In Gregar Woods book "Rifles for Africa" he mentions a Swiss bullet called the CDP. It is bassically a partion bullet but rather then a straight partition it has a conical partition - kind of dimpled towards the base to allow the jacket to better conform to the bore.

I have done some digging and found this link:

http://www.swissmun.com/d/sport/index.htm

Does anyone have experience with these bullets and are they available in the U.S. as handloading components?

The bullet received a lot of media attention when it was initially introduced. I get the impression it was reasonable successful, as there were no end of reports about how fabulously these bullets worked. Most of these reports were of the type: "multiple animals killed with a single shot (each) and the poor critters did not move a meter after the shot" (I'm exaggerating slightly, but you get the idea - the usual "new bullet hype").

After a while, it seems some of all the exitement died down. Maybe because people found out that, although these bullets are not bad, they are no better than other premium bullets. And more importantly, that no bullet is going to give you instant kills in all circumstances, in spite of what the marketing literature says.

I've used them in (one of) my .30-06 rifles. At the time I used them, only 165 grs bullets were available in .308 cal.

I had trouble getting the CDPs to shoot in my .30-06, but I have to say that the particular barrel was suspect. It would be hard to conclude anything about general accuracy from my experience. I have seen CDP shot in a .300 Win Mag Blaser R93, and the results looked excellent, accuracy wise.

I have limited field experience with CDP on something like two smallish red deer. Results were OK, without being in any way outstanding.

The CDP is most often seen in Europe in Blaser marketed, RUAG manufactured factory loads. The bullets are available for reloading, but are kind of hard to come by, and not in the least cheap (trust the Swiss... )

If you are in the US, no need to shed tears over the absence of CDPs available to the general public. Just too many good alternatives. I'm sure the CDP is not a bad bullet, but I severely doubt it is better than any number of other premium bullets such as Swift A-Frame, Northfork etc etc.

- mike

Thanks for the reply - that is very good information.