A few threads about various bullets got me thinking again about what is good bullet performance.

Here some real questions that I've been battling with.

The answer to the obvious question is "Yes!" I did post this to stir the pot a bit!

Question:
Do you agree that excellent bullet performance is when the bullet just passes through the animal and has just enough remaining energy to drop out on the exit side?

Choices:
Yes. I always want as much blood on the ground from an entrance and an exit wound.
No. I want to actually see and recover the bullet and determine the weight retention..

Question:
If you have recovered the bullet - that means the target animal was dead - are you happy that all the bullet's energy and momentum was transferred into the target animal?

Choices:
Yes, That's what I want.
No. I want to pick up a dead animal with the bullet having excited via a "big hole" in the skin.

Question:
Taking Q#1 and Q#2 together, do you agree that all the bullets of which photos were posted - i.e. recovered bullets - are actually failures?

Choices:
No. The bullets were recovered from dead animals - and the function of a bullet is to kill the animal. The have not failed!
Yes. A bullet should react such as to kill the animal, but also exit and so leave a lot of blood.

 

Interesting poll Andrew.

Makes you think about what we as hunters expect from today's bullets.

On my recent hunt in Namibia, most of the bullets were only recovered because they were either frontal or rear shots........the side on or slightly quartering shots were pass throughs.

It was very informative to see Saeed's recovered bullets, particuarly the Walterhogs.

Bad Poll!

Go stand in the corner and consider the error of your way!

Q2: Has absolutely no relationship to bullet failure or performance. For all the question illuminates, the bullet may have stopped just under the near side hide of a buff killed by my MANLY PH Karl Stumph with his bare hands as he grabbed the buff by the 'nads and whirled him round and bashed his head against a large rock.

Likewise Q3. Were they not from Saeed I might be able to consider that all of them came from one animal and it took the lot to kill the beast.

Neither recovered bullets nor pass throughs mean anything without information about what they alone did to the animal. Even with information of the effect on the animal it can very clearly be still insufficient to make a judgement. We also need to know how long it took. You can probably kill a Buff with a curare dart, but it does no real good if he takes out you and the rest of your party before he succumbs.

All that aside, I want two holes on a broadside shot, because then I have a bullet that will penetrate into the vitals of a buffalo better on a lengthwise shot! Does this make since?

90% of the buffalo I have shot took a broadside or near broadside first shot and at least one or two going South shots, or as many as I had to time to pump into him..

This is the reason I love those Northfork cup points, they do it all, they expand, they make a decent exit hole broadside 99% of the time and they get into the boiler room and up into the neck on those going South shots and I get most of them back for my shoebox of bullets to show everybody, except for those broadside shots and they usually make Dar es Salaam by dark! .....and Saints preserve us they are about to come back into production!

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
All that aside, I want two holes on a broadside shot, because then I have a bullet that will penetrate into the vitals of a buffalo better on a lengthwise shot! Does this make since?

90% of the buffalo I have shot took a broadside or near broadside first shot and at least one or two going South shots, or as many as I had to time to pump into him..

This is the reason I love those Northfork cup points, they do it all, they expand, they make a decent exit hole broadside 99% of the time and they get into the boiler room and up into the neck on those going South shots and I get most of them back for my shoebox of bullets to show everybody, except for those broadside shots and they usually make Dar es Salaam by dark! .....and Saints preserve us they are about to come back into production!

Can't argue with that, Ray.