Gentlemen:

I have shot a good number of buff and elephant with the following steel jacketed solids. 375 300 gr. RN Hornady, 465 480 gr RN Woodleigh, 458 500 gr RN Hornady and 458 550 gr RN Woodleigh. I have never seen anything but straight line penetration and the depth of penetration has always been more than I needed. What advantage would I see if I switched to a flat pont solid either mono or steel jacketed. Please don't give me theory. I want to hear from those such as Saeed, Ganyana and Ray that have used both. Thanks!

465H&H

There is a wonderful article in the next to last African Hunter about this topic. Lots of actual field testing was done... not enough, of course to actually prove anything.. but better than just musing...

You ought to get a copy. It seems that penetration was generally greater with the flat meplat.

As to my experience re: your question (which is limited to one bufalo with a flat nose solid), tissue damage seemed slightly greater with the flat nose, rather than the rounded nose of a Woodleigh or old Barnes solid... with which I have multiple buffalo kills.... so being a round nose kind of guy, pay no attention to me!

I'm going to use North Fork FP's on buffalo in a couple of weeks, though!

My history is like yours with quality round nose DG bullets (solids, that is)... They do just fine. For instance, I shot an elephant with three .470 Woodleighs in November. The first two were in the chest and one exited, the other was under the far skin... the finishing head shot (as the elephant tried to get up), entered under his eye and exited his far side aural canal. I have the single recovered bullet from under the skin and it could be loaded again.

My best guess is that Elmer was right. Big meplats do more damage, but you didn't ask for guesses, did you?

In other words, I didn't add one thing to your knowlege, did I? Except the article is worth your time.

465,
Like JudgeG, I am no help on this matter having shot the "big stuff" with Barnes and Woodleigh solids. Thought I would post pix of the few solids I've recovered...the first Barnes solids from two different buff...notice they are perfect, could be reloaded again...both are .416 400 grain bullets shot from my .416 Remington Magnum at 2400 FPS.


And a Woodleigh .416 410 grain solid shot out of my Rigby at around 2400 FPS recovered from my elephant cow. Notice the bullet suffered however it penetrated the skull and was lodged in the cervical vertebrae. It did the job!


I also would be very interested in how the flat nose solids performed and if anyone has any recovered bullets to post pictures of for comparison.

I took Bridger solids to Zim last August and gave an ele two at 30 feet...These were Flat nosed and have bands or ribs on them...Hit him between the eyes but a little low collapsed like a classic brain shot but recovered and started to spin to my right and I gave him a second on the right shoulder...Ph gave him one on the hip but missed the bone by an inch just gave him a big PIA...We chased him and he fell three times and made a big circle and came back to within 50 yds. of shot and died that night..
Recovered the three hits and I asked what bullet killed ele and tracker said the head shot...
I was the first to shoot a bull ele with a Bridger solid....

ike

quote:

I also would be very interested in how the flat nose solids performed and if anyone has any recovered bullets to post pictures of for comparison.

500Grains posted several pictures and information on flat nosed solids at NitroExpress.Com:

GS Custom

Bridger

And, a different design, the North Fork Cup Point.

Thanks, Charles...good stuff. I must admit that the NorthForks seem to act like X-bullets with limited expansion because of the way they open. Very uncovnventional compared to a traditional solid! Not saying it's bad or good, just different. Seems it would cause a larger wound channel and disrupt more tissue and vitals on entry.

I have shot a world of Buffalo with the Bridger, GS Customs and Northfork flat nose bullets and prior to them with Woodleighs, Hornadys, TCCI and a few other round nose solids....

I see a world of difference in the two and all the good going to the FN solids..Mostly they cut vessels and artereys that RN let slide around...you get a lot more blood with a FN solid, both penitrate straight and far, the FN bridgers sharp hard driving band, even shaves an inch of hair away from the bullet hole as it makes entry..

But if you want a penitrating killer of buffalo, then the Northfork cup point is in a class by itself, no other bullet compares to it on Buffalo, Lion or even plainsgame, IMO...

Barnes X work good on Buffalo, but they are limited to broadside shots IMO, they do a lot of damage there, but are a bit shy on lengthwise shots sometimes, if the animal has been feeding and lots of packed grass needs to be penitrated, if the petals come off your fine, if not they sometimes stop short is what I have seen. Same with Nosler.

H1 .465

I use woodleigh solids by preference.


During the early 1990's I used a pile of locally produced "monolithics" with a flat point and aslo, turned down .458 A square Mono's to .423 with 3 driving bands (like trippple shocks) and a flat nose for use in the departmental .404's. and butchered some A square .375's down to .366. I personally never shot anything with the .404's but the lads who did were very happy with the performance.

I used the turned down bullets in my 9,3 fairly extensively, but I have always chosen softs for buff by preference and we had plenty of RWS TUG Ammo, so I actually only shot 1 ele and finished off two wounded buff with the flat nosed bullets. Not enough for a scientific sample. Parks candidates still turn up on the proficiency exam with the ammo that I loaded ...the old A square mono's we have yet to recover one. The local mono's I had turned up are too soft and mushroom. They work...Just on elephant and are great for buff, but having seen the recovered bullets a 95% copper (5% Zinc) Alloy is too soft!

Ken Stuart makes me flat nosed soft point rounds for use on lion and buff. I like the big meplat because the entry wound bleeds freely and then I know exactly what I am dealing with when the animal runs off.

Ok, in summing up so far it appears that penetration is pretty darn good with both flat point and RN steel solids. Neck vertebrae after a frontal brain shot on ele can really limit penetration. Flat points leave a better blood trail and may cause more internal bleeding. Flat points show more nose deformation than RN solids. This may be good or bad depending on whether the deformation causes bullets to go off course. Stomach contents can also put a major hurt on penetration. Theoreticaly flat points should provide more thump, shock, crunch or how ever you want to term it. Flat nosed solids are longer than RN steel solids and may limit powder capacity. This is what I got so far. Any comments on this summary?

465H&H

The Bridger, GS or Northfork in my experience have not shown any signs of expansion on Buffalo. I don't believe the Bridger would deform on elephant as it is the hardest of them all...
Johan Calitz tells me their is no better solid than GS Customs FN on elephant, and he has shot a heck of a lot of elephants with them from his .470..I have no experience with FN bullets on elephant, so have to go by the folks I know and trust on that...

I hear and see some small amount of deformation on Woodleighs, but a small amount of deformation is forgiveable, and will occur with any bullet from time to time..The above bullet with a bit of lead sticking out the end, is of no concern to me on elephant, as long as the nose is in tact and no great amount of fishtailing exists...

Woodleighs are a great and proven bullets, you will never go wrong with Woodleigh regardless of the BS one hears from time to time on them over the internet.

The last and most important thing is ANY bullet can fail from time to time, use the ones that fail the least.

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Ok, in summing up so far it appears that penetration is pretty darn good with both flat point and RN steel solids. Neck vertebrae after a frontal brain shot on ele can really limit penetration. Flat points leave a better blood trail and may cause more internal bleeding. Flat points show more nose deformation than RN solids. This may be good or bad depending on whether the deformation causes bullets to go off course. Stomach contents can also put a major hurt on penetration. Theoreticaly flat points should provide more thump, shock, crunch or how ever you want to term it. Flat nosed solids are longer than RN steel solids and may limit powder capacity. This is what I got so far. Any comments on this summary?

465H&H

On average I have found FN solids penetrate deeper than RN solids, by about a foot on body shots. In particular, hemispherical RN solids penetrate the shallowest. These differences may seem unimportant until explained in terms of a game animal. With an FN solid for a broadside body shot on an elephant, I will get an exit hole. But I will not get an exit hole when using a hemispherical RN solid for the same shot.

Also, FN solids sometimes deform a little at the meplat when they hit hard bone, and Woodleighs deform at the base, squishing out some of their core. Neither seems to affect straight line penetration in my observation.

For me the bottom line is that if I want to maximize penetration, an FN solid is the way to go. But if I use a RN solid, it will be a Woodleigh.

For someone who cannot decide between a soft and a solid, a North Fork cup nose fits the bill just perfectly.

On the left is a 540gr FN recovered from the earth after full penetration of a downed elephant (insurance shot). On the right is an unfired example. The bullet is made from copper and is easy on the bore and obviously hard enough for getting the job done. Any bullet harder than this merely puts more stress on the barrel and achieves less on impact.



Above are .458 FN bullets recovered from a wood baffle stop box. The left hand bullet was fired at the recommended speed while the middle bullet was fired at 2000fps. On the right is an unfired example. These are also made from copper. Note that when used at the recommended speed, these copper FNs expand to a virtually flat meplat and assume a cylinder shape at the nose. This deformation is planned and is the reason why one should heed the manufacturer's recommendation regarding Mv and bullet weight for a given calibre.

Thank you all for relating your experiences. Although I'm still confused on which to select. The ones I have used and have confidence in and trying something new.

465H&H

In your double- stick to woodleighs. In a bolt action in dangerous game country I like to carry a flat nosed solid on top - will work on ele , buff an way better on lion than a round nosed bullet. I don't think it matters really, but as a bullet for elephant go for a harder, rather than a softer bullet. The GS custom - mentioned above are great for buff, and do work on ele, but they are too similar to the bullets I had turned up here in the early 90's- (ours were 95% copper and Geralds are the same shape and pure copper). I have never seen one fail to reach the brain on an ele but at .404 velocities they have flattened considerably on some shots and been only "just" good enough.

NB- woodleighs don't seem to like impact velocities much above 2400fps. I do know they make extra strong bullets for the .460 weatherby etc, but people will insist on using their regular 500grn .458 bullets in things like the .460 G&A Ackley etc and then I have seen split jackets and marginal performance.

Of cource in the mono's I have seen bullets that were too brittle. The early PMP mono's tended to shatter or break chunks off the back and tumble and we had a batch turned up in Zim in 1991 that was hopeless- in fact it was the fear of "too Brittle" that caused me to select the extra soft 95% copper alloy for our .404 rounds.

These days the top makes like Barnes and A square are pretty hard to beat.

"Shooting" an elephant or anything else for that matter with "successful" results really doesn't really prove anything unless bone is encountered. Though there might be a tendency for flat nose bullets to deflect less than round nose bullets, every shot is different and sometimes bullets deflect and sometimes they don't. Thankfully they hold true most of the time.

The African Hunter story doesn't really prove anything either as the results were mixed, and even whacking a dead elephant is not a reliably repeatable experiment.

Like anything else you can't have your cake and eat it too. At the moment solid mono's are relatively soft except for possibly the Barnes and eat up a lot of case capacity.

It is as usual an entertaining, non-defensable discussion.

Ganyana,

I remember a coversation I had with Clem Coetze at Main Camp in the late 80's about mono bullets. As I remember he complained that monos were not penetrating in a straight line and sometimes would vear off in strange directions. I think you were with Parks then. That conversation has colored by perception of monos ever since. Can you clarify that?

465H&H

I'm posting this for Retreever:

Barnes took buf at 40 yds...Bridger solids took ele in head and on shoulder penetrating up to neck as ele was spinning....the Barnes from a 500jeffery shot at hip but missed by an inch...big pia..

Ron, thanks....

The bullets were fired from a Ruger 458Lott the Barnes hit a buf right at the top of his heart..40yard shot...
The two Bridgers hit ele at 30 feet steep angle and Ph fired at ele as he was heading into the jess..


Mike

Hi .465

As a result of the culls here , A square made some alterations to the shape of their bullets to decrease the odd deflection. I drew the "conclusion" at the time that a flat nosed solid was better than a round nosed one since all the deflections occured when bullets hit curved surfaces- Zygomatic Arches or tusk bases. Art came out for the one cull and hung arround for most of it whilst we dissected elephants. He even hired some crew to help dissect the heads on those we were too busy to do. Mike La Grange had his crew and ecologist dissect 800 bull heads to look at penetration and the failures.

As I say, Art and I drew different conculsions. Charlie Haley set up a penetration box using elephant hide and leg bone to provide the initial resistance and we tried a whole bunch of different ideas before I ordered the bullets.

I like a flat nosed solid, but- local quality was poor and weight variation and metal fouling unacceptable to me. The Turned down A square bullets worked superbly - but they are hellishly hard on barrels. I still have some which I load I the chamber when I am hunting generally, and particularly when I am guiding non hunting clients in a dangerous game area. ( like taking the kids for a walk at rifa etc) but I am not going to shoot a pile through my own rifle thank you!

Then Woodleigh bullets became available. At 9,3 velocities they are perfect for elephant and there was no need for me to continue using the mono's, Pulling the .375 rounds, Getting them hand turned down etc.

Still- my personal opinion - for what it is worth - If you are going to use a mono, it should be made of suitable brass or Bronz and have
a) A flat nose - the bullets 'Bite" into curved surfaces rather than deflecting
b) the shank should be relieved to less than grove diamiter, leaving just three (or at the most 4) narrow driving bands. - When we relaved the shanks on the A square .458 rounds we lost 40grns weight and gained 90fps. I cannot prove it but I am also sure we saved a whole lot in barrel life - which was a very real problem. Between 86 and 93 we shot out the barrels on some 400 .458's and 100+ .375's. Funnily enough we still haven't shot out the barrels on any of the .404's...

Ganyana: Slightly off topic, but are you familiar with the old-style Hornady solids? I always head they were pretty reliable and the ones I recently used (two) on buffalo seemed to perform well. jorge

The old style Horniday Solids work fine up even at 2450fps + velocities. They are good bullets. The reason Parks here went to A square ammo was velocity problems with the winchester factory ammo- there were all sorts of theories! some included that the bullets were undersized, and certainly, if you took a box of W-W ammo and tried each round in the muzzel of your rifle, most would stop short of the case, but one or two would fit in easily, stopping on the case mouth. I have come to believe that it was powder compression problems, but all faith in winchester ammo was gone.

Thanks for the reply. I've also heard the new "encapsulated" Hornadys work well. I still have a small supply of the older ones left and unfortunately I don't do enough of that type of hunting so they'll probably outlive me! jorge