Ladies and gentlemen,

Had a question asked about our recovered bullets.

And the thread on Swift bullets, which raised questions about retained bullet weights.

These are our own Walterhog bullets.

All recovered from game animals, mostly buffalo.

I have written the retained weight of each bullet.

Top right is an unfired bullet for comparison.

Everyone of them had killed, or disabled the animal they hit.

Look at the bullet at the left of line 4, which weighed 155 grains.

They all started at 300 grains.

In that bullet, and the one to the right of it, we had a problem with our copper rods.

They had manufacturing faults that caused some to shatter.

This is very obvious if you look at the bullet I mentioned, first on line 4.

It had lost almost half its weight, but still worked.

I shot a bull in the shoulder with it, broadside.

He hobbled a bit, ran a few yards, and dropped.

This bullet went all the way, and was recovered under the skin on the other side.

Had a similar result with another bullet from the same patch.

Again, hit a bull on the shoulders.

He ran off a few yards and could not longer run, as his shoulder was totally pulverized.

The bullet disintegrated completely, never made it into the chest cavity, but made minced meat of the whole shoulder.

The shoulder bones were shattered so badly, mixed with his muscles it felt like they have been mixed with sand!!??

He could not walk, so a shot to the head dropped him.

What is the coating you use on the Bullets ?

quote:

Originally posted by leemar28:
What is the coating you use on the Bullets ?

Originally Molly, then Tungsten.

Both work equally well.

That is a very interesting comparison/story Saeed in relation to the Swift thread and Jerry’s concern of his bullet that lost so much weight.

It just goes to show that ‘stuff’ happens in the field, and that quality control can sometimes go astray on the best of products, even on monolithic bullets, let alone bonded/partitioned bullets.

And also, that even at that, all Buffalo were recovered. This is not what we want from our premium bullets, notwithstanding the success of the hunt, but is a testament to the shooter and also the integrity of even a flawed premium bullet vs. a flawed cup & core bullet.

Thanks for the pics and explanation.

The cup and core bullets fail because of lack of penetration.

Nothing else.

Mono copper, and to a certain extent partitioned, bullets, avoid this.

That is why they work better.

This bull I shot last year.

As you can see, we found the bullet like this on the other side.

We program our bullets for easy recovery!

I forgot how to post photos but I have the same photo on an impala I shot with a 168 TSX. Shot it in the chest and the bullet was sticking out the same way as Saeed's from the hind quarter.

Not a pound of wasted energy :-)

bullets tend to turn over at the end of their energy or penetration. The monolithic seems to me is an expanding solid, the best of both worlds or neither fish nor fowl, depending on the observer, and the fact is bullet placement is the main factor in the kill..I have boxes of recovered bullets and the partitions and bonded core have pretty mushrooms and stop at the off side skin of a buffalo but in many cases the monolitic will give you an exit hole and more often than the bonded cores, but the partition will give excellent penetration with mostly exit holes and the front missing or no lead and a toadstool looking rear end....All in all they all seem to work with a proper shot..

One bullet that gave problems on frontal shots was the Nosler partition. It was mostly shot in 375. Since it was a popular bullet,I wondered if anyone else ran into problems.

quote:

Originally posted by Trackman:
One bullet that gave problems on frontal shots was the Nosler partition. It was mostly shot in 375. Since it was a popular bullet,I wondered if anyone else ran into problems.

Frontal shots on buffalo need a bullet that stays together.

A mono copper will do it.

A solid shank bullet will do it.

Others might.

In fact, since I have started using the Barnes X, and afterwards our own Walterhog bullets, I shoot buffalo from any angle, always aiming for the middle of the chest cavity.

Never failed.

I found a bullet like that on a Coke's hartebeest shot with a .30-06 at a around 300 yards, quartering to. Like someone said, no wasted energy there.

quote:

Originally posted by Trackman:
One bullet that gave problems on frontal shots was the Nosler partition. It was mostly shot in 375. Since it was a popular bullet,I wondered if anyone else ran into problems.

I shot two buffalo broadside with 300 grain .375 Nosler Partitions. Both bullets made it through the vitals, but neither bullet penetrated the far side rib cage. I was not impressed.

I read a respected gun writer, not named Craig Boddington, that the Partition would out penetrate the Swift A frame because the mushroom on the Swift A Frame caused more drag and resistance.

However, the Partition, when it lost the front would continue on work less resistance.

He claimed to have seen this on Buffalo. I am not hiding his name. It is a weird spelling. would have to look it up.

I obviously do not know. Just stating the theory.

On my first 3 trips to Namibia I never received a recovered bullet from any of the Plainsgame I shot. Finally in 2017 I was curious to see the recovered 200 grain bullet from a trophy Eland I shot. I told my PH I’d give $200 Namibian ( less than $15 US) to the skinner who could retrieve the bullet. Best $15 I ever spent and I still have that bulet in my trophy room.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

quote:

Originally posted by Trackman:
One bullet that gave problems on frontal shots was the Nosler partition. It was mostly shot in 375. Since it was a popular bullet,I wondered if anyone else ran into problems.

I shot two buffalo broadside with 300 grain .375 Nosler Partitions. Both bullets made it through the vitals, but neither bullet penetrated the far side rib cage. I was not impressed.

I shot a caribou with a 340 WBY in 225 gr Partitions. Bullet completely came apart loosing the entire front and the back end fragmented, loosing the entire lead back end. Shot a moose 7 days later with the same load. Recovered 2 Partitions. One looked good with the front smeared off and the back end in tact. The other was the same as the caribou bullet. Haven't used them since. Switched to the Barnes X, later the TSX and TTSX and have yet to have a failure. Yeah, the Partitions that came apart killed the animal, but I want more predictable performance from a bullet in terms of it retaining weight and ensuring penetration.

There is no way in hell that we can predict what a bullet would do 100% of the time.

This simple fact become very clear the more you hunt, and the more different types of bullets you use.

After extensive testing here, at a range of 50 yards, I found that the optimum muzzle velocity for best penetration is around 2800 fps.

Much higher velocity, and penetration drops.

I have even tried this in the field.

A 375/416 Rigby, with a velocity of 3140 fps with Barnes X 300 grain bullets.

Tried them in Zimbabwe, and was very disappointed with their performance.

Back to the 375/404 and keeping my velocities around 2800 fps.

Never a failure, despite the enormous differences in appearances and weights retained.

Growing up hunting deer in South Texas, Nosler's were the gold standard. And they work great on smaller animals. I've killed a couple of buffalo with them, but they don't hold together well on frontal shots. I don't agree with anyone who says the Nosler performs better than the Swift A frame.

As one poster above noted, you're not going to recover many bullets on plains game, at least unless you shoot them end to end. But every Swift A Frame I've recovered looks remarkably similar, save one. Shot a hippo walking toward me at about 20 yards right in the front of the skull. Bullet penetrated the skull front to back and bullet was in the neck. It had shed all the front portion and all that was left was the core. But generally, they are all nicely mushroomed.

Saeed,

How deep and what diameter is the top and bottom of your hollow point?

I assume it is substantially smaller than the hollow point in a Barnes TSX?

Have you ever crossectioned a TSX and compared them?

Our current design is 2.5mm diameter and 12mm deep.

No I have not.

But Barnes look like they make serrations in the hollow point - like square cut??

We don’t.

Just drill a hole and in the field they perform as you can see.

Thanks and yes Barnes makes some type of cut which cause the "X/petals" occur.

Your pictures give me a little laugh because when a recovered TSX looks like your bullets (which obviously perform very well), TSX is often considered a failure.

I think sometimes people forget what the purpose of a hunting bullet is.

For me, it has to be accurate in the rifle it is shot in, so you can actually hit where you wish.

It has be constructed strong enough to reach the vitals from any angle.

We never had the second part with the old soft points.

And from the large selections of premium bullets we have today, the mono copper stand above anything else.

I must have shot hundreds of animals with Barnes X, the original ones.

Never a single failure.

Same with our own Walterhog.

Never a single failure.

The balance is a bullet that performs and adequately penetrates, but does not overpenetrate and go all the way through. At least with buffalo. IMHO.

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
The balance is a bullet that performs and adequately penetrates, but does not overpenetrate and go all the way through. At least with buffalo. IMHO.

That is the ideal solution, but not always achieved.

Both me and my PH go to great lengths to make sure whatever we shoot has a clear area behind it.

But, again, one can never be sure.

I was trying to shoot a kudu bull, he had some zebra near him.

He was completely clear of any of them.

I fired at him, and he took off.

A zebra standing way to the right - from my position several animal's length clear.

The zebra dropped down.

Roy said "what happened? The zebra just dropped down"

I said "that is nuts. I shot the kudu. And even in my wildest dreams of misses, I could not have hit that zebra"

The zebra had his back broken, so I shot him again.

We went after the kudu, and found him dead a few yards further.

The distance between them was 35 yards, and the angle must have been at least 30-40 degrees.

Saeed,

That's why I don't like mono bullets. I've seen them divert radically. Now that can happen with any bullet, but I like the bonded bullets and in my humble opinion, the Swift A Frame is the best I've used. Definitely tougher than the Nosler.

Agree that you must focus on what is behind the target animal and not shoot if there is any possibility of a pass through that might wound something standing behind your target. I spent what seemed like an eternity, was probably more like 15 minutes, watching a zebra stallion facing us with mares and foals behind him. When they finally cleared, I shot the stallion. The bullet was recovered under the skin on his hindquarter. But not worth taking the risk.

On a more positive note, recovered bullets are a confirmation that the design of the projectile did what it was designed to perform regardless on how much weight was retained.

Its the ones which have exited that have partially expended their energy and continued their journey into nowhere or the ones that have "exploded" on impact, causing superficial wounding that would be cause for concern though this is to be expected on smaller or light-skinned animals.

Fulvio,

good point. If you recovered the bullet, you recovered the animal, so it worked.

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
Fulvio,

good point. If you recovered the bullet, you recovered the animal, so it worked.

Not necessarily.

I have seen friends shoot an animal and completely miss.

And we recover the bullet from the ground next to it.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
Fulvio,

good point. If you recovered the bullet, you recovered the animal, so it worked.

Not necessarily.

I have seen friends shoot an animal and completely miss.

And we recover the bullet from the ground next to it.

If the bullet did not hit the intended live target, it's performance cannot be judged for obvious reasons.

My 0.2 cents.

Thing is, mono copper bullets do not leave anything to be guessed.

They just work.

As the old saying goes, the best compliment is to be copied.

That is exactly what I did after using the originals Barnes X bullet.

I have the machine in my workshop, so designed my own to perform like them.

Not to beat them, just to equal them.

And that we have achieved.

I shoot the 570g TSX in my 500 Jeffery. My only concern with the bullet is to make sure it doesn't pass through one animal and kill one behind it. For bears, I think the A-Frame is an exceptional bullet. Here's a 300g A-Frame that still weighs 299.5g after passing through a 9' brown bear diagonally.

So, I'm reviving this thread after a year of dormancy in doing a search on .375-cal projectiles. While many good points have been made in favor of some over others, yet it's evident to me that a measure of prejudice and/or ignoring the potential experiences of literally thousands of other hunters who will never set foot on African soil is being ignored. The result is that a tone of dogmatism has tainted this thread.

Like, for instance, Barnes all copper bullets never failing, or Partitions are somehow inferior to Swift's A-Frames, and worst overall is the "true fact" that cup-n-core should be relegated to the scrap barrel.

There are just too many variables to be that pontifical when the hunting scene involves the ordinary "Joe" in America, Canada, Australia, Europe, South America and Asia. Did I miss somewhere or someone.

I'm someone who has hunted most of my life (so far of 87.5 years), and approximately 70 of those years involving some hunting of small, medium and large game, 99% of which has taken place in the eastern half of Canada. I've handloaded centerfire rifles for over 40 years in most common cartridges from .22 Hornet to .458 Win Mag. In that process I've loaded many cup-n-cores, Partitions, bonded cores, all copper and all lead.

To me, it's somewhat of a sad commentary that about all bullet makers now feel compelled (to compete in the market place) to produce a variety of mono bullets that have now pushed prices beyond the reach of the "ordinary" handloader when cup-n-core (properly made) will more than suffice for the majority of our hunts - not even to mention that all-lead bullets could suffice for all hunting if wanted to or in a pinch.

If I may, and I'm now loading TTSX bullets in my .375 H&H because I can no longer find a source for Sierras, I'll mention three bear hunts (out of many) and a 4th, here in my home province of Ontario: 3 involved the use of .45-70s and either cup-n-core or cast.

1. My first bear (trophy quality). 400gr Speer at 1865 fps. Range 100 yds. Shot in right side behind shoulder. Bear went 10 yds. Massive bleeding from 3" entrance that saturated right side from shoulder to tail. Bullet retrieved in offside armpit = 90.5% unfired wt.

2. A newer 1895 Marlin: 405gr Remington, MV = 2120 fps. Range:100 yds. Bear going away, hit in left flank, bullet made exit just behind right front shoulder. Dead bear right there.

3. A single-shot NEF in .45-70: 465gr hardcast with a 1/4" meplat. MV = 1900 fps hit bear frontally under the chin. Exit below sternam burried into ground. A bang-flop at 70 yds from my tree stand. 6' bear from nose to tail.

4. In contrast: A young bear at 100 yds at same location as no.2 but several years later(these were all over baits). Shot frontally as it faced me. Load: 350gr TSX at 2750 fps from my .458, CZ550. Bear ran about 70 yds in a semi-circle, ending up about 40 yds behind bait setup. Bullet made exit in front of right hip with NO evidence of expansion!

I could go on and on....

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

I did an experiment.

I went hunting in South Africa, plains game.

I had a 30/404 wildcat I have developed and built myself.

I load a variety of standard soft point and hollow point bullets.

I concentrated on the Sierra Match King 180 grain.

Velocity was over 3450 fps.

Shot many different animals.

Every single one died with one shot.

Range was from 15 yards to over 500 yards.

We never recovered a single bullet.

They simply turned into nothing.

A nyala was shot in the chest, facing, at about 15 yards.

He jumped up and down a couple of times and died.

His chest cavity was turned into a mush.

We could feel something like like sand in the mess that was made.

Shot a zebra, standing less than a hundred yards broadside.

Dropped right in his tracks.

The bullet made a foot wide crater on his shoulder.

It did not penetrate into the chest cavity.

Hunting large body game like Cape buffalo, I would never use bullets like these.

Hence my choice of mono bullets that I make specifically for our type of hunting.

Very good discussion, Thanks to all. Brian