The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Guns, Politics, Gunsmithing & Reloading Reloading Swift A.Frame disintegratedGo | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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Just home from Limpopo in RSA where I hunted plains game with my M 70 in 375 H&H. The bullet used was the 270 gr Swift A-Frame loaded to aprox.2660 fps. On the smaller antilopes it vent straight through, but on a wildebeest I had an experience I didn´t expect. The wildebest was hit in the shoulder bone, broke it and a rib bone in, passed trough the lungs, broke a rib bone out and was later found under the skin. The rest weight was a scant 114 gr and most of the led was gone. The wildebest was found dead after approx 200 yrds of tracking in dense thorn bush. This is my first time using the A-Frame and my question is... is this the norm, and will I experience such blow ups of the bullet on heavy boned animals ?? Arild Iversen. | ||
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Nowhere near normal for an A-frame! Especially at that sedate speed! | |||
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Sounds a little unusual, but Africa does weird stuff to bullets. A buddy of mine hit a large eland on the ball of the shoulder joint with a .375 260 Partition and it came apart before getting into the chest. The eland turned and my buddy socked it on the opposite shoulder in precisely the same place and the bullet came apart again. There was apparently a great deal multilingual cursing going on as the third shot was arranged while the bull tried to effect an escape using only his rear legs... | |||
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That was probably one of the most freakish occurences with a Swift A-Frame I ever heard. They're usually one of the toughest bullets available. The only experience I have had with one was a 160 gr. 7 m/m from a .280 Remington that mushroomed perfectly and only lost 2.5 grs. of weight. I could'nt have asked for better performance. I didn't hit any bone, by the way. "I ask, sir, what is the Militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them" - George Mason, co-author of the Second Amendment during the Virginia convention to ratify the Constitution | |||
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that is not the norm--I like so many here have used them and the retention of the Swift is very very good. You must have come across a new genetically bred animal that can withstand the Swift  salute! good shootin | |||
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I have photo of the bullet from the wildebeest and another one that we dug out from a huge warthog who was hit in the back storming up from a waterhole. That one look like adverticed and was found under the skin in the front after passing trough the hog lenghtwise. I can´t post pictures here but if any of you guys can do so, I can send them by mail if there are any interest. Arild Iversen. | |||
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I wonder what a corelokt would have done!!!!! This does not speak well for the swift and this is the very first dissapointing comment I've read about the A-Frame. I agree....this is not the norm at all.....but you did do a lot of damage withg it just the same. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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I just weighed 300gr Aframe I shot a gemsbuck with.It broke both shoulders and stopped under the hide.It weighs 225gr.I was shooting a Remington 700 in 375rum. | |||
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I suspect the bullet tumbled after breaking the shoulder, otherwise you would still have all the lead in the base with the "pulled down sock" appearance of a n A-frame that has gone straight through. In my limited experience, bullets that tumble inside animals may largely disintigrate, and any further penetration is happenstance. Full penetration with the bullet under the skin on the far side after breaking several bones sequentially sounds like good performance to me. I am not surprised that a classically tough animal like a wildebeast can absorb a full 375 load and run off. I had a 120 gr ballistic tip tumble and fragment after hitting a deer rib on the near side at 2500 fps from my 6.5X55. It didn't make it to the far side of a 50 K doe. I know it tumbled because what little remained was sitting bass ackwards when I found the bullet. Paul | |||
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Arild Iversen ----- There is a solution to your problem, shoot North Fork bullets.  Good shooting.phurley | |||
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This just goes to show how different game is, and how bullets perform. Got my Wildebeest with a "plain old" 220 grain Nosler at 220 yards. The critter did a wild dance then collapsed about ten yards from where it was first hit, by a single thru and thru heart-lung shot. LLS  | |||
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Hi, I have collected a huge pile of game with Swift bullets. I have also seen a lot of game shot with it and I have only once seen a bullet failure. I was shooting a Lichteinstein Hartebeest i Zambia. I hit it square in the shoulder with my 340Wby. The distance was 100yards and the muzzle velocity on the 250grs bullet was 3000fps. The animal dropped in the shot and never moved. The bullet was found under the skin on the other shoulder and it was just a empty core totally flattened.   Weatherby, Symbol of Superiority! | |||
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I was one of the Professional Hunters on Arild's hunt, and that's also a first for me. It looked as if the mushroom was cut in half length-wise....  My girlfriend's dad shot a very young crop raiding warthog with 180gr Swift Scirocco's the other day in the guts, and it didn't even exit, but perfectly mushroomed............ | |||
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As young_ph said... the bullet got quite a beating. I have been trying to reconstruct the shot, and it is a slight possibility that I could have hit a small branch or twig from a torn bush. The bull was partly hiding behind one, but in the scope ( 2,5 ) the shoulder looked all clear. If it hit a twig and tumbeled, that could be the answer. It went in a straight line, and the wildebeest is as dead as it can be and I´m a happy hunter after all Arild Iversen. | |||
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Other than the bullet found on Governer Connelly's stretcher at Parkland Hospital, there is no magic bullet. All are succeptable to physics and at the speed bullets enter an animal and deform, yes odd things will happen. Whats important is to poll a thousand uses and see what rises to the top. The A-frame will be somewhere near it. _Baxter | |||
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stuff happens...nothing man made is 100% Mike Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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Arild Iversen ----- I test my bullets with an long file box filled with old files and plastic binders and a large Bison hip bone placed a couple of inchs deep. I wet the files and shoot into the end of the box. All the bonded core bullets without a partition of some kind or those that had a solid rear section turned to a silver mush at the end of the penetration. The bullets that didn't have that fate were North Forks, Swift A-Frame and the Barnes monometal bullets. I placed those three in the same toughness category and shot for accuracy. The North Forks won out and I took them to Africa. ----- I shot a Lichteinstein Hartebeest at 180 yards with my .358 STA using 270 grain North Forks at 2850 fps in the shoulder and with the angle the bullet penetrated through the neck and was found in the hide on the offside. A perfect mushroom and 95% retention of weight. I would have bet money that the Swift A-Frame without any other interference would have done the same thing, go figure. I also gained a great deal of respect for the African game animals that day, particulary the Kongoni. Good shooting.phurley | |||
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phurley.. Yes, I belive the A-Frame has what it takes regarding strenght, so I have by no means lost faith in the bullet and I will continue to use here at home for my moose hunting. Guess it was the Red Gods that put me on a little test, and as long as I got my wildebeest I´m perfectly satisfied  No doubt the wildebeest is a tough fella, and to run off with a broken leg and both lungs punctured for 200 m in dense torne bush, takes stamina... Arild Iversen. | |||
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Stories like these make me think that a run or any specific amount of bullets came out of manufacturing with a poor bond between the lead and copper. How and why, well that;s for more scientific minds than mine.. _BAxter | |||
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Very interesting results indeed. At least you can be thenkful the bullet penetrated and held reasonably together. Have you discussed the matter with the folks at Swift? I'm sure they would be interested. I've used Swifts on all kinds of game from Cape Buff to Black bear with excellent results. On the attached imgage, the third bullet from the left is a 300gr 375 H&H recovered from a Wildebeest shot at 65 yards straight on the chest, bullet recovered near the hip, weighing 268grs, The one on the right is a 180gr Hornady from a 300 Weatherby recovered from an impala shot at 80 yards. It only weighed 80grs. I love Swifts but I am in the process of switching over to TSXs, particularly for buffalo as I think the TSX is a better penetrator, but for plains game, I think it's hard to beat the Swift. jorge  USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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Jorge. I sendt an e-mail with pix of the bullet to Swift as soon as I came home from Limpopo. As I´m on job right now on an oil rig in the middle of nowhere, I have no access to my private e-mail. But I can post the answer from Swift ( if I get any ) as soon as I get home. Arild Iversen. | |||
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Just got an answer from William D Hober at Swift. He is pretty sure that the bullet got turned around sideways when hitting the shoulder bone. That explains the disintregation of the bullet according to Mr. Hober. I´m very much aware of the fact that no bullet is foolproof, and this situation has by no means changed my mind that the Swift A-Frame is a though bullet. I´m also pleased that Mr. Hober who is President-CEO at Swift, took his time to answer my e-mail. Not all companies do that... I guess that´s all to say and the case is closed. Arild Iversen. | |||
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NOT the GREAT GRAY, GREEN GREASY LIMPOPO RIVER!! "Bitte, trinks du nicht das Wasser. Dahin haben die Kuhen gesheissen." | |||
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I have a feeling somebody has been reading the "Just so Stories" by Kipling?? What is the continuation of that sentence, something about "where the fever trees grow densely"?? I have never read these stories in English, but the particular one about how the elephant got his trunk is a definite favourite of mine... - mike ********************* The rifle is a noble weapon... It entices its bearer into primeval forests, into mountains and deserts untenanted by man. - Horace Kephart | |||
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I've seen Aframe break apart. My son shot a Kudu bull at 250 yards with 308 win 165 gr load. The bullet went through his left shoulder and stopped below the skin behind his right shoulder. The mushroom separated from the bottom of the bullet. The Kudu, most importantly, was DEAD. "Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid" -- Ronald Reagan "Ignorance of The People gives strength to totalitarians." Want to make just about anything work better? Keep the government as far away from it as possible, then step back and behold the wonderment and goodness. | |||
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