Federal Premium Ammunition

I've harvested approx 30 big game animals with Federal Premium Bear Claw in 300 WM and have no complaints. Taking them to NZ this week.

Had great success with TBBC's from Federal in my 375 on my last hunt.

Just an FYI, if you buy more than one box, check carefully to make sure they're the same. Not sure they do this with all bullets, but in 375 H&H they have 2 different loads of the TBBC, one at 2400 fps and another at 2500 fps.

Travis2282 said:

My .375 loves the federal premium loaded with A-frames!

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What 375 are you shooting?

Within the Federal lineup what would be the best choice for lion? Swift A frame, Trophy bonded bear claw or Nosler partition?

Therack said:

Within the Federal lineup what would be the best choice for lion? Swift A frame, Trophy bonded bear claw or Nosler partition?

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I would go with bear claws!

Therack said:

Within the Federal lineup what would be the best choice for lion? Swift A frame, Trophy bonded bear claw or Nosler partition?

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I used bear claws with great effect. However I doubt you'd have issues with any of those. My 375 has it's best accuracy with Federal Premium bear claws, but the Aframes I've shot are within an inch.

For me A Frames regulate closer to Federal Premium loaded with Woodleigh hydo solids. So if I'm also taking solids, I use A Frames.

I shot Federal Premiuim 300 grain swift a frames in my Remington 700 in 375 H&H. It gets inch groups at 100 yards. I tried several other brands and combinations but that is the one that worked best in my rifle.

I have taken 19 different African species with my 300 Win Mag and 200gr TBBCs. The accuracy and performance was excellent and the 4 recovered bullets were well expanded with 90%+ weight retention.

I have experienced poor performance from the following 375 H&H Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw load https://www.federalpremium.com/ammunition/rifle/family/cape-shok/cape-shok-trophy-bonded-bear-claw/p375t3

I was stalking a large cow Water Buffalo. The beast was feeding on the edge of a forest. I got to within approximately 50m (55yds) of it. It was as easy a shot as a hunter can hope for. Undisturbed animal, broadside presentation. Having kneeled I took a rest on a tree and fired. Upon receiving the shot the animal took off into the paperbark forest. Here I made a serious mistake. Being sure of the shot I did not fire again while I could have gone for the rear spinal shot or a hind leg shot – there was enough time to fire off at least one more aimed shot. There were two of us there and we both agreed the shot was true and waited a short while before following the animal. Had the bullet performed as expected it would have taken out the lungs and most likely the heart as well. However, the animal disappeared and initially we found no blood at all. The shot was fired at 8am and we spent the rest of the day trying to find and follow spoor. Hard going as we were tracking through wet, muddy paperbark forest late in the wet season with temperatures around 40C (100F) and 99% humidity. After several hours, we found minimal traces of blood in two spots. Did not manage to track down the animal that day and stared again the following morning. At 7am we spotted an animal about 100m away. It was standing broadside to us and looked healthy on its feet. However, close observation through binoculars revealed its sides were somewhat collapsed indicating that perhaps it did not drink and feed for some time. I fired one standing shot and several running ones until the beast fell, upon reaching the animal I fired a finishing shot into the base of the skull as the animal was still alive.

Trying to understand what happened we started looking for the bullet. Upon hitting bone, it failed to break it and instead deflected of its path by about 90 degrees and went straight into the gut cavity where it got lodged. I was quite keen to find that projectile but not keen enough to go through the content of its injured gut cavity. I’ve gone back to the place where I fired that first shot the previous day. The path of the bullet was clear, there were no branches it could have hit on its way.

I do not want to bad mouth a reputable projectile as perhaps my experience was just an isolated incident. I do not think any projectile on the market is going to perform 100% correctly 100% of the time but be that as it may this particular one did fail resulting in suffering animal and a long and stressful follow up.

On the other hand I've used their 308 Win 165gr Sierra Game King (http://federalpremium.com/ammunitio...vital-shok-sierra-gameking-boat-tail-sp/p308c) with great success on deer and boar. Interestingly shots at a distance of 50m or over typically result in pass through while very short distance shots (I often shoot boar at night at less than 20m) typically result in no exit wound. Attached picture shows several recovered and wonderfully opened 165gr SGKs taken out of European boar next to a 470N.E. 500gr Woodleigh soft point recovered from a buffalo. SGK is a soft bullet and hitting a boar at short distance often results in jacket/core separation, however this seems to occur once the bullet performed its job as I've only had one shot kills so far with lungs turned into liquid each time.