Back in late January, I had the opportunity to take the Barnes Pioneer on a bison harvest here in my home state of Montana. I felt using this line of ammunition would be the obvious choice to show its effectiveness against these large animals. My pick for this would be the .45-70 Govt. loaded up with the 400 grain Barnes Original in the Pioneer line. 

The Barnes Pioneer line of ammunition was developed and designed to be the ultimate lever gun and revolver hunting ammo. The line currently has both a copper and lead core bullet offerings. In rifle chamberings they have the TSX FN bullet and XPB for pistols in copper; while offering a heavy for caliber Barnes lead core Original for each cartridge.   

The TSX FN (copper) bullets for 45-70 offer great terminal performance and huge expansion with the large open nose cavity design. These have those 6-petal designs that differs from traditional TSX rifle bullets that have a 4-petal cavity. The 45-70 300gr TSX FN works well for deer up to elk size game. With large bullet expansiondelivering a great wound cavity, itwill havehigh weight retention and penetration due to the solid copper bullet.  

The Original lead core offerings in the Pioneer line were all designed as a heavy for caliber, deep penetrating big game round. This goes for all cartridges. The Originals in this line are what we would call "new" Originals. They do differ in design from the traditional Barnes Originals that have been produced from way back in the Fred Barnes days. They still utilize thick, copper jackets and heavy, lead cores, but they have a new improved design, materials, and processes to ensure that they have the best controlled expansion, with high weight retention for deep, strait lined penetration.  

When this hunt came together for the bison, I went to our head of R&D, Gregg Sloan, for insight of why the Pioneer line was developed and to help give a deep dive into the process behind it all. This is what he had to say. 

“The goal was to offer heavy, hard-hitting weights in each cartridge. During load development, the team selected propellants that would help to achieve a high velocity for the bullet weight, while staying within the maximum pressure limit. This ensures they are high performing, heavy hitting (and recoiling!) loads.  The teamensured that both revolvers and lever guns worked well with the overall design. They took their time with powder selection during the development processes to make sure theyoptimized performance and velocity from a wide range of barrel lengths in both carbines, rifles and revolvers. “ 

Gregg continued with, “Due to the density of the material, bullet length, and stability in conventional twist guns, solid copper simply cannot get to these weights offered with the Barnes Original. Many big game handgun hunters prefer to use heavy for caliber hard lead bullets to ensure straight line deep penetration. These Originals in the Pioneer line achieve that, while still offering some bullet expansion and wounding that you won't get when compared to a hard cast bullet. These are premium hunting lead core bullets. This also allows the Pioneer line to offer something unique when compared to the competition with a factory loaded option for the consumer looking for this level of performance for big game hunting with lever guns and revolvers.” 

After getting a better understanding of the entire line development, it gave me the utmost confidence that this was the right load for the job. I’ll say this, I’mglad I chose it too. When the day came to chase that big beast I had no reservations about the task at hand. When the shot came at 130 yards, the mature old bull soaked up rounds as they’re known to do. But in the end, he went down fast. You can watch the full film now on our YouTube channel.