Ladies and Gentlemen,

On many occasions, I have shot impalas with our 375/404, using either the Barnes X 300 grain bullet or our own Walterhog 300 grain bullet.

The ones I am talking about are those shot at either end. Facing, and hit in the neck or point of the shoulder, and the bullet penetrating all the way untill stopping under the skin by the tail.

Or those shot in the rear end, and the bullet penetrating the whole length of the body and lodging under the skin on the front of the neck.

I have also shot numerous buffalo bulls in similar spots, and the bullet seem to penetrate further in the buffalo than in the impalas!!

Any explanation for this?

Your Walterhog bullets, like their namesake, do not want to do any more work than is necessary.

You might want to ask Walter for his explanation first.

When using a Walterhog bullet, nothing will make sense.

When hunting Impala, use enough gun.

John

Have you chronod your loads lately? It might be that your barrel is shot-out.

Having yet to hunt in Africa this is nothing more than an uneducated guess(I.E. worthless blather). But from watching many hunt videos it seems to me that I frequently see PG shots in excess of 150 yards, yet most of the Buff shots I see are in much, much closer proximity. Could the shot distance and correlating loss in projectile inertia be the culprit you seek Saeed?

Possibly the elasticity of the skin, coupled with a large frontal area of the bullet is causing a trampoline affect. The wider the nose of the expanded bullet the less likely it is to penetrate the skin on the far side.

465H&H

I don't have any good explanation, but have had a similar experience. 300g 375 TSX entered the rear hindquarter of a 125lb wild pig and stopped under the skin in the opposite foreshoulder. That said, everything in between was a mess (and it still ran 50 yards up a hill). From now on, only a 470 Nitro Express or better for these pigs

Saeed,

Believe 465H&H has it right

Regards, Tim

Having seen more than a few autopsies of humans killed by gun fire and being a student of bullet performance, I've come away with the conclusion, the only consistent thing about bullet performance is the inconsistency!

.44 maganum, 240 grain soft points stopping on a femur, only to see the next round shoot the leg off the victim! Go figure?

Saeed,

I'm sure that 465 is correct but I've been baffled many times by the drastically different performance of the same bullet when shot into 2 different animals.

Mark

Here is some wild speculation.

What if an impala, being relatively light and nimble, is literally lifted off the ground and actually moved by the bullet. Some of the bullet's energy is now being used to move the entire animal, but not necessarily penetrate it. A buffalo, being substantially more "grounded" and considerably stronger, may hardly budge.
I'll admit this is a hard theory to swallow, given the short amount of time a bullet is traveling in an animal. However, I have noticed results similar to Saeed from impala on several occassions. Example: A .300 grain .375 Trophy Bonded Bear Claw stopping under the off side skin. And yet the "light" caliber 270 or 30.06 bullets usually give full penetration. Something strange happens, more often than not with large bores on impala!

Bill

Saeed, you are seriously under-gunned for impala. May I suggest you talk to Macifej? he will outfit you properly!

quote:

Originally posted by Indlovu:
Saeed, you are seriously under-gunned for impala. May I suggest you talk to Macifej? he will outfit you properly!

Here, is another Walter theory and since Walter is the BBQ king he would definitely like this one.

Buffalo are tough on the outside but have soft centres.

Impala, are soft outside but have a tough inner core.

This theory is based on the practical BBQ'ing of the meat Impala vs. buffalo, buffalo meat softer than impala and quicker to cook.

No Saeed, I cannot think of any explanation we will need a balistic expert on this one.

/

I suspect there is another factor as well. I think the mass of the target is important. If a target is massive enough, the bullet is far more likely to achieve full penetration than if its mass is too small.

A bullet impacting a relatively light target would transfer energy to the target which then actually moves some ... acting to dissipate some of the energy of the bullet. As energy can go into movement of the bullet, deformation of the target, deformation of the bullet, or movement of the target the more a target can move ... the less energy is available for penetration of the target (which is a form of deformation of the target).

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Possibly the elasticity of the skin, coupled with a large frontal area of the bullet is causing a trampoline affect. The wider the nose of the expanded bullet the less likely it is to penetrate the skin on the far side.

465H&H

Saeed, there, my friend is your answer above!

I know the impala you're speaking of from your film, and the other example of the bullet hitting something before hitting the Buffalo, and key-holeing, but shooting all the way through, but still is bagged by the very flexable hide's "TRAMPOLINE" effect, as 465 says.

It seems to me from most shots on animals with expanding solid bullets, if the distance is far enough after impact, the hide seems to always catch, and hold the bullet. This also applies to the North Fork CPS (cup point solid) because like your walterhog bullet is a solid, that expands. JD shot a 120 lb hog down at 4K with a 470NE NF CPS, intering at the chest, and stopping under the skin og the hind leg's hock.

I shot one that was larger with a non-expanding Sledge hammer solid, also from a 470NE, and it whized right through. The un-deformed bullet on impact, and the fact that the skin is where the skin is backed by a wall of muscle, and the bullet not yet deformed, pnentrates like a dagger, while the skin on the other end, has nothing backing it other than air, and the bullet's fromntal being wider, lets the hide catch the bullet, as it is stretched, then retracts. Eventhough the bullet has traveled farther inside the animal, it has skrubbed off enough speed so the hide can catch, and hold it.

HUMMMMMMMMMMMM! Things that seem magic!

PS: The film is great, and I can't seem to put the book down. Man there is a lot of African history in that book. Thanks again Saeed!

Yes, impala are tougher than buffalo.



You need a 45.70

quote:

The threshold energy necessary to penetrate the skin is dependent on the SD of the bullet at time impact with the far skin as well as the threshold velocity for penetration of the skin for that particular projectile. This value is usually way higher than the value for muscle penetration.

Alf,

You will be dragged to the burning stakes for this heresy. SD is a curse word here on AR.

Warrior

Saeed,

Clearly you are not using enough gun.

My impala was shot through and through with a 450 grain North fork using the 450 Dakota at 2550 fps.

Seriously, maybe one bullet tumbled (turned over 180 degrees) and the others did not. Or has been suggested, the Impala bullet did not lose its X petals and your recovered Buffalo bulelts almost always do.

What did the bullet look like from the Impala. With or without X petals intact?

Was velocity the same?

Andy

Walterhogs are smart bullets, reactive bullets, that adjust themselves appropriately according to target. Very unlike their namesake.

All of the above (except the one about the impala being moved through the air like in Hollywood special effects)... and this, just a recap of the above:

The impala is less severe on the Walterhog bullet and allows it to retain a greater frontal diameter up to the hide on the offside.
There the hide is elastic enough and strong enough to capture the greatly expanded bullet, since the penetration index is reduced by wide-nosed expansion, the drag on the bullet is greater through more of its path than it is in the buffalo. Parachute and trampoline effects.

The buffalo is severe enough on the Walterhog to blow off the nose or fold back the petals early on and create the cylindrical superpenetrator while the bullet still has enough velocity to carry on through the buffalo, a farther distance than it did in the impala.

Saeed:

Did most of the bullets recovered from the impala have greater frontal diameter than those recovered from buffalo?

Were the impact ranges of the two quarry similar?

Were you more likely to find the bullets from the impala base forward, having tumbled, more often than in the buffalo, or about the same frequency: rarely?

Alf makes good points about 2000 fps to 3000 fps velocities making little difference in penetration depth but great difference in wound profile. I have seen this with FN solids in IWB tests, "Iron Water Buffalo" not International Wound Ballistics.

Great difference is also found between expanding bullets versus FN solids on depth of penetration and wound profile.

And bullet construction effects amongst the expanding bullets, further differentiate wound profile and depth of penetration.

Must have a lot to do with the bullets converting to FN solids more often in buffalo.

FN solids will go a lot farther than a well expanded soft in either a wood and water sandwich or critter.

Well Saeed, I don't know about the penetration issue alone, but the biggest single "I can't believe that" was an Impala ewe which I shot for Leopard bait. Shot was about 35 yards and the .375 H&H with TTBC's from Jack Carter personally. Shot broke both shoulders and the ewe ran about 10 yards. The tracker and the PH said I missed... NOT. She apparentlly showed no sign of being hit, I myself thought it was amazing she was not lying right there. One tough Mama!

Mac
That pig weighed 175 Lbs, The round took out 3 or 4 vertabrea at the base of the skull, He was faceing me, and had droped his head to feed, I was shooting for the brain and hit a little high. The bullet still weighs 500 grs. It was found base first.


JD

The closer the brain is to the sphincter the higher the pressure inside the animal