Nice griz with 44

Wish i was talking about myself... was on instagram and just saw an 8 foot grizzly Lynn from coldsteel killed with a PC 629 using hornady 240gr XTPs.

Which 629PC S&W model did he use Vance? Any pics??



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WOW, with XTP?s,.............I know several who don?t really care for their performances on big game.
Personally I?ve taken several hogs and deer with them and no issues, but a grizzly is quite a step up.

Trapr

The famous handgun hunter Lynn Thompson using XTP`s on an eight foot grizzly bear... Never would have thought that....And 240`s no less....

I knew this would get the XTP fans frothed up into a frenzy, but keep in mind that Lynn Thompson is one HELL-of-a-shot. I know Lynn fairly well, and he takes his craft very seriously and doesn?t miss a shoot session. That said, sometimes XTPs work, sometimes they don?t. I am happy and glad that they worked in this instance.

Congratulations Lynn! I've heard & read so many different views on the 240 gr Hornady XTP over the years I could probably write a book about it. Some love it, some hate it, there doesn't seem to be much middle ground with that bullet.
As mentioned Lynn is an outstanding shot, much like Phil Shoemaker, he can make some shots with certain bullets that many wouldn't attempt.
I just returned from the NRA Center in Raton, New Mexico where I shot with many outstanding shooters, Lynn wasn't there this year but I've shot with him before & as Max stated he is puts in the time. One year I was shooting beside him on the steel pigs at 56 yds & he was shooting a S&W 38 special. Now these pigs as you will see in my photo (paper one) aren't very big & at 56 yds are a very tough target to hit. He hit 5 out of six, offhand, DOUBLE ACTION. When we left for lunch he was still shooting.





Dick

I would think if he were to use the XTP at all, he would used the 300gr as in the past.

I shoot a lot of 240gr XTP and think it is a great bullet for deer and perhaps hog(never shot one). Never shot a griz or seen one for that matter, but I'm thinking something with a little more penatration would be advised. But I'm not the same caliber of hunter Mr. Thompson is either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKI1xmtf5Ck

This is how quick Lynn is... Draws and fires 4 times at a water buffalo inside SIX ft killing him after spear stalk fails

First shot was lethal (brained it)...

Whit, Where do you see frothed up XTP fans in a frenzy??? No one has even said XTPs are good in this post.... We all know you don`t like them but come on Max..lighten up a little

We've had notorious knock-down drag-outs on this very site over XTPs. No one has ever said they don't work all the time, but I've even seen your XTPs fail on small game - really big XTPs at that. Many a heated debate here will nearly always involve XTPs. There seems to be an emotional attachment to them with some.

I've seen some heated debates about he XTP's on several forums. More than any other bullet for some reason. One time they work great on something big like a Griz, next time they fail on a small deer. I don't know the answer because I don't use them but I've read it.
My guess would be either too much velocity, just like with a cast bullet, or hard bone, same with a cast bullet. But again, I'm just guessing. Don't see the arguments with Speers or Sierra's. Back when I shot some Sierra's they seemed a bit on the hard side in some bullet weights but very accurate!

Dick

Personally I?d have to say all of my bullet ?failures? are really my failures to use or choose the correct bullet. I?ve pushed some too hard, I?ve used too tough a bullet on too light an animal, but In hindsight I don?t recall ever really being surprised by a bullets performance or lack of performance.

Trapr

THERE ARE FAR BETTER BULLETS AVAILABLE THAN THE XTP's FOR SERIOUS HUNTING TASKS AND I MOSTLY STAY AWAY FROM THEM NOW. ON DEER AND HOGS I WOULD STILL CONSIDER THEIR USE IN 454's WITH 300gr BULLETS BUT FORTUNEATELY I DO NOT HAVE ANY NEED FOR THEM AT THIS TIME. PROBLEM WITH THE XTP's IS THAT I BELIEVE THEY ARE BUILT DIFFERENT FROM CALIBER TO CALIBER SO XTP's WORK BETTER IN SOME CALIBERS THAN OTHERS. NOT ALL XTP's ARE RATED UP TO THE SAME VELOCITIES, AND IN SOME CARTRIDGES YOU CAN DRIVE THEM TOO FAST, AND IN OTHERS YOU CANNOT DRIVE THEM FAST ENUFF.

I?ll continue to utilize XTPs for they have proven accurate and effective in my endeavors. A side benefit is that it bunches the panties of a few on this site and it?s entertaining to watch the show that ensues.

😁


Impressive work on the griz. 👍🏻

I use bullets as I see them. My definition of bullet failure is not the same as yours. Never lost an animal I shot with XTP- Swift or any other make I`ve used... I did lose a buck to bad shooting on my part

Ah, yes, his consistent ability to place shots plays a significant role in the fact that he sometimes uses XTPs. To deny that is intellectually dishonest. And yes, I have had lengthy conversations with him over his bullet choices. In fact, we talk frequently.

You don't consider your blackbuck a failure? Yes, it died, just not on that day.

What about this 400 grain XTP that was found on the onside shoulder of your Sika deer? Not a failure?



After seeing that, I could not with a clear conscience recommend anyone use such a bullet on dangerous game. I don't think anyone cares what someone else uses, but when someone posts and asks for recommendations, we all chime in with our own experiences and opinions.

Don't confuse my opinions which bullets work well on large game with me actually caring what one particular hunter uses.

Nothing like an XTP discussion to stir up a thread.

I am not sure why the bullet Max posted did what it did but I know that I had 2 300gr XTPs that looked very similar to that one after hitting a couple of white tails broadside. Both bullets were launched at around 1250fps and were good hits about 50 yards downrange. Neither one passed through and were found under the hide on the opposite side.

lf you really want to know how well a bullet is constructed you

are going to have to dissect one before you shoot it.. Best way

is to cut one in half lengthwise.. Put it in a small vise and slice it

with a jewelers saw. After cutting the copper jacket will often

fall away from the lead core.. The old SPEER half jackets were

notorious for jacket/core separation.. Some really tough bullets

are put together like a solder joint or fused together. Toughest

bullets l know of were the old NORMA 240gr steel jktd soft points.

l haven't dissected or cut an XTP. I can say they are the most

accurate pistol bullets out there. They are used almost exclusively

by my fellow IHMSA silhouette shooters in 41, 44, and 45 calibers @

200 Meters in SA revolvers and single shots..

On steel rams you don't need to be worried about consistent expansion or bullet performance, only accuracy. I can say without a doubt that XTPs are accurate, however their performance on actual game animals has been less than stellar.

The process you are referring to in "soldering" the jacket to the core is called bonding. Generally a bonded bullet will resist jacket separation much better than a non bonded one.

l believe Speer started bonding bullets with their HOT CORE process.

Visited Hornadys plant in Grand lsle Nebraska maybe 15 yrs ago.

Quite interesting watching machines being fed spools of lead

and strips of copper in one end and see bullets spit out

the other.. No smoke or steam rising tho from bonding/soldering.

Virtually the same setup at Noslers plant around 2002 also..

Really cool being there with three generations of Nosler Men..

Twas John Nosler's 90th birthday. l still have my souvenier

Nosler Manuel signed by all three gens of Noslers

OK Maxie... I know someone would not want to introduce their mother to that recovered XTP...but (and here is where we differ) it dropped the sika instantly after stopping in shoulder/spine bones and the animal was dead and for me it worked. That`s how I feel and hope you can respect that. Please don`t think I worship XTP bullets
because all one has to do is look at a photo of my recovered bullets. You will find XTP-Nosler, Swift, Woodleigh- no recovered Punch though. I still would like to hear about the grizzly so hopefully you can contact Lynn Thompson and get the story....
PS- Lets be correct about that Texas blackbuck.. It was my bad shot that lost the animal.. not the XTP..

I'm not making an argument for or against XP's but I know that Lynn used them in Australia on Buffalo. The 300 gr bullet in a 44 magnum & he shot a lot of them. Many were shoulder shots so it's like Rey said, it must be that some of those bullets in some calibers are made with a tougher core/jacket than others in the same caliber.
When I toured the Hornady factory last year I was doumb founded by the sheer quantity of bullets they were turning out. I don't think anyone sells as many bullets as they do. They had a LOT of employees. You would have to see it to believe it.
I have a friend who is well known on many of the handgun forums who has hunted world wide & I know that some of the large animals he's taken were with Hornady bullets. Not sure which ones so I won't venture a guess on caliber but he might chime in here. Pretty sure one of them was a 400 gr slug, just a guess, perhaps a 325 gr.

Dick

I am not trying to sell or promote XTP`s but I used the same 475 caliber 400gr XTP`s to cleanly take five animals on my last African hunt. Matter of fact they were the same bullet pictured in Whits photo.. They may have not expanded like a Swift or Woodleigh but I recovered every animal so for "me" they worked.. That`s all...

Some love em, some hate em. I fell into the former for about a decade, now in the latter. I dont think there?s any question they CAN work. They are however inconsistent. I dont care what anyone uses in any way shape or form but i would be completely disingenuous to not tell anyone asking what would be the best bullet in any circumstance to recommend an xtp. I do use em for target practice and if its what i had id use em in a pinch. That said, its too bad because i orobably have more xtp?s than anything else on the shelf. Easily over 10k of em waiting to loaded, though they will be clanging steel and not hitting flesh. In regards to the above example. I would have serious reservations about a 400 grain bullet not exiting a 90lb sika deer. A 400 grain aspirin fired at a deer should kill it so a dead animal of that size should be expected after being hit with a pill that big. The most interesting question, and one that will never be answered, is what happened to the blackbuck. Was it hit poorly? I dunno, it died in fairly short order. Never saw a wounded one running around. Or was it hit by a bullet that did as shown above and just not perform as advertised and lead to a slow and lingering death. Or did it do both? We will never know. That said, i think its safe to say the above bullet didnt perform as advertised as a large and dangerous game load. I never said it was to be used for that, the factory did. I think we can all agree that the above xtp didnt perform near as well as the one lynn shot into the bear. I believe it was jd jones, but i could be mistaken, tested the 400 grain xtp and found it not to open reliably until one was pushing over 1600 fps. A poor choice for a load generally shot out if revolvers that dont even approach that velocity.


Btw, anyone else notice hornady started bonding their safari line?! Perhaps they should expand that practice.

Now I'm going to go ahead and warn y'all that this post is going to ramble some...it's not going to be just about XTP's, but about bullets in general....first off, very few bullets really satisfy me, very few....and each and every gun/round has a different style/type that I like.....
Traditional straight wall revolver rounds are seriously restricted by velocity...really, their lack of it.....heavy weight, thick jacketed bullets act like Hardcast bullets....and in my opinion, that is worse than horrible, Hardcast bullets provide caliber sized holes, the wide meplat discussion is garbage, garbage to me, I want more, if you want to argue, shoot a deer through the lungs with a wide meplat HC bullet, watch it run a country mile before succumbing to lead poisoning and finally croacking and look at the hole, it will not impress by my standards....pity full tissue damage, pity full blood trails and overall lousy performance.....let me say that I'm speaking of deer sized animals. If one was going after larger game, I'd for one would want a lot more horsepower than a traditional revolver round.....that's just me
I've found that on deer sized game that traditional SJHP bullets work amazingly....a lot of tissue damage, a lot of blood loss, and basic mass destruction on (heart, liver, lungs, etc)
The knock for me with XTP's is with the ones that have Mag Jackets....they are so damn thick and the cores are so hard that they rarely expand and I emphasize rarely.....which leads to piss poor performance....the 400 gr XTP in the .475 will not readily expand at less than 1,650 fps.....good damn luck in the Linebaugh and you can forget it in the 480 Ruger....the 275 gr Barnes XTB is the best revolver bullet in .475.........with that said, I can take the 400 gr XTP in my 475/350 Competitor and the bullet works wonderfully........the exact same can be said with heavyweight Speer Bullets......they do NOT expand reliably at typical revolver velocities
In Swift revolver bullets, the cannelure is too high up and eats too much case capacity.....they are utterly reliable, but at slower velocities than other loads utilizing different bullets.....see, I'm hard to please......with all of this rambling, probably 95 percent of everyone that reads this will only shoot deer with their handguns, and that's ok/cool, and deer are really easy to kill....so, blast them with whatever shoots the best, and at the best price

Franchise, well put. I've been preaching the same thing about people using a cast bullet that is too hard for decades, don't know if I've made much head way or not but I won't bring it back up.
Speaking of the Swift bullets, I hear they are great bullets & from all the evidence I see that seems to be true, why not just roll a second cannelure on the bullet of your choice so you can load it out?

Dick

Now that would be perfect...and really it's just the 300 gr 44 A Frame that needs a double cannelure

I shoot the 240 gr XTP in my 44 mag revolvers and the 180 gr in my 10mm pistols.
performance on game has been stellar. as i have said elsewhere on this forum, i have shot dozens of red stag with it at 1290 fps and many russian boar as well. On whitetails I would not get much expansion (but 10-30 yard runs) until i started opening the hollow point to 0.125" and made them .200" deep. Lose 9 grains in that process but have been able to recover a couple of bullets. Beautiful mushrooms with jackets on. Since starting that all have been DRT and wound channels much more pronounced.
240 grains would not have been my choice load for the grizzly bear, but neither would the 44 mag be except for self defense with a 300 Gr XTP.
Like was said earlier, some love them, some hate them, but hey, it makes for a fun discussion and read.
SnT

Years ago, the XTP was my go-to for about everything. Zero failures that I can recall. I killed a pile of animals with the XTP out of a muzzleloader as well - including a Wyoming mule deer at 216 yards. The buck never even had a thought of taking another step. My problem with them is that I'm a mental head-case. I trust others reviews especially many on here who are far more experienced than I am with a handgun. So when I start reading reviews of inconsistency, I tend to shy away.

I did however, have a failure with Hornady brass recently out of my 460. It split completely in half on a load that wasn't above book max. That entire batch of brand new brass went straight into the trash. That experience doesn't help my faith in their other products for sure.

I think James summed it up perfectly, in that most failures are most likely due to a bad hit. Whether it was hunter error or not, bad hits happen. I love A-frames, but they too are capable of losing an animal...

It would be nice if someone could get the story on Lynn Thompson taking a grizzly with 240 grain XTP`s...

He called me two days ago...

8 3/8-inch PC 629. First shot was at 23 yards. More details to follow as we had to cut our call short. Will talk to him again next week.

Way to go Max...

That was amazing !!!!!! Thanks for including that!