On a trip to Africa my son did a lot of shooting with his .338 Win Mag. The screw-up fairy visited us and he had to switch ammo in the middle of the trip. Started out using some handloads using a 230 grain Winchester Fail-Safe bullet. Went to factory Hornady "Heavy Magnum" 225 grain bullets. We recovered some of the bullets out of various critters ranging from 180 pound warthog to 1700 pound eland.







Top row 338 230 gr Failsafe. Weights are 229,229, 220, 218



Middle row is 338 225 gr Hornady. Weights are 132, 99, and 79 (jacket) and 62 (lead)



Bottom is a 30 cal 200 grain Nosler Partition, weight 132 gr. This was out of a 300 Weatherby recovered from a ~125 pound common reedbuck.







Same line-up of bullets with a different view. The F-S on the top-row far right was bent/distorted and would not stand up. It hit the shoulder of a zebra and bent a little. It and the bullet bullet next to it each lost a petal scraping up against big bone. These bullets all came out of gemsbok, kudu, and zebra...all fairly large critters. These bullets measured from around .60 to .80 at their widest diameter.



The middle row of Hornady bullets came out of a warthog, kudu, and eland. The one out of the eland was a jacket/core separation.



The Nosler Partition was no surprise. The front half opened up fast and shed it's lead and expansion stopped at the partition.



Here's the interesting part; all the critters hit by the Failsafe bullets ran off at least 100 yards. All the critters hit with the Hornady bullets went down within 20 yards. Yes, bullet placement and circumstances play a considerable role. IMHO, the Failsafes "performed" perfectly. They penetrated, broke bone, expanded, and held together. The Hornady bullets came apart. After seeing what happened on the warthog and kudu my son shot, I told him to avoid shooting any eland in the shoulder for fear the bullet would come apart and not penetrate. So when the time came on the eland he shot broadside behind the shoulder and double lunged it. The eland turned a tight circle, laid down and soon rolled over. Both lungs were penetrated but the bullet (two parts) came to rest on the inside of the off-side.



Makes for an interesting discussion...."At what point in the animal's death did the did the bullet fail?"

WOW that failsafe is a tuff bullet I must say. Seems like good performance with both bullets but I like how the failsafe held togther better.

Well I figure that the hornady might have had more hydrostatic shock to knock them down faster do to the bullet having a more explosive effect than the failsafe.

But congrats on the trip.

Brian

Thanks for posting the pics. Nothing too surprising. I like the way the Partition "splits the difference," so to speak. Makes a good all around compromise, in my mind.

Many thanks - good information and great photos. You chose some really interesting bullets to try out as well. It would be interesting to include Trophy Bonded Bearclaws, Swift A-Frames and Barnes Triple X.

The appearance and weight retention is indeed valuable information. But so is the animal reaction to being shot. Knowing that no two animals will ever react the same, it's still helpful to note that the better retention bullets didn't kill any faster. Or maybe even as fast!

Still, for a large and hardy animal, the penetration and weight retention has to count for a lot. You certainly gave us all some food for thought.