A Few Of Our Recovered Walterhog Bullets

16 September 2019, 19:43

16 September 2019, 19:56

samir

My guess is that most of them were recovered from buffalo. The banana shaped one is interesting. I have seen the older hornady solids shaped like that after hitting bone in a buffalo.

16 September 2019, 20:24

Saeed

Once a bullet hits anything, it is anyone’s guess where go.

I have seen similar performance from Barnes X.

What one sees in advertising blurb has nothing to do with reality.

16 September 2019, 22:20

376 steyr

The ones at the top left. Are they close range/high velocity impact or taken from a tough bodied animal and the ones at the bottom are maybe long range slower impact?

17 September 2019, 07:01

Lamar

if I had to guess I'd say different impact velocity's.
could be distance or it could be [shrug] cartridge.

17 September 2019, 07:38

Saeed

The ones with perfect mushroom are probably the ones which have hit muscle, and avoided any major bones.

17 September 2019, 11:12

georgeld

Quite a collection of convincing evidence.

Just think, IF they were lead, you could
melt 'em down and make new one's.

Hope you can add to them this year.

George

17 September 2019, 12:24

Saeed

Many years ago, I used a Barnes Super Solid brass bullet, 400 grains, 416 caliber and shot an elephant with it.

We recovered the bullet.

The following year I was using my 375/404, so I took that bullet and turned down on the lathe, made it into a 300 grain 375 caliber, and shot another elephant with it.

Sadly, it whizzed straight through his head.

18 September 2019, 00:21

Nakihunter

The ones that really intrigue me are the bottom row that did not expand.

Since they are recovered, they did penetrate and did kill the animal. I wonder why they did not expand at all.

18 September 2019, 22:39

Jason P

quote:
Originally posted by Saeed:
Many years ago, I used a Barnes Super Solid brass bullet, 400 grains, 416 caliber and shot an elephant with it.

We recovered the bullet.

The following year I was using my 375/404, so I took that bullet and turned down on the lathe, made it into a 300 grain 375 caliber, and shot another elephant with it.

Sadly, it whizzed straight through his head.

You may be the only person, who has ever lived, who has shot two elephants with the same bullet, on different occasions!

19 September 2019, 01:20

RobinOLocksley

Saeed,

I always wanted to ask you about the bullets you use.If I may, do you make your own bullets or are they commercially sold? I would like to know more about them. Thank you.

Best-
Locksley,R.

19 September 2019, 01:34

crbutler

My collection is nowhere near as complete!

That said, I have a collection of Barnes TSX bullets that essentially look like this.

Many with perfect petal formation and textbook appearance

Some bent a bit, some missing petals, and one that is unopened and bent.

Looks like I have to agree with you about all monometal bullets behaving essentially similarly.

19 September 2019, 06:35

Saeed

quote:
Originally posted by RobinOLocksley:
Saeed,

I always wanted to ask you about the bullets you use.If I may, do you make your own bullets or are the commercially sold? I would like to know more about them. Thank you.

Best-
Locksley,R.

These are all made here in our own workshop.

19 September 2019, 06:47

samir

If I can figure out how to post pics, I’ll post a pic of all my recovered bullets. Finding and analyzing the expended bullets is a huge part of the hunt for me.

19 September 2019, 18:59

Whitworth

quote:
Originally posted by Jason P:
quote:
Originally posted by Saeed:
Many years ago, I used a Barnes Super Solid brass bullet, 400 grains, 416 caliber and shot an elephant with it.

We recovered the bullet.

The following year I was using my 375/404, so I took that bullet and turned down on the lathe, made it into a 300 grain 375 caliber, and shot another elephant with it.

Sadly, it whizzed straight through his head.

You may be the only person, who has ever lived, who has shot two elephants with the same bullet, on different occasions!

And in two different calibers!

20 September 2019, 01:31

RobinOLocksley

quote:
Originally posted by Saeed:
quote:
Originally posted by RobinOLocksley:
Saeed,

I always wanted to ask you about the bullets you use.If I may, do you make your own bullets or are the commercially sold? I would like to know more about them. Thank you.

Best-
Locksley,R.

These are all made here in our own workshop.

Thanks, Saeed. One last question,if I may. What are they made of? Solid copper quoted with a lubricant? They seem to put down any game like Thor's hammer.

20 September 2019, 06:13

juanpozzi

Great bullets it look like barnes x ....i would love to know more .

20 September 2019, 07:48

Saeed

We used to hunt with Barnes X, in several calibers.

They worked great, and we had no reason to complain at all.

When we got our own CNC lathe, I decided to design and make my own, and these are the results.

We make then in all calibers, from 22 all the way to the 700 Nitro Express.

Weights from 43 grains to 1,500 grains.

That is the beauty of CNC machines, as unlike making bullets in a die, one is stuck to one specific design and weight for each die.

We do have a Corbin hydrolic press, but we never use it now.

Bullets are made of either copper or brass.

Brass is much easier to machine, but for our hunting we prefer to use copper.

The copper we use is standard 99.9% we buy from builders supplies.

Apparently they are used for earthing electrics in building.

The copper comes in 4 meter lengths, in various diameters.

We cut the lengths to 60cm to fit in our machine.

These bullets are as close as being handmade as one can get.

It takes 2-3 minutes for each bullet to be finished.

During this time, I inspect each one that has come off the CNC machine, and make sure it meets our specs for both weight and dimensions.

As each bullet comes off, I blow dry the hollow point, to remove all residue of the cutting fluid, with a compressor.

Once the bullet is dried inside and out, with tissue paper, I check the diameter.

This is done as after each few bullets made, I have to make adjustment on the machine for tiny variations due to the copper or the cutting tool.

Then each bullet is weighed, and they are segregated by weight.

I box them in plastic containers that hold about 200 bullets, and I like to maintain the weight of each box to within 1 grain or there about.

These are hunting bullets, and seem to shoot extremely well in all calibers we have tried them in.

Performance on game is just as good as any copper made bullet - I honestly doubt that any specific copper made bullet performs better than any other, despite what the manufacturers might wish you to believe.

Our CNC machine is about 20 years old, and we have ordered a replacement for it, this is arriving next month, and we hope to have the replacement installed after our return from our safari.

Any questions I would be very happy to answer.

20 September 2019, 08:19

DCS Member

Such a cool process and great hobby.

20 September 2019, 10:00

crbutler

So how difficult is the programming to set up the machine to make a bullet?

Now that Northfork is out of business, I might have to take some of my old ones from them and have them duplicated for my double.

20 September 2019, 16:18

RobinOLocksley

quote:
Originally posted by Saeed:
We used to hunt with Barnes X, in several calibers.

They worked great, and we had no reason to complain at all.

When we got our own CNC lathe, I decided to design and make my own, and these are the results.

We make then in all calibers, from 22 all the way to the 700 Nitro Express.

Weights from 43 grains to 1,500 grains.

That is the beauty of CNC machines, as unlike making bullets in a die, one is stuck to one specific design and weight for each die.

We do have a Corbin hydrolic press, but we never use it now.

Bullets are made of either copper or brass.

Brass is much easier to machine, but for our hunting we prefer to use copper.

The copper we use is standard 99.9% we buy from builders supplies.

Apparently they are used for earthing electrics in building.

The copper comes in 4 meter lengths, in various diameters.

We cut the lengths to 60cm to fit in our machine.

These bullets are as close as being handmade as one can get.

It takes 2-3 minutes for each bullet to be finished.

During this time, I inspect each one that has come off the CNC machine, and make sure it meets our specs for both weight and dimensions.

As each bullet comes off, I blow dry the hollow point, to remove all residue of the cutting fluid, with a compressor.

Once the bullet is dried inside and out, with tissue paper, I check the diameter.

This is done as after each few bullets made, I have to make adjustment on the machine for tiny variations due to the copper or the cutting tool.

Then each bullet is weighed, and they are segregated by weight.

I box them in plastic containers that hold about 200 bullets, and I like to maintain the weight of each box to within 1 grain or there about.

These are hunting bullets, and seem to shoot extremely well in all calibers we have tried them in.

Performance on game is just as good as any copper made bullet - I honestly doubt that any specific copper made bullet performs better than any other, despite what the manufacturers might wish you to believe.

Our CNC machine is about 20 years old, and we have ordered a replacement for it, this is arriving next month, and we hope to have the replacement installed after our return from our safari.

Any questions I would be very happy to answer.

Many thanks for the detailed explanation, Saeed. That is quite an involved process. Well worth the effort, of course. The blue hue is due to some kind of quoting?

21 September 2019, 07:41

Saeed

quote:
Originally posted by crbutler:
So how difficult is the programming to set up the machine to make a bullet?

Now that Northfork is out of business, I might have to take some of my old ones from them and have them duplicated for my double.

Only a few minutes are required once you have the actual design finished on paper for each bullet.

Our basic design is the same, and some calibers can be made from from others, close, without any change on the machine except the tool offset.