New Hornady Backcountry Defense Rounds Might Save Your Butt
Zac K. 04.09.25
If you’re looking to carry a little extra self-protection when you’re bowhunting, fishing or otherwise running around the wilderness without your trusty long gun, the ammo manufacturers are waking up to your needs. The latest example is the new Hornady Backcountry Defense loads, available now at retailers.
These are pistol-caliber cartridges—mostly in calibers with a reputation for being very hard-hitting at the business end—that are intended to help you, as Hornady’s website puts it, “Stay on the top of the food chain.” In other words: If a bear, particularly a grizzly, feels like turning you into lunch, these might make the difference between life and death.
This is not a new idea; specialized ammo makers like Buffalo Bore have been making beefed-up, deep-penetrating rounds specifically for this purpose for years. But specialty ammo isn’t always as easy to find as cartridges from a larger manufacturer like Hornady.
There’s no real voodoo behind this ammo. The DGH (Dangerous Game Handgun) bullets have a shallow hollowpoint design with a thick jacket that is supposed to lock the nose to the core, helping your ammunition penetrate deep for killing power on oversized animals. These are jacketed bullets, not hard-cast lead like the projectiles you see in some of the ammo in this category. Hornady says this means you have no lead smoke after the shot, helping you aim follow-up rounds more quickly.
The calibers available in this lineup include 9x19mm (138-grain bullet); .357 Mag (165-grain bullet); 10mm Auto (200-grain bullet); .44 mag (240-grain bullet); .454 Casull (300-grain bullet); 460 S&W Mag (300-grain bullet); and 500 S&W Mag (500-grain bullet). The 9x19mm and .357 rounds come in boxes of 25; everything else comes in 20-round boxes, with pricing starting at $38 and running all the way to $98. See more info at Hornady’s website here.
