Damn, somebody opened the door to the canuck advanced school of retards again...

ALf: I hope you didn't takeumbrage to my post, I really meant what I said, you're just to damned etherial for me!

Don: As the saying goes from the movie "Top Gun," "good move, Maverick!"
jorge

I just finished reading it, results were pretty well what I expected, but I do have a couple of questions that perhaps Don Heath or he the author could answer; Test results gave high marks (and rightfully so) to the North Fork products, but I noticed in the penetration chart table the NF Soft point only penetrated 30" as compared to the Swift's 42". Am Ireading that wrong?
Etherial or not, I think your question has been answered, Jorge! These tests, while most certainly "real world experience" as opposed to water jugs or ballistic gelatin are not rigorous enough to allow one to draw statistically valid conclusions about bullet behavior. However, while not statistically valid, you at least have some personal testimony from someone who you know, which may be more important to you than what some gun writer says in a gun magazine evaluating bullets that he has been given free! I susoect that there are sufficient variables eg. hititng bone, that statistically valid results may be hard to come by.
Peter.

ALf and other AR freinds,

The North Fork is a superior bullet to the other bullets Dan tested for the following reasons:

1. It expands very quickly. (My 458 left a 2 inch diameter entry wound on a kudu at 200 yards and equal size exit).

2. It expands over a very wide velocity envelope. (The Rhino and Barnes X do not).

3. It does not expand the rear core or loose the rear core like a Swift can since it is a solid base configuration.

4. It will not over expand like a Woodleigh.

5. Accurate and not prone to copper fouling.

If a 300 grain Swift routinley out penetrates a 286 grain North Fork by 12 inches I would still choose a NF for reaons noted above.

With an expanding bullet it is pertinent to ask, "How much penetration is enough?"

That additional 12 inches penetration can only occur due to less frontal area (expansion), delayed expansion if FA is similar, or extra SD.

Or it just had an easier shot path than the other bullets.

Andy

.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:

What bullets did you all hunt Africa and specifically Elephant and Buffalo with before 1995 when the GSC FN was first introduced in South Africa ?

And did you all have failures with these and you came up dry with each Safari because of this?

OK, if you are against progress then I assume you ride in a wooden wagon pulled by steers while on safari rather than riding around in a LandCruiser. Right? Nor do you use antibiotics when injured, right? After all, people shot more elephants without LandCruisers than have been shot with them. And of course policemen should carry cap and ball revolvers instead of Glocks. And soldiers should carry Brown Bess muskets and ride horses.

quote:

Just wondering how we ever did it before GSC's NF's and TSX's? not to mention the likes of a 585 and all these wonderfull very large, large bore mule kickers touted as DG rifles ? I have often wondered how if you should make a bad shot with one of them you get to shoot off a second or heaven forbid a fast third with one of them?

As you have determined that such rifles are beyond your ability, then I agree you should not use them.

Some people take pride in using an inadequate caliber for hunting, as though it makes them more manly. But it only makes them foolish.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:


1. How do you get a 2 inch entry hole on a kudu with any bullet at 200 yards unless the bullet hit something prior to impacting the kudu ?????? It is a physical impossibility given the nature of how bullets operate unless your kudu was made up of ripe watermelon? or you were shooting hypervelocity projectiles within a vacuum. To get a 2 inch entry hole it means expansion had to take place prior to impact unless the impact angle was not 90 deg to the animal.

If Andy observed something in the field, then it is by definition not a physical impossibility.

May I remind you that misapplication of book theory in an attempt to contradict real world events does not facilite the ongoing discussion of bullet performance here at AR.

.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
500 gr:

2 inch diameter hole on entry on a Kudu at 200 yards with a 458 cal bullet ?

Please explain to me the physics of this phenomenon ?

You said it was impossible. Yet it happened. Therefore it is possible even if you do not understand it. Consider hydraulic effect.

And your explanation that the bullet hit something on the way in does not hold water as .458 bullets do not expand to 2" diameter.

quote:

If you claim that then you are actually putting forth a theory that Mikes NF actually failed, wholesale !!! and instantly puts any credibility that it in fact stays together better than any other bullet to bed, with that statement you have just sunk the NF bullet as a total failure !

No one said that. You are just talking to yourself. It is unclear to me why you have a vendetta against North Fork bullets. And also GS Custom bullets, apparently.

Once again I recommend reading the article prior to discussing it as your posts are going farther and farther afield.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
you guys are making things hard to follow

Sit back and enjoy the show, as long as you do not pay too much attention to all the Mensa members.

Use ANY of the premium bullets that shoot well in your rifle, and I can assure you the animal would not know the difference

quote:

I concur on any of the monometal expanders like Barnes and GSC, contrary to claim they do not always expand.

You cannot make such a statement as we have proven that GSC HV bullets expand reliably in the impact speed range of 1600 to 1900 fps. Depending on the caliber and the application (follow our guidelines for use) reliable expansion of any of the HV range is not an issue. Even our older HP range was more reliable expanders than the monometal counterparts of the same era.

.

Alf: What bullet do you recommend for say, a 375 H&H 300gr, 416 Rigby 400 and a 450 Rigby (or Dakota) 500gr? For buffalo of course! jorge

ALF,

The second photo you posted above, is my picture (not Saeed's) of a .375 260gr GSC HV (not a Walterhog) that was recovered from a waterbuck in June 2005.

I think you got that, but your post is a little hard to follow.

Just to avoid any confusion,
Canuck

ps: I still need to take a picture of that .375 300gr Swift A-frame that I recovered from a bison, un-mushroomed (?). Just additional proof that ALL bullets are subject to the occasional "failure".

A 2" entrance hole seems to me to be enough of an anomaly to warrant further scrutiny. I don't know if Andy actually measured the entry hole or estimated it's size. In either case it was large enough to draw his attention. In my experience entry holes are usually of caliber size or slightly larger or smaller. When I have seen larger holes it has occured for one or more of the following reasons.

1. The bullet hits something before hitting the animal and expands to some degree.

2. The bullet hits something and is destabilized hitting the animal side on.

3. The bullet hits the animal at an angle causing a slanting wound.

4. The bullet is very soft for the intended purpose and blows up on impact.

5. The bullet hits bone near the entry and bone fragments are blown back through the skin enlarging the entry hole.

Also there may be other possibilities that I haven't experienced.

I do agree with the statement that any brand of bullet can fail. I have even seen a Woodleigh solid shed it's jacket from the steel core on an elephant.

465H&H

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
Gerard: (Please do not jump to the conclusion that this is in any way to discedit your product or any other!)

Sadly they do not always open up especially in the smaller calibers and even the great SAEED with his smoke pole and Waltherhog home brew has shown what we see from time to time.

If I may be so bold as to "steal" one of SAEED's wonderful pictures



and another:



It is however sporadic and not enough for me to stop using them and what is more if a mono expander does not open does it mean it fails as a killer? not in my book, in fact it is just as or may even be more deadly than expected !

It will tumble at least once or if the geometry is conducive for futher instability even twice! and should the distance at which the tumbling occurs be in a vital area of the target the effect is a huge very destructive wound.

ALF,

That bullet hit a tree branch a few yards before hitting the buffalo. It tumbled and went in sideways. It still destroyed the buffalows spine and was found under the skin on the other side.

Twice we had unexpected results from our bullets.

Last year I shot a buffalo bull that was walking broadside about 200 yards away. The bullet hit him in the shoulders, went through his heart, lost part of itself, and was found under the skin on the other side.

Where it had broken, it looked like a sheer, which we assumed was due to imperfections in teh copper.

We have seen this on some of the ones we made, and rejected them.

I will post photos of these tomorrow.

The second instance was this year. Again, I shot a bull about 150 yards away as he was walking broadside.

He hobbled a bit and stood. I shot him in the head then.

We found the first bullet has broken his shoulder. In fact, his shoulder join was completely pulverised. The bullet did not even penetrate into the chest cavity. We cut that shoulder to pieces trying to find the bullet, but, we were not able to.

Again, we think the bullet actually disentegrated.

I am going to post photos of the bullet we recovered last year as well tomorrow.

Apart from these instances, our previous design did extremely well on buffalo, but seemed to just whiz through the smaller animals.

We changed the design of the hollow point, and tried the bullets both last year and this year.

THese seem to expand very well, even on impala and leopard.

The leopard had an inch wide hole on the other side he was hit on. And he was dead by the time he hit the ground.

The bullets had the same effect on impala, leaving a large exit hole.

My conclusion is that no matter what bullet one uses, sooner or later, one will behave in such a peculiar way no one has an answer for.

Alf,
No offence taken, the topic bears discussion. Below is an illustration of the two possibilities where the bullet axis does not meet the target at right angles. There is a third scenario that is not illustrated.

You may recall that I said some months ago that we design GSC bullets to perform well at high angles of incidence but that there is little one can do about high angles of attack.

The first illustration below shows a bullet on a path that meets the target at an angle of incidence that is not square on. The first photograph below that, shows what the bullets will look like when recovered. The next photograph shows bullets that met the target at high angles of attack. The difference is clear. Note the similarity between the second bullet from the left and the picture you show in your post. There is no mystery about what happened. Why it happened can be speculated about.


High angles of incidence is a fact of life to the hunter and a good bullet must be able to cope with that. Properly designed monos will penetrate and remain on a path that is close to the original line of flight. In many cases, bullets cannot deal with extreme angles of incidence and will shatter or bend, leaving superficial craters and even exit on the same side as the entrance point. We design to avoid that.

High angles of attack are caused by the bullet nicking something on the way to the target and becoming unstable, a mismatch of bullet length to twist rate or with extreme range shooting, a bullet with a stability factor that is too high to allow the bullet to nose over on the downward section of the trajectory. Sooner or later any manufacturer will have this happen and there is nothing he can do about it. An important point to note is that bimetal bullets are more prone to failure (disintegration and bending) than what monos are, when this happens.


The third scenario is where the bullet arrives at the target with some angle of attack and meets the target at an angle of incidence. The result is much the same as above.

Below are a selection of GSC bullets that did not expand fully. All were fired into water. From the left, the first three impacted at close to 1000fps. The fourth and fifth ones were loaded to impact at 1200 and 1300 fps and the last one was at 1600fps.


Below is 1900fps into water saturated foam.


This is what 2400fps gives in a big GSC HV bullet into water. (30degree angle of incidence)


Here is a 120gr 7mm at 2600fps into water. (also 30 degree angle of incidence)


And if you drive them at speeds where most other bullets produce only dust, they still retain enough weight to get the job done.

3000 fps recovered from a kudu.


4000fps recovered from a zebra skull


4500fps recovered from a blesbuck.

/

Actually I did measure it.

2 inches going in and 2 inches going out.

Nothing hit in between. Shooting over a clear cut.

Many credible witnesses.

And this photo!



Bullet was 450 grain NF at 2550 fps.

Based on negligible drop from 100 to 200 yards, I am sure this bullet has a BC of .450 or more, due to 5 caliber ogive and heavy weight.


Kudu hide is very thin and elastic compared to buffalo thats for sure, but all of us were impressed by this bullets performance.



Thats the 450 grain on left and 400 grain on right from buffalo at PB range.

If you hit a large animal with an 80-85 caliber bullet weighing 430 grains expanded going Mach 2 of course its going to make a big splat.

Dont know why this would surprise anyone!

Scientific method should modify theory to match reality!

Andy

FWIW,

This is the entrance wound to the wildebeaste at 260 yards (.416 NF Soft, started at 2575 fps.)

I did not have a set of calipers with me. At the time I estimated the entrance wound at about 2 calibers or roughly .8 inches.

He was blowing BIG chunks of lung out of that hole. The recovered bullet is .798 at the widest point, .710 at the narrowest. I think it opened to at least that on the hide. It may have actually reduced the diameter of the bullet as it hit more resistance on the ribs.

.

Alf, would you care to justify your statements after looking at my photo in the above post?

Does that entrance wound appear to be .416 diameter? I was shooting over open grassland at the wildebeast. Unimpeded bullet flight. Same with the cape buffalo, but I do not have a good picture.

How does measuring a photograph give you inches of actual diameter? There's no scale given on the picture.

My NF softs were opening on the hides and punching big holes going into the hides.

[Edit to add:] As estimated above, the impact velocity on the wildebeast was in the 1900 fps range. This is NOT a velocity noted for "vaporizing" hide. That hole was cut! This is not a temporary wound cavity. And, YES, this is new behavior to me! Look at the taper cut into the hair on the right side of the hole. The PH and I thought that was where the bullet was entering at the edge of a wrinkle in the hide on impact. The taper could show the bullet opening.

Photos without something to show size reference are pretty useless.

However if a bullet had expanded, why would the cut hole be so evenly rounded?

I have seen holes that seem both smaller and slightly larger than the bullet diameter.

Could the relative elasticity of skin be an answer?

The bison killed by the .423/380gr North Fork posted above had a similar entrance hole to what Don and Andy are illustrating. If I can find a pic of that I'll post it. I did take a picture of it because I thought it unusual. It hit a rib going in, and as I said before, like Don, lung chunks and blood sprayed out the entrance.

My IQ barely cracks into the 99th percentile, but I have solved the puzzle for the rest of you Mensa members.

The skin is elastically stretched as the bullet enters and the grooves on the shank of the North Fork saw off the skin all around the perimeter of the entrance hole, in a much larger area than would be punched out by usual smooth sided bullet entry.

After the "implosion-explosion" sequence of the bullet passage through the hide, the relaxed skin has a much bigger hole because of that circular cutting by the sides of the bullet, like shoving a rat tail file through a small hole and enlarging it.

It is that stupidly simple, and real.
No physical laws or scientific principles are violated.

The larger than caliber entrance hole is created before the bullet begins to expand.

Look how sharp the edges are on the "cutting grooves" of subject North Fork, a real killer bullet:

I just spoke to one of the geniuses we have here.

He said the large than bullet diameter entrance hole is caused by the bullet EXPANDING before hitting the animal!

Apparently at certain velocities, the HP becomes enlarged with air as it fills the cavity.

I asked him does he have any proove of this. He said he does not need to have any proof. The proof is in teh size of the entrance hole. And if I had any other idea he would be glad to hear them.

I have seen larger than bullet diameter entrry holes, and the bullet sure has not hit anything. But, I have absolutely no explanation for it.

if the skin is under tension when you make a hole in it wouldn't that cause the hole to be larger? If the bullet tip opened up in flight, then that would be a major discovery.

The first bullet was recovered from a buffalo bull shot at about 200 yards.

It went through both shoulders, and was found under the skin on the other side.

The other bullets show the faults we find in some of the copper rods we use. We only see these after the bullet was made, so if there is one under the surface, it is very difficult to detect.

The larger fault you see can be detected by weight difference.

On the last bullet, you can also see another fault right at the bullet tip.

Saeed,
We have had the same faults with copper we received from one supplier here in SA. They said that the cause was bad quality control at the foundry and the flawed material was the front end of the extrusion run and should have been discarded. Wet pack testing resulted in bullets that fragment into as many as three pieces lengthwise. If you hardness test the copper you receive, you will find that the flawed sections are marginally harder than the good stock. Below is a 500gr 458 HV turned from flawed bar. It is a bummer when you are some way into a production run and QA scraps the raw material as well as the batch made up to that point.


I have a question for the experts you have there (the one who came up with the theory of expansion in flight.) In my picture of the bent bullets above, can he explain why they are all bent to the right?


Alf,

quote:

The other scenario you have not touched upon is when the projectile cavity gets plugged and the "hydrolic forces" ( I hate to use the term cause it assumes we are dealing with fluid penetration) cannot expand the cavity and force the petals apart. This has been studied specifically with regards to expanding handgun projectiles.
It also questions the wisdom of trying to use plugs to plug the entrance of cavity and thus hopefully getting the plug to start the expansion proccess

The force that opens the bullet is stagnation pressure and it need not be water or some other fluid. It helps if it is an aqueous substance but tissue does nicely. The major difference between a plug in the nose of a bullet and a cavity that becomes plugged on impact is that the nose plug is carried with the bullet and has a momentum and energy value of it's own that dictates that it must continue on the flight path. Any material that plugs the nose of the bullet on impact, was stationary relative to the bullet that impacts it and thus acts on the arrival of the bullet in a different way altogether. The detrimental effect of material that accumulates in the nose cavity on impact, is higher the slower the impact speed is. At rifle speeds it is of little importance.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I just spoke to one of the geniuses we have here.

Tell Walter Hello for me!!



I shot about a hundred NF softs from the same batch at paper targets - all holes were normal size, so I don't think they were opening in flight.

If I had known that I would be held to scientific standards on my photos I would have asked Canuck to hold a bullet up next to the hole. Anybody that's shot a bunch of critters has to recognize the both Andy's photo and mine show an over-size hole - at least the same size hole you might get from a bullet that opened on a branch before hitting the critter. I won't argue whether the holes are 2 diameters or not, but knowing the typical thickness of the hide, the typical diameter of the hair, and the viscosity of fresh blood, even a skeptic can get some idea of the size of the hole.

On the wildbeast there was no swelling around the hole like there was on the buffalo - but I think he had no blood pressure to cause the swelling. The top of the heart was essentially missing.

The buffalo lived long enough after the shot that the entrance wound had a dinner plate-sized swelling around it - it looked almost like the bubble of swelling you get around a bullet that almost exits the hide. I think the NF soft was opening on the hide, and that the swelling was due to the "trampolining" of the hide before it pushed through.

This trampolining could give it a half-millisecond or so to open.

The entrance wounds were unusual enough that I photographed the last one carefully - the only one where I was dead sure it had hit no obstacles.

quote:

I have a question for the experts you have there (the one who came up with the theory of expansion in flight.) In my picture of the bent bullets above, can he explain why they are all bent to the right?

They were all fired by right-handed shooters

Ok guys Im with RIP on this one I see the same thing hunting with my bow, a broadhead that has a 1 1/8'' cutting diameter will some times make a 2'' or larger entry hole and the same on the exit! As it impacts it pushes the skin in or out Befor it starts to cut. Resulting in a much larger hole.

.

Alf,

Muscle tension would result in an elongated hole, as would an extreme angle of impact. That hole is as round as it can be. The presentation angle was such that the bullet should have exited just at the front edge of the off shoulder - and there was a hole in the muscle there showing where it came out and hit the hide.

I'll just say that I have shot critters with softs for 35 years, and I have never seen entry holes like these before - unless the bullet hit something else first.

Buffalo and wildebeast do not have human skin.

I will let the readers make of this what they will. We have three AR members reporting unusually large entrance holes using NF softs. You have not shot one at a thick-skinned animal, yet you say we are reporting the impossible.

Some folks have a mind like a steel trap.

I have noticed larger than caliber entrance holes when using GS Custom FN, Bridger FN and North Fork cup nose bullets. With North Fork FN bullets I haven't paid close enough attention because I thought the phenomena was known fact until Alf told me that the earth was still flat.

The mechanism RIP explains for this phenomena makes sense, coupled with a hydraulic backflow that spatters blood and organ parts out of the entrance hole.

If fired into animals north of the equator, I think these bullets would have bent to the left.

Andy!

The entry hole in your kudu looks to be oblong in shape rather than round. Is that the case or does the picture give a distorted view?

If you shoot a lead RN 45 ACP bullet into a cardboard target you will see a hole that is less than 45 caliber and a circular mark on the card board around the hole that is almost exactly 45 caliber. It is obvious that the bullet is pushing the cardboard into the cavity formed as the bullet hits the cardboard. If you do that with a wadcutter or semi wad cutter bullet you get a clean cut hole of 45 caliber. Possibly the same thing occurs on skin tissue. I have noticed the same kind of holes in elephant skin when hit with a RN solid bullet. The hole is less than caliber in size but you can see a ring around the hole where the hair is cut off and the skin abraided by passage of the bullet. You can shove a bullet into the hole but it takes some pressure to do it. The pushed in RN bullet won't enter the hole until the skin is pushed in far enough to stretch and allow it to enter. I havve seen the same with RN soft bullet holes in buffalo.

Possibly the flat nosed solid bullet acts more like the 45 ACP wadcutter bullet and cuts the entrance hole rather than pushes through it thereby creating a clean cut entrane hole. With the NF soft I suspect that the bullet must be expanding to some extent before it penetrates the skin to be able to create an entrance hole larger than bullet diameter.

465H&H

deleted

Don,
Four of us reporting now, Dan, Don, Andy, Rip have witnessed this.

Ahem ... The North Fork soft point is a sturdy semi-spitzer soft with a small amount of flat lead tip exposed. NOT a hollow point. There is no way it is expanding before impact. I am sure it could start expanding at the very instant of impact on hide at rifle velocity however.

Tenting, cutting, impact blast, all could be adding up to bigger-than-caliber entrance holes.

Thanks to Dan and PRDATOR for the moral support.

Alf has a mind like a steel trap, yep, but he needs to open it and oil it now and then.

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:
If fired into animals north of the equator, I think these bullets would have bent to the left.

They all have right hand twist rifling that would counteract any Coriolis Effect regardless of the hemisphere.

Actually just nicely arranged for the photograph, could have been right or left, any of them, in the game.

Count me among those who have witnessed larger than caliber entrances. However, I've always attributed this observation to the tendency for tissue, especially skin, to "shrink" away from anything that parts it. Even a paper cut is much wider than the thickness of paper.

I would also profer the observation that a caliber sized or smaller than caliber sized entrance is occur primarily as a result of a perpendicular or close to a perpendicular entrance path with a spitzer nosed bullet. And, that this kind of entrance profile is in the minority.

Alf,

Which of us are you calling a liar?

In alphabetical order; Andy, Canuck, Dan, Don, RIP, or Saeed?

You can call me a liar and just get your ass kicked, but no one here will let you call our host Saeed a liar.

I think you owe us all an appology.

For those of us who are not members of the flat earth society, you will find this photo interesting;



Same rifle and ammo as the butt shot, but this one on or near the last rib. And get this, it was at 75 yards not 200 yards. Should have made a bigger entrance hole but it did not. (Also this should give you some reference for how BIG the other entrance wound was).

Here is another very large entrance wound, on an impala at 150 yards, again shooting across a clear cut. Bullet exited near heart behind opposite leg.



Not shown, an entry wound on buffalo that was slightly larger than bullet diameter but they have very tough hide.

So the 450 grain North Fork is causing a very large entry wounds when it hits belly or ham, and diameter or slightly larger on rib shot.

You don't have to be an MD from Canada to know that a bullet that hits a fluid filled organ is more likely to make a bigger wound than a rib shot.

Where I come from it is not unusual for a bullet to make a larger than diameter entry hole!



RIP, if your observation about the grooved driving bands was responsible for the larger than diameter entry hole than a FN solid with grooves would make as large an entry as the soft point and this is not the case. Like a SWC, it may help open it up a bit as Dan has observed but not to 2 inches!



Note that I was using the experimental NF FN with many driving bands. It made a very slightly larger than diameter entry hole on the elephant head three out of three shots.

465, yes the Kudu wound is slightly lop-sided. I found my notebook from that hunt and checked my notes. It was, ">1 1/2 inch x 2 inches." My PH Myles McCallum and I both carried a small tape measure w us, and this was observed by him plus our two highly regarded trackers who were amazed at the ammount of blood that flowed from both sides of this non fatal wound.

PS For the last two years I have shot a circa 900 pound steer for the locker, once with a 375 improved loaded with 300 grain Bitterroot at 2,800 fps and once with my 450 Dakota and the 450 grain NF at 2,550 fps. Both times front on where neck meets chest. Both bullets threw bone, shredded meat, lung and blood several feet toward me and made a much larger than diameter entrance wound. I thoght this was normal until I tuned in here!

Andy