Categories
Reloading

Barnes Buster Bullets

barnes_buster_bulletsBarnes has introduced their new Barnes Buster line of bullets designed specifically for hog, moose, bison and bear hunting.  The Buster bullets are “heavy-for-caliber” handgun and lever gun bullets that are designed to penetrate these notoriously tough animals.

The Buster line of bullets use a heavy lead core with a thick copper jacket for “minimal expansion, deep penetration and maximum weight retention.”  The bullets will track straight through dense muscle and heavy bone.  Barnes reported that using a T/C Encore, a .45-70 drove straight through a bison, which was anchored on the spot.

The bullets will be available for .44, .45, and .500 magnum revolvers and .45-70 rifles.  The .45-70 bullets (.458” @ 400 grains) are available at the Barnes site now.  The handgun bullets should be available sometime during the middle of the year.  The bullets are designed for deep penetration, especially on potentially dangerous game like bear.  The loads would also be good for other tough critters like feral hogs and the like.  I would expect that these rounds would do quite well against all of the feral hogs that we have here in the south eastern United States.  We seem to be overrun by the darn things.

In this video (below), Barnes describes the construction and uses for the Buster line of bullets.  The company also includes a copious amount of great hunting video showing these bullets in action on bear, hog and other large game.

In this video, Barnes shows a CAD drawing of the bullets, and how they operate when loaded and fired from a rifle.

This YouTube user uploaded a penetration video on a Barnes Buster bullet he loaded for his .444 Marlin rifle.  The bullet retained 100% of its weight after penetrating 12 water jugs and then burying itself in a block of oak.  The bullet passed the chronograph at more than 1900 fps and the bullet weight was 300 grains.  Pretty impressive stuff.

By Richard Johnson

Richard Johnson is a gun writer, amateur historian and - most importantly - a dad. He's done a lot of silly things in his life, but quitting police work to follow his passion of writing about guns was one of the smartest things he ever did. He founded this site and continues to manage its operation.