performance of the 120 grain Ballistic Tip.

There are 7 - 7/08s in my family and all of the family members have tried other bullets and end
up with the 120 Ballistic Tip loaded between 3000 ft/sec and 3150 ft/sec velocity. The ladies like
both the recoil and the performance (They don't have to look for there deer or Hogs) the 120s
are also accurate enough to take a 200 yard head shot on a Turkey.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Joe King]

After shooting a Black Bear square in the forehead and that bullet driving into the lungs, just to have that bear get up. I personally would opt for a bone crushing bullet and disable the bone structure. Simple because I now know just how tough black bears can be and the last thing I would want is to get into toughness contest with a PO'd bear I just shot.

 

[lloydsmale]

odd things can happen with any bullet but if you hit it in the forhead and it penetrated into the lungs id say it did more then its job. Its amazing the bear even twitched and i doubt a heavier bullet would have changed a thing. Only place for it to go after the lungs is into the guts and that isnt going to change much. Ive shot enough bear to say without a doubt that black bear are no harder to kill then whitetail. As a matter of fact id guess they feel pain even more as deer can be shot to hell and still keep running. When bear are hit hard they lay down in short order. Ive shot bear or personaly witnessed bears shot with bow, various handguns as small as a 357mag and with rifles from 357 and 44 and 3030 carbines, 250sav,243 on up and never felt undergunned. Favorite gun of the dog hunters up here is a 357 revolver or lever action 357 or 44 mag. Couple of them i know swear by there 10mm glocks. Compare that to a 7mag using a 120 bt and youll see this argument is about silly.

 

[Joe King]

The leason I learned from that was. that bear was dead but it didn't know it yet, but it had the potential to turn bad right now, solution is bust the shoulders and spine and leave no doubt.

I about ruined my underwear, the bear dropped like a sack of potatoes, it was eating apples on the ground when I shot it, had no clue I was even there, so I walk down to it. When I was about 30yrds away it starts getting up blood pouring out of it's mouth, white stuff coming out of one ear (turns out that was brains). Didn't take long to decide it needed another slug. I still don't know how the 1st shot didn't kill it DRT. Bears just like anything else are easy to kill, it's the ones that die hard, and have the ability to hurt you as quickly as a bear can is what changed my thinking on the subject. My thought on it is, take away it's ability to do anything at all by breaking it's skeletal structure and cut off the CNS.

 

[500mag_guy]

I would go with a heavier bullet like the Berger 168 or 180 VLD's.

^^^^^+1 ^^^^^

Leave the 120gr pills for rock chucks and coyotes... Use something with a little weight to take on bear.

 

[motown]

Thanks for all the responses. I just restocked my tikka with a b&c medalist and bedded it and took it to the range for the first time friday. With the 120 grain ballistic tip and 43.0 of varget it shot at .62, with 49.0 grains of h4350 it shot .48 and with 44.5 grains of varget it shot .65. It really did group well with the h4350 but i think im gonna stick with varget due to better velocity and because i have about 15 pounds of it.

 

[lloydsmale]

a lesson i learned from bow hunting. Wait 30 minutes before you ever start looking for any deer or bear. They tend to lay down and stay down and bleed out.

The leason I learned from that was. that bear was dead but it didn't know it yet, but it had the potential to turn bad right now, solution is bust the shoulders and spine and leave no doubt.

I about ruined my underwear, the bear dropped like a sack of potatoes, it was eating apples on the ground when I shot it, had no clue I was even there, so I walk down to it. When I was about 30yrds away it starts getting up blood pouring out of it's mouth, white stuff coming out of one ear (turns out that was brains). Didn't take long to decide it needed another slug. I still don't know how the 1st shot didn't kill it DRT. Bears just like anything else are easy to kill, it's the ones that die hard, and have the ability to hurt you as quickly as a bear can is what changed my thinking on the subject. My thought on it is, take away it's ability to do anything at all by breaking it's skeletal structure and cut off the CNS.