Lets keep in mind that Keith made it very clear that one should not shoot at unwounded game at long ranges with a revolver. He made some wonderfully long range hits but clearly stated it was to take wounded game down.
As for WFN's not penetrating deep enough to game over 500 pounds. I have hundreds of reports of them taking large brown bear and moose and never one has said that a bullet was recovered. WFN's have excessive penetration if such were possible, which it isn't, and LFN's/Keith size meplate bullets have extremely excessive penetration which is possible if rapid killing power is sacrificed, which it is compared to the WFN. Nor have many customers said that they were inaccurate at long range. Bear in mind, that to have good long range performance the bullet must be perfectly stabalized mechanically, which is to say, to leave the gun in precision balance, and adaquate form stability to maintain that precision balance through the length of it's flight.
Here is one real heavy 44 magnum WFN kill report, from a Canadian customer who sent me photos and his story several years ago. -- When him and his wife went out to catch their saddle horses and one didn't come in, they went to the back of the pasture where there was a large alder patch. They found a huge pile of alders up to 4 inch diameter which a bear had torn up by the roots and burried the missing horse under, while the bear laid in wait digesting his first meal from it. (The brush pile photo looked like a buldozer stacked burn pile here in log country.) When my customer got close, the bear charged and he plugged it twice with 300 gr WFN's at 1400 fps from his S&W. The bear fell at his feet, the second shot being at only a few feet. The customer said both holes went clear through, with wounds that he could drop his Buck hunting knife through, and that the first shot was all that was needed. He just pumped lead till the bear crashed, double action, with time to get a whole two shots off! -- Had he been shooting a Kieth bullet or one of my LFN's, the bear would have died just as dead, but with the chest hits he got, odds are at least ten to one that I would have been minus a customer just before the bear died, and no widow to complain, as his wife was only a few feet behind him. The bear weighed over 600 pounds, a skinny boar which he said would have weighed well over 1000 pounds with fall fat. Keep in mind that 400 pounds of extra fat makes nice hunting talk but the slim bear is most deadly with it's higher speed.
As for trying all the loads and bullets you can, you have a standard gun rag opinion, which says shoot some of every manufactures bullets, powders primers, and see what is most accurate. This is they way it has to be for gun magazines to stay in business, because advertisers are the money source which keeps them afloat, not subscribers or magizine sales.
The serious problem is that the methodology is expensive and far too time consuming for most shooters, while being being very undesirable because the only way most shooters can determine good game results is to try on game, and far too often get bad results. I hunted for 35 years with that mentality and lost several head of game because of it, while having to do a lot of unecessary tracking, and eating of messed up meat. For this reason, I share my hard earned knowledge and tell my customers how to get top accuracy and killing performance and send them out with the best. From that point their marksmanship and knowledge of bullet placement are the only pitfalls for them to overcome, and their intended game isn't likely to become easy coyotes and other scavengers.
Likewise, I hate to sell any mold designs which aren't superior performers on live targets. After all, guns are killing machines, and what they are loaded with should be what makes them most effective for that purpose. I've found with extensive experiance that any load that will kill a moose efficiently will also kill a mouse at least as efficiently, or punch holes in paper, but the reverse is absolutely not true. For this reason I load all my guns for the heaviest game I expect to ever hunt with that gun, and never change the sights or load. If I play with experimental loads, I don't change the sights until I decide to change the load that will be used in that gun. The old axim, beware the man with only one gun, would be most precise if it were understood that the simply equiped will be using only one load in rifle or handgun, and will thus know exactly what it is capable of doing.
To finalize this discussion. I've spent nearly 50 years in the field and found that almost all lost game is due to the hunter being unable to track the wounded animal down, and worse yet, not having the sense to try even try. We are talking handguns in this discussion, and there probably isn't one out of a thousand handgun hunters today with the experiance to take deer at ranges of 100 yards plus, and most are limited to maybe 50 yards. This coupled with tracking ignorance. They need a bullet that anchors game quickly as possible. The WFN profile stands alone in this respect.
If you happen to be one who has experiance enough to hit consistently at extreme ranges, God bless you, go for it, but please don't try to sell that to the world who who can't hit. - One great pistol teacher said, regarding practice on paper targets. Get close enough so that you can hit accurately every time, and when you get precision, move the target out.
I agree fully, and doubly so when game is concerned.
Also keep in mind. I've cut molds for 20 years and have to listen to all customer complaints, or lose the customer if he is in serious trouble when he uses my advise. We play games with our guns, but they are a life and death matter quite often too. So I want as many customer reports as possible to be good, and they are. So far as making molds. I love Keith, and his design is fine as a remembrance. I get the same price for a mold no matter the design, and one is as easy to cut as the other.
With the tremendous number of views on this big bear subject, I think perhaps I should tell how I deal with the matter, as I do live in mountainous grizzly country, here in Idaho almost on the Canadian border. A grizzly peeled a 30 inch diameter cedar tree to 12 feet high on my property a few years ago, and this year on adjoining land I saw a large tree with 1 1/2 inch thick bark peeled all the way around for about 6 feet. These are territorial markers of coarse, and it is unwise for anyone to urinate close to one and leave tracks the bear can follow. (Leave soon by auto.) We have a lot of black bears which are probably more dangerous than grizzlies because of the numbers, and from the reports I've read mountain lions are more of a threat than bears in this area. But all are the same so far as humans needing protection. I've already given my opinions on bullets to stop them, but there is a spritual factor which I believe is probably more important or at least equally important. Some will call it mind set. So I'm going to take you into a spiritual discussion. If you don't want to read about my religion, please sign off now. I don't jamb my ideas down anyones throat, but do gladly present them to anyone interested.
Every living thing, gets it's spirit of life from the creator of the universe, or the Almighty God, which makes Him the Father of all. So addressing Him as Father is the best way to make our desires known to Him. According to the Bible, He made men with a free will (spirit) to live as they please, i.e. serve God or satan, but he made us for His pleasure, so He will work with us if we live to give Him pleasure, and pretty much turn His head if we don't. Also, He says, ask for wisdom and He will give it, and the Bible makes no distinction that we have to live 'close to God' to get wisdom. Just if we ask we'll get it. To be specific, God will alter our thinking if we ask Him to. He'll make us do the right thing in any dangerous encounter, and the spirit wisdom transfer is silent and instant. It comes quick as lightening as we ask. -- As for the spirit of life given to animals and plants. They are free to live as they please, but don't have the spiritual servatude choice, thus are subject to God at all times should He choose to alter their thinking. When we ask, God will alter the animals thinking. Since God told men to take dominion over all the animals, He gave us power to do it in whatever way is necessary, and the spirit world is the most powerful.
All this is to say, you may and probably will turn the bear with just spirit control, but if it's the bears time to go, God will give you what it takes to place the bullet in exactly the right spot.
I'm not guessing about what I'm saying. I live this way, even with my domestic animals, and have called one back after dying from poison by asking God to return His spirit of life, or breath of life. It took 4 hours of repetition, maybe twenty or thirty times, because its belly was still full of the poison, but she's a very healthy and live dog today, two years later because I knew what to do spiritually. (They are always blinded by poison if a vet brings them through.) Until I learned to power of God which is available all poisoned or otherwise dead animals I've seen stayed dead!
This power is available for healing of all kinds of wounds and sickness, if lost in the woods, or any time we need more wisdom than we have. The same is available to anyone because God is not a respector of persons.
