On page 278 of taylor's book African Rifles, and Cartridges there is a controvercy between these two very knowledgable men on bullet construction, and pass through, or retained bullets in game!

Taylor want's his bullets to stay inside, and just bulge the skin on the off side, while Kieth wants his to pass through.

The controversy continues on with Kieth saying some ask for the impossible, with a bullet that is retained,on a shoulder shot, yet they want this same bullet to push forward into the chest cavity with a "TEXAS HEART SHOT", on an animal like the Cape Buffalo. Keith maintains that if the bullet will not shoot through on a side shot to the shoulder, how is it to pennitrate from the butt, to the lungs, and heart. Taylor, on the other hand says the bullet that is retained under the hide on a chest shot, can be expected to pennitrate all the way up front with the anal shot!

I say both men are right, and their only difference is with the desire for the bullet to stop under the hide on a chest shot, or to pass through, on the same shot! Taylor wants to kill with the shoulder shot, and Keith wants to track the animal by blood spoor. The pennetration meets far less resistance when placed up the old shoute, than it does when placed on the very heavy shoulder of a buffalo, but with Keith, he wants the butt shot to break the hip bones, while Taylor wants the bullet to miss the bones, and is shooting for the chest cavity, from the rear.

What y'all think?

Mac, first off, Keith didn't come anywhere close to Taylor's experience in Africa, and I'd rather pay attention to Taylor's advice, even though much of it is a bit dated. I'm not a real big Elmer fan, but if I'm not mistaken, Keith wrote his book, "Safari" after just one trip........

Bullets have changed a great deal since the days of Taylor and even Keith, and if those guys were alive and on the current scene, I suspect they'd look at a whole lot of things in a different light that they did way back when.

AD

It was last summer when I came back to camp early one day admist the story circulating of a client that had just that same morning passed a .375H&H solid through a bull, which proceeded to richocet off a rock and break the knee of a cow nearby. The client didn't want to pay for the cow which wasn't that big a deal it seemed to me.

I consider this just one more example of why not to use solids on buffalo. If you are indeed John Taylor and can hit the shoulder (spine) every time, go for it, but I would suspect there are not too many around that are that proficient at such a shot.

I have found many, if not most, PH's in Zim want the client-tourist-hunter to shoot solids at buffalo which is a bunch of crap, IMO, and I tell them so!

I can see using a solid if you want to brain the buff but it can just as easily be done with a good soft.

You will bring down a buff much more rapidly with a soft.

I like exit wounds, that & the fact that I am a .33 bore fan must make me a Keith fan. The farther a bullet can travel thru the animal, the more damage it will do from any angle. Seems to make sense to me. I think Taylor & Keith wanted the same thing really. Whether the bullet bulges the hide on the far side or exits, the bullet has passed completely thru the animal doing the most damage. Both men had extensive hunting exp. on large game, both men had a dislike for small bore, quick expanding bullets for big game.

I agree with Allen in that Keith had nowhere near the experience on African game that Taylor had! The bullets are much different today than in the days of these two men, as well. The difference between these two men, where this subject is concernerd makes no difference as to the construction of a bullet then or now, as long as the bullet is the same for each man, at any given time! This subject only came up in the bullet construction chapter in Taylor's book, and was not actually about construction, but that the two men disagreed as which is best, passthrough, or retention, and if a bullet that will be retained can be expected to penetrate far enough to reach the chest cavity, from behind, or not! fredj338said it perfectly, a bullet that is held under the skin on the off side is, in effect, a pass through, the only thing different with an exit wound is a blood trail. I contend that if the bullet was placed the same for each the result will be the same, a dead Buffalo. One seldom needs a blood trail to follow up a Buffalo.

Like my question, both men agreed but because of the way each worded his opinion, each thought the other disagreed, nothing more!

Like Will I like a good quality softpoint for Buffalo, and the only one shot kills I have experienced on Buffalo have been with softpoints! That is, uless the brain, or spine was hit! With these soft points I have, in most cases, had the bullets retained under the skin of the far side. However, these same soft points have penetrated from end to end in Buffalo, whether hit in the behind, or shot in the chest from the front. It is my experience that a bullet that will be retained, CAN be asked to reach the boiler room from the aft section of a Cape Buffalo! All that means nothing to anyone but me, since my experience wouldn't even fill one page in either Taylor, or Keith's score sheet, or for that matter, the books of most who post here!
Just wondering what the opinions of the guys here would be.

[ 07-05-2003, 23:50: Message edited by: MacD37 ]

Mac,

A good topic. This must be a slow day. I figured there would be an opinion from everyone that has so much as seen a buffalo!

It doesn't seem though that is much difference between the old solids that were drawn in Taylor's book and the Woodleighs available today.

Hi,
I haven't shot a buf yet, but am an ardent fan of complete pass-thru shots! OK a tracker in Africa will likely find any reasonably hit buff....but what happens when a teak-tough hartebeest goes 250 yards with a hole in both lungs in some dense bushvelt just before dusk?? We found it eventually, but the large amount of blood in the chest cavity would have been a lot more helpful spattered on the ground!!! An exit wound, speeds recovery and provides for an easy follow up.
My one question is about point of aim...Do you actually aim at the animal's anus or a point slightly above? I have read of people breaking a departing animal's hip, is this done by aiming at the pelvis or at the acual ball and socket??
Any experiences welcome...

I don't have enough experience to decide which is better. My personal observation is that it doesn't matter, pass through or stay inside the animal, but my money is with Taylor. jorge

I like bullets that exit from any angle. Don't like solids for anything but I've not hunted elephant...yet. Will use solids there w/o question.
Keith had very little African experience in comparison to many who post here so I don't give his long winded opinions much weight. Taylor is at a polar opposite, a wealth of experince. Given today's bullets I don't know if I'd pay a whole of attention to either one, I'd rather read and listen to what a modern day expert like Craig Boddington has to say.

Who is this Boddington person?

I think he is some part time writer.

I have shot nowhere near as many animals as Keith or Taylor (or many of the members here), but my experience points towards using bullets that are likely to exit from, at least, a broadside shot at the animal(s) I intend to shoot with that bullet.

Just to mention an example (I've written about this here before):
Shot a Gemsbok a year ago. Gave him three 200 grain Norma Oryx (ironically) from a .30-06. One fully broadside high heart- lungshot. Two quartering towards me (1 left and 1 right though). One hitting the liver and gutbowl, and one hitting the shoulder boone and penetrated no further than into the middle of the heart. None of those shots exited and the Gemsbok barely flinched, and trotted away some 60 yards with some theoretical 8000 foot-pounds of "liberated" energy.
Most of my other hoofed animals shot with exiting bullets (i.e. Barne's X) have been much less hardy (including Zebra and Kudu).

Point is that it probably doesn't matter all that much and I think it makes a lot of sense to use a bullet that makes it easier to find an animal in case I screw up, or if I have to take bad angled shot.

[ 07-06-2003, 22:12: Message edited by: Kalle Stolt ]

Mac-
As stated above, I like bullets that pass through but I detest solids. The buffalo situation you outlined is a touchy one no doubt, but what is a person to do if he is already shooting soft points? I've had Swifts, Trophy Bonded, Barnes X softs all go clean through on broadside shots at buffalo. Even taking a shoulder along the way didn't slow them enough to keep them in the animal.

JohnS , you are absolutely correct, that
these will slide right through on most side shots on Buffalo. This is why I use Nosler Partitions if they are made in the caliber I'm shooting. The very fact that makes most shy away from NPs is the reason I use them. The front half of these Partitions, will, most times, loose most of their guts, but will penetrate very well. I find the Trophybonded Bearclaws, and the Swift A-Frames penetrate too much, and don't in my opinion, transfere as much energy to tissue as do the NPs. The problem is NPs are not made in large enough calibers for most of my Buffalo rifles. I don't use the X-bullets, simply because I have not found them to be accurate in my bolt rifles, and I will not use mono-mettle bullets, of any kind, in my doubles.
All this is, as stated above, a personal thing, and in no way requires anyone else to follow, lock step, with me. When I use solids in my doubles, I use Woodliegh,and at proper speeds for doubles, they work like magic. In My bolt rifles I use Barnes Super solids,a monolithic bullet, or Woodliegh. I setteled on the Partitions after years of useing them on lots of game, shot from everything from 243 Win, to 375 H&H. When the 375 NPs were discontinued for some years, Swift came out with the A-frame. I used them in my 375 H&H rifles, but as soon as the NPs were again available, I returned to the controled expansion bullet that the others only imitate, IMO.

I understand both sides of the pass through/retained bullet theories, And haveing said that, the only difference, I see, is a drop of blood on the ground, and a chance of unwanted wounding, for the passthrough theory. The bullet that is retained under the skin on the off side is a pass through, but just is not punched through the skin. The internal damage is the same with both conditions, with a slight edge, IMO, for the rapid expansion of the front half of the NPs yealding more trauma durring the pass through.

To me, the X-bullets would be better, if the back half was hollow, and filled with soft lead. this would allow easier engraveing of the bullet by the rifleing, and add some weight to the bullet at the same time! As I have said many times before, this is all just one man's opinion, nothing more!

I used to think that it was best to have a bullet completly penetrate and leave and exit hole.
However in the past few years I have used several bullets that did not exit, and I seem to have had a much higher percentage of "drop where shot" incidents. This includes cases where the same cartridge was used with the same bullet weight, at the same velocity [even the same powder charge]
with hits in the same places.
In simpler words, when everything has been equal
[apples to apples, oranges to oranges] the animals go down in there foot prints much more often when the bullet stays inside the animal.
These "stay inside bullets" are not high velocity fragmenting types, but bullets that mushroom to a fairly large diameter.
What have ya'lls experiences been?

Mac-
It seems our experiences are at polar opposites when talking about Noslers! I have found that the "premium" bullets mentioned typically penetrate somewhat LESS than the old Nosler, excepting the X. I will state that this is with smaller caliber Noslers, 375cal and under. I haven't tried any of their 416cal bullets and they don't offer them in 458cal.

Like you JohnS, I wish the Partitions were available in .375 all the way up to .585, If they were I would use nothing else in My doubles for soft points. I'd especially like to have one shaped properly, in 480 gr. .458 dia. I find the 300 gr 375 H&H with NPs to be exceptionally deadly on Buffalo. I'm not interested in plains game much, but could hunt Cape Buffalo every day for the rest of my life without getting boared!

I think there is something to be said for pass through, as well as retention, and for quality softs, and solids. The comments to this thread is an indication of that fact. Just like Keith, and Taylor, there are proponants for both schools of thought! This is the outcome I expected when I put this question to the forum!

Bullets kill by destroying tissue, be it muscular tissue, bone, or CNS tissue. When a bullet stops anywhere in an animal there is tissue that could have been destroyed but wasn't. Also when a bullet stops in an animal the last few inches of the wound channel the bullet was going really slow and getting even slower so that damage is much less than could have been.
Under the skin on the opposite side is a theory thats been around for years and years and needs to die. Its BS>

The opposite side of that, Walker, is that a bullet that passes through did not transfer as much energy to the tissue of the animal, and had some 'left over' that was ultimately transfered to a rock or tree downrange.

I'm not saying I'm a proponent of bullets that don't exit, but if you're taking the "tissue damage" stance, then the bullet that stays inside will always do more tissue damage (tissue damage being measured in ft/lbs of energy transfered) than the bullet that passes through, all other things being equal.

That said, I like a large exit wound, if possible. I suppose my ultimate performace would be the "lodged under the skin" that went about 1/2 inch further and exits the off side with it's last lb of energy, dropping to the ground. Now, can someone contact the bullet companies with that request?

BTW, I shoot partitions on big game, and I've been satisfied with their performance.

I don't buy that theory either Trademark. A bullet that passes through has indeed transferred more energy that one that stops under the skin. It takes more energy to get a complete passthru. For example; say it takes 1000ft/lbs to get under the skin on the offside. 1050 ft/lbs will pass through completely. I say the complete passthru will transfer more than 1000ft/lbs to the animal.

I thought we were talking about bullets that had the same amount of energy to begin with, thus the "all other things equal" statement.

Since you're talking about two bullets that impacted with different energy levels, that would change things considerably. I propose we return to a vis-a-vis analysis, for simplicity.

Guys,
Before you get too far down this road you'll have to take a bullet's construction into consideration. Some designs take less energy to fully expand, and possibly then would need more energy to fully penetrate, owing to their extremely large frontal area. The Swift and TBBC designs come to mind here. Others, like the Nosler partition need little energy to blow the nose off, giving a very rapid expansion and disintegration of the frontal mushroom. The remaining body of the bullet has no mushroom and hence can penetrate much further but with a caliber sized wound channel. Not a great deal of potential tissue disruption here, yet they will, in my experience, give 100% penetration almost 100% of the time.
Take a conventional design bullet as another example. let's say it's a common Hornady interlock or Nosler Ballistic Tip. Here, too much impact velocity can cause premature bullet disintegration inside the animal, giving barely adequate, if even adequate penetration to reach vital organs.
This is a very complex subject and one that bullet designers are wrestling with on a continual basis.How much is too much, and yet how much is not enough? Velocity at impact is the most significant influence on how well or poorly a bullet performs. And before I forget, let's not forget penetrative velocity which is also a very significant factor in how well a bullet destroys tissue. That's another discussion entirely...