The two on the right are 350 grain Swift A Frame from my 416 Rem Mag. They were removed from two different Buff.



I have never had a Swift A Frame failure

I also am a confirmed Northfork man...I like the softs, but they are terribly boring as they just do the same thing every time, and it makes no difference what kind of resistance you hit, spine, humerous whatever, they all clone each other into perfect mushrooms...

But my favorite Buffalo bullet is the new Northfork cup point..I have now shot about a dozen buffalo in the last two years with the Northfork cup points and Northfork FN solids, plus shooting some dead bait bulls lengthwise and a few helpfull follow ups..I have used them in 375, 416, 404 and 470 and the cup point is the do it all bullet, expands a just right and penetrates like a solid, and knocks those old boys down hard..

I found the cup points expanded better at 2400 FPS in the 404,416 and 2600 FPS in the 375, than they did at 2020 FPS in my .470, but the 470s flatten out and expanded a tad and killed like the hammer of thor! Next time I will drive them at 2245 in the .470 and that should compare to a right hook from big bad John...

As to the Rhino Bullets, Pierre van Tonder used them this year in his 500 Jefferys, and the softs performed exactly like a solid, no penetration at all..He was disapointed in the results he got from them....

I have also had great luck with the fantastic 400 gr. Nosler in the 416 Rem at 2400 FPS..It is a wonderfull buffalo bullet...

Also the new 450 gr. Woodleigh SP and PPs and the 350 Woodleigh in the 375 H&H, these are fantastic bullets for buffalo..and I think the extra weight give you a step in in caliber for both of them..At least I got that impression..It appeared my 375 killed like a 416 and my 416 like maybe a 458 Lott....Just my impression..

Lots of good choices out there today that you can't go wrong with...

Trophy Bonded. First, last, always. Accurate, reliable.

DC300

Dogcat,
Nosler only makes one .416 bullet. it is a regular partition but with a substantially thicker jacket that allow expansion to about half way to the partition and that makes for a tremendous amount of penetration for a soft...

Most all of todays premium bullets are of the best quality for what they are designed to do...It is up to the hunter to decide what he desires and to say one bullet is better than another is not quite right, unless you have used them all...

Nosler, BarnesX, GS Customs, Northfork cup points are penetrators and best for hunting bachlor bulls..

Bear Claws, Swift, Northfork softs, Woodleighs, are best for herd hunting as a general rule.

None of these bullets are prone to failure, but any bullet can fail under certain circumstances beyond anyones control, but today it is a rare happening...They are just great bullets out there..It took the bullet industry many years to get their stuff together and another few years to get it in one pile, but they have done it in spades..they deserve applause!

Ray,

Before he retired from Nosler, the head engineer told me the .416 was designed to retain 70% weight rather than the traditional 60/40.

They did this by moving the partition farther forward than they normally would have placed it.

If you section one with a hack saw you will see they really did move it way forward.

I was told by other Nosler employees that John Nosler saw nothing wrong with the 60/40 and advocated for it but the marketing dept wanted to be abe to play the weight retention game with bonded bullets.

I see nothng wrong with the 60/40 split myself. It may have made it more useful as an all-around bullet for medium and small game as well.

I have found all of the Nosler medium bores from 338 and up to have a nice thick jacket on the ogive and even if the lead blows off they still have good expansion.

Andy

Folks,
I do not reload; so I am stuck with factory offerings. My Dakota shoots Trophy Bonded Softs by Federal Premium pretty good. I have always loved Nosler Partitions. Based on Ray's input I definitely plan to try them. I have a question about solids. DO you really need them if you are only hunting buffalo? Or are they more needed for hippo / elephant? I have not measured the Federal Premiums with TB solids, but they appear to be longer than the softs by Federal Premium. Due to their length and very flat nosed profile, they will not feed from my Dakota's magazine well.
Has anyone tried the Norma Ammo featuring Barnes solids?

Ray,
do you recall how you loaded those 400 gr. Nosler in the 416 Rem at 2400 FPS?
I could not load those bullets with RL19 as they were too long.Needs a different powder that has more punch/grain apparently.thanks

Obviously that would be RL-15, Varget, IMR-4064-4320-4895, etc.

Sheephunter,
78 to 80 grs. of RL-15...In fact the 400 gr. Nosler is a little shorter than most .416 bullets...RL-15 is .416 Rem powder.............

Andy,
Your post to me is a fact and well stated....But for the record/explanation the 416 bullet is not a partition gold and it seems to have a thicker partition and jacket and does not expand as much as most 60/40 Nosler do and right or wrong I explained that to jacket thickness???????...It is, at any rate, a great Buffalo bullet.

At least I was told by a Nosler employee that it was not a partition gold...I better explain that as I have not cut one in half to varify that. The peel back seems very heavy and makes me believe that its a real beefed up bullet.

Andy, the the weight of the 350 grain A Frames were 330 and 337 grains, left to right. The loads from that group were loaded with 85 grains of Rel 15 with average velocity of 2611 FPS. I found this load to be very accurate. The first three shots touch each other, after that the shooter must take responsibility for the expanding group

I am trying to recall the distance, not sure,(been a few a years) but I think it was 100 yds and maybe 130�.

I retrieved some 180 grain bullets from some plains game taken with a 300 win mag at 3085 FPS and they had the bulge you described.