Swift High Grade

It had made its way down the barrel of a borrowed .

- Lee J. Hoots

A .30-caliber Swift 180-grain Scirocco bullet lies buried in the British Columbia woods. 300 Remington Ultra Mag before entering the back hip and exiting the opposite shoulder of an average black bear standing maybe 50 paces away. It was not the bear hoped for, but it had been badly injured, likely by a logging truck, leaving its splintered femur protruding through its hide, flopping like a toggle switch. As a favor to the boar, my tag was used without regret. The fact that the lead core bullet penetrated completely through the bear, from “corner to corner,” was a testament to its thickly jacketed and bonded design.

Hunters expect an awful lot from bullets: reliable, deep penetration at “all ranges,” and at long range they want the “flattest trajectories and high energy retention” – and with no exception, a bullet must be “accurate.” Depending on one’s point of view, such bullets are readily available, but the terms called out above are rather nebulous, often having a different connotation from one man to the next. Due to such broad ideas of how a bullet should perform, hunters discuss to no end the validity of certain designs, sometimes while standing over a dead deer or elk with one or two holes through its lungs. Additionally, some hunters want a bullet’s energy completely expended within the chest cavity of the game, while others prefer a through-and-through hole.

Generally speaking, Swift bullets (www.swiftbullets .com) – the Scirocco II and A-Frame – provide the latter, or close to it, when shot in cartridges typically used for North American big game, such as deer and elk. Both are expanding bullets with lead cores bonded to their jackets. The A-Frame, in large calibers, also has made a good reputation for dangerous game.