Slick new packaging, a fresh look, and some improvements make a great bullet even better. But as you can see from the expanded bullet removed from the water buffalo Greg dropped, the improved Trophy Bonded Bear Claw is just as good as the original in the performance department.

We were on the buffaloes' spoor at first light. The gaily-clad gaucho guide slithered effortlessly through the thick brush, with one eye on the track and the other ahead, looking for danger in the thick brush. We bumped them several times in the dense forest, but we never got a shot.

Eventually, we pushed the herd onto a giant, dried-up floodplain. We couldn't close the distance, so we eased around the edge until we found the herd bull. The distance was 180 yards, but I had faith in my accurate, new, Kevlar-stocked CZ-550, so I cranked the Leupold up to 6X, found the bull's beefy shoulder, and fired.

Asiatic water buffaloes are tough, so I wasn't surprised when the bull took the 300-grain Trophy Bonded bullet square on the shoulder and walked off as if it had been stung by a bee. I followed it in my scope and stuck another slug behind the last rib at a steep angle. The bull kept walking, so when it turned, I hit him again. Finally, the bull fell, but I paid the insurance anyway.

I was pleased to see that all my bullets hit where I intended for them to hit. The first had broken both shoulders and decimated the top of the heart and the bottom of the lungs. The two raking shots had lodged in the shoulders after penetrating more than 3 feet, and my insurance shot exited after passing through both shoulders. It was an impressive performance for the maiden voyage of the new, improved version of Federal's iconic Trophy Bonded Bear Claw.

A Great Bullet Gets Better
I've used the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw extensively since the mid-1990s. Its on-game performance earned my respect, but I must admit it wasn't always as accurate as I would have liked. Still, I was skeptical when Federal announced the new tipped version of the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw two years ago.

After extensive testing, the new tipped bullet won me over with its accuracy and terminal performance. I thought the changes were both warranted and effective, but I was pleased that it was restricted to .30 caliber and below. I was less than thrilled when Federal's Jason Nash told me the company was "improving" the Bear Claw in .375 and above for 2009.

The new bullet features three driving bands to reduce fouling and shank stiffness for improved accuracy. A new gilding-metal wire jacket is applied via an impact process. The new jacket material has fewer impurities, and the impact process results in less variation in jacket geometry. Thin, flash nickel plating reduces friction and fouling and eliminates the unsightly flux stains the old Bear Claw often had around the tip.

Those changes are not earth-shattering, but they combine to make a great bullet even better. Federal's testing has shown that the new bullet is accurate in a wider range of guns than the original. In my Kimber Caprivi and CZ-550 Kevlar, the new load shot significantly better than the original. And it shot at least as well as the original in my extremely accurate Hill Country Rifles custom Model 70.

On game, the new Trophy performed every bit as well as the original. The one bullet I recovered from my buffalo looked even better. It exhibited the expected double-diameter expansion and 97-percent weight retention, but the shank was noticeably longer than I'm used to with the originals. The bullet we recovered from the buff Nash shot looked exactly the same, right down to the longer shank.

I'll shoot another buffalo or two on my next safari to test the new bullet even further. But based on a long history with the design and the performance of the new bullet in Argentina, I'm quite certain the new, improved Trophy Bonded Bear Claw will remain my dangerous-game bullet of choice.