Bear Claws are simply awesome. Believe everything the advertisements tell you. I have shot a few whitetails and a black bear with them and they perform perfectly. I also recovered a bunch of them from our backstop and the expansion is at least 200%. They are also extremely tough. I had an expanded one that had a long, skinny piece of lead coated jacket hanging of one side. You couldn’t bend it with all your might and it wasn’t much thicker than the jacket itself. Imagine that thing just plowing through a deer. Our backstop is saw dust, usually damp, so it’s probably similar to hitting game. I shot Bear Claws in Federal Premium Federal High Energy and handloads. All out of a .30-06. The reason I have been using exclusively Barnes X bullets since 1997 instead of Bear Claws is mostly because of price. They were about $25 for 20 of them 5 years ago. That’s not a loaded cartridge, just the bullet itself. If your using factory, all premium loads are expensive anyway so you might as well go with the Bear Claw. I’d take the High Energy. In a .30-06 they claim 2880fps for a 180gr Bear Claw. That’s the same as factory .300 H&H ballistics. Do yourself a favor and try the Bear Claws on game. You’ll be impressed. By the way – accuracy was excellent out of my rifle.

Scott Meier
White Oak Lodge