Dvnv,

Well, I guess that my opinions are formed by comparing one bullet that I know works to the new bullet that is supposed to work just as well or better.

That said, My standard for big game, big bore bullet performacne is the LBT designed heavy hard cast bullets. I know how accurate they are on average, I know how well they displace soft tissue on average and I know how well they penetrate on average.

With them as my standard, my opinion of the Nolser Partition handguns bullets are they they are design wise a fair bullet but nothing more. Let me explain before someone gets totally offended with that comment.

First lets look at accruacy. THe handgun Partitions I have shot went into groups similiar to most conventionally jacketed bullets. I would say that the XTP's are generally more accurate and most of the LBT designes I have shot from revolvers ranging from .357" calibers up to .510" are at least as accurate as the Partition.

Penetration wise. For a jacketed bullet, they penetrate pretty well but generally not as deep as the Speer Uni-Core SP line of heavy big bore bullets. There are several reasons for this.

First off with the partitions, they are made in relatively light bullet weights compared to the cast bullets. Also, the partition is designed to open up quickly and generally looses its front core which reduces energy, momentum and penetration depts.

Because the bullet expands, it may transfer more energy but it also stops penetration faster then a hard bonded core SP like the Uni-Cores.

There is no comparision between these bullets and a heavy hard cast in penetration depths, the partition is simply out classed.

Finally, they are god awful expensive, often more then their high performance rifle bullet siblings. For 1/3 the cost you can get twice as many hard cast bullets that will shoot just as well, and penetrate much deeper.

All in all, I do not recommend the partition bullets. THere are much better designs for big bore revolvers for alot less money.

Good Shooting!!!

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Fiftydriver: Have you ever tried Nosler Partition HG? If so, what did you think? dvnv

Fifty-I hate to disagree with you on the Nosler bullet but here goes.First on Deer sized game and the .454 I just don't see penetration as a problem at all.I have read many articles on the Partition gold in the .454 and they claim it's the best factory hunting bullet around from Hogs and Bears to Elk.Theres not mine as I haven't used it.

As for accuracy the Nosler in test done by Dick Metcalf using the Raging Bull-Freedom Arms-BFR-Ruger Red Hawk-T/C 12 inch-T/C 24 inch- and the Browning High wall in 28 inch barrel in most all cases the Partition gold shot the best groups of all the ammo which was Cor-Bon 240-Winchester 250 hpxtp-Winchester 260jfp-CorBon 265BC-CorBon 285BC-CorBon 300jfp-Hornady 300 hpxtp-Winchester 300 jfp-CorBon 320 Penetrator-CorBon 360 Penetrator and CorBons 335 grain hardcast.

2.50 groups at 100 yards with the T/C 12 inch.In the Freedom Arms CorBons 300 JFP was the only one that had a better group than the Partition in all the firearms listed with a 2.50 compared to the Nosler a 2.68 at 100 yards.

My guess is the Nosler Partition at 1878 fps out of the Freedom Arms revolver would make any Elk within reason take notice and for the little Deer a .454 really isn't needed.

Don't get me wrong as I have a bunch of hardcast for my .454 but i still believe that on Deer sized game there not needed and on Elk with in 100 yards a good jacketed bullet like the Nosler or A-Frame and maybe the Speer loaded close to max will work just fine if we do are part.Yes hardcast penetrate better but on broadside shots(If your that lucky) agood jacketed bullet will do just fine from the mighty .454.

Sell some of those jacketed bullets

Best of luck......Jayco.

Jaycocreek,

I agree that for deer the .45 caliber partition is fully up to the job and probably on elk as well, but here is my question in response to you.

Are the bullets worth the $38.00 per 50 that you have to pay for them?

I can spend $15.00 for a hundred CPB and get at least the group size and far better penetration.

As far as what you read in the articles, well, I'm just stating what I have seen on paper in real life, not what some gun writers write about.

And for elk, I still would never recommend any jacketed bullet when you can use the Cast bullets and no worries about penetration ever.

I still stand by my opinion that these bullets are not worth the money you have to pay for them. They may work but there are others that work at least as well and for alot less money.

TO be honest, 2.5" groups out of an single shot handgun is not that impressive, especially if it wears a scope. My 454 and 50 A.E. in the Encore handgun will both shoot into the 1 1/2" group size at 100 yards with 395 and 440 gr CPB respectively.

Good Shooting!!!

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Fifty-I hope you didn't take me wrong.I just passed on what I have seen or read from Hunters that use this bullet.I have herd it is one of the most accurate Factory offerings out there.For $23 bucks a box for factory ammo,that isn't that bad compared to others.Right in the Ball park with or cheaper than CorBons hunting ammo.

But if you reload at 32 bucks at Midway that is quite a bit more than 8 and 9 dollar Hornady's and Speers.And I also agree on penetration Hardcast vrs Jacketed.

Dicks test was all done with factory Ammo, not reloads, and I thought the factory Nosler did quite well(actually the best in all guns tested) compared to all the other factory offerings.

There are those that think a Hardcast is the only one to use on big game and then there are some like a guide from Alaska that thinks a whole in and a whole out without expantion is a waste of time from his experience on Moose or the Big Brown bear taken with jacketed bullets and the Charging Grizzly stopped with a 300 grain FA jfp.

Two schools of thought on what it takes on game and facts and stories for both.To each his own and what they think will work best for there needs.Personally I am a jacketed bullet fan but have 328-335 and 360 grain Hardcast for my .454.

The way the hunting is getting here in Idaho I may never find out personally which is best because when it come to Weapon of choice between my .270--.45-70--.454 and .300 mag...well the .300 seems to get the nod for Elk for some reason.

I enjoy your opinions on pistols and your experiences testing them and like all firearms some just don't take to the same bullets as others.Each shooter has to find the bullet for his gun and it sure is fun trying to find it.

Best of luck....Jayco.

Jaycocreek,

I would agree with your comments in general.

I also understand what you are saying about which firearm you decide to use when elk hunting.

It is not like it used to be, Montana is getting the sasme way as Idaho. Unfortunately, ranchers and farmers can make more money charging out of staters to hunt then they can make from crops and cattle and most public land is worthless for hunting unless you have the horses and gear to get to the back country which most do not.

When the chance comes to see a mature bull elk, often it is under poor conditions or at longer ranges. It is hard to hunt them with a revolver because it is so hard to get a shot opportunity any way, let alone at 100 yards or less.

It is for this reason that I use the big specialty single shots for this type of hunting. Most will say they are nothing more then rifles without a butt stock, but most of them have never tried to harvest a big game animal with one either and have no idea what they are talking about.

Good Shooting!!!

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Dvnv,

To try to prove if one of use is right over the other would be a truely impossible thing to do, here is why.

We could spend a lifetime of hunting together, you using your PArtition and I my heavy hard cast and the end result would be identical.

When we put the bullet in the correct place, we would both have cleanly harvested animals, that is the simple fact.

Like most bullet discussions, bullet performance is greatly over appreciated when the all mighty factor is shot placement first and then bullet performance.

Please do not read this as accuracy is the most important thing in a handgun bullet because that is not true, the Ability of the hunter to hit the vitals is first and foremost important.

It is true we look at things a little different, nothing at all wrong there and even though I am a full believer in my ways from years of handgun hunting, I am also smart enough to knwo there are other ways to skin a cat if you will. That will also work just as well as my methods.

Let me give you a little back ground to the handguns I hunt with. I have taken several critters with the 44 mag and never had a problem once with full penetration or quick kills. With that revolver, I started using the Hornady 240 gr XTP loaded to 1600 fps out of the 9 1/2" Ruger SRH.

The first whitetail I harvested with it was a large doe at roughly 75 yards. I hit her behind the shoudlers on a broad side shot and she ran roughly 50 yards and folded up. The bullet made it to the off side hide and it made a real mess of the chest cavity, still the doe covered some pretty thick ground and with only one hole to bleed out of made for a lengthy tracking job but she was found withing a half hour or so.

From there I switched to the 270 gr Speer Uni-Core SP after testing several other bullets including the 300 gr SP bullets from Speer and Sierra, along with the 300 gr XTP and yes the 250 gr Partition.

I settled on the 270 because I could drive it roughly to the same speed as the 240 gr XTP and it would penetrate as deeply as all the 300 gr bullets except the very hard Sierra SP.

I have harvested several more deer with this load and have yet to have a fired bullet stop in a deer. As far as dropping deer goes, most still cover 40-60 yards if a major support bone is not hit but the blood trail is much more dramatic and significantly easier to follow.

I then started looking to a bit more HP in hunting revolvers and fell in love with the Ruger BH in 45 Colt. The first bullet I used on game with this revolver was the 300 gr Speer Uni-COre SP. I have harvested a couple 300 lb boars with this revolver as well as a couple deer and again I have never found a bullet. These 300 gr pills do not expand at all at the 1300 fps levels out of the Colt but they do work well on tough game up to 500 lbs or so.

Then I ran across a box of 360 gr WFNGC bullets in .452" and decided to test some loads with these boat anchors to see what they could do. I was supprised to see the 45 Colt cut 1" groups at 25 yards with the big bullets and velocities were only slightly lower then the 300 gr Speer loads and the cases simply fell out of the cylinder.

On game, such as deer, the very large flat point slaps game harder then any jacketed bullet I have ever used, in fact you can even hear the difference when they land. Also tracking jobs have never been over 50 yards with these bullets and usually about half that.

When the Ruger 480 came on the market I was not overly interested but was curious about the new round so I picked one up to play with.

This Ruger SRH would not shoot anything lighter then 400 gr into groups smaller then 4" at 25 yards. The good news is that 400 gr jacketed bullets ran right at 1" at 25 yards. I then ordered a box of 425 gr WFNGC bullets from CPB and tested them out. THe 7 1/2" SRH drive these bullets to 1200 fps and they shot every bit as well as the 400 gr jacketed bullets and at the same velocity. Recoil was very comforable compared to the 360 gr loads in the 45 COlt Blackhawk.

On deer, the heavy hard cast were simply amazing. I have harvested four deer to date with the 480 and one nearly 300 lb hog. two of the deer fell in their tracks without a major bone being struck. One was hit straight on and the other was a quartering away shot the split the front legs. In both cases the deer fell to the shot. Of the other two, the longest tracking job I have had was 20 yards and that .475" bullet with its HUGE flat point leaves a very large hole and a fist size permenant wound channel through the vitals from any angle you wish or feel ethically correct in taking.

I then started using the 440 gr WFNGC in my 50 A.E. Encore loaded to 1500 fps and have had even better results then teh 480.

I am a sworn fan of big bores and heavy bullets because they have worked so well for me.

This is the exact reason you use the lighter faster jacketed bullets, because they work well in your experience. I am not questioning that or your comments at all, just stating what I use and why.

In my opinion, I prefer to use revolvers over 45 caliber but only because that is just what I like. The 41 and 44 will also work great when used correctly as will the 357 with the correct bullet and a proper shot.

Still, I see no need to spend the money on the Nosler partition bullets when the heavy hard case have never, ever even hick-upped on game or on target.

I can buy a coupl ehundred hard cast for the price of the partitions and while this is not a factor on a hunting trip, it surely is when preparing several months ahead for that shot by going through several hundred rounds in practice.

I personally do no believe in using a "practice" load and then change to the hunting load. I can use the hard cast all the time with the same results and afford to do it. With the partition I could not say that.

Again, neither of us are wrong, in fact we are both right, the animals on the ground prove that both of us are using a good bullet and more importantly that we are able to shoot.

Good Shooting!!

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Fiftydriver: Fair enough...maybe in a few years I will come around to your way of thinking...dvnv

Fiftydriver: Thanks for the response, I will try to reasonably outline my thoughts.

I won't dispute that NPHG (Nosler Partition HG)aren't more accurate than other bullet choices. That said, they have proven to be more accurate in my FA than any other jacketed bullets I have tried other than Hornady's pre XTP 250 gr JHP (which were too soft for full power loads). I shoot open sights and, while I would like perfectly accurate loads, can't tell the difference between a 1.5 moa or a 2.5 moa load @ 100 yds. As you noted earlier when discussing the speer 270 gr jsp, accuracy doesn't necessarily determine the hunting load, acceptable accuracy and performance do. The NPHG falls in the acceptable range for me.

I also won't argue that hard cast don't out penetrate NPHG. But I will argue that , assuming adequate penetration, they kill faster. Expanding bullets are the common choice for defense, are outlawed in war, and used in hunting rifles because they disrupt more tissue and are more effective than nonexpanding bullets (o.k., you could argue that overpenetration is an issue in defense). Expansion will detrimentally limit penetration at some point depending on velocity, bullet choice, caliber, game animal, and angle of shot. Where that line is crossed is debatable, but I believe a 260 gr NPHG @ 1,700 will outperform cast bullets on deer and black bear and only becomes debatable on front quatering shots on large elk and inadequate for most shots on game larger than elk.

I can't disagree that NPHG are more expensive, but when compared to the total cost of big game hunting the cost becomes minor (at least for me).

Unlike the rifle bullets, I will dispute that NPHG often lose their front core (They might sometimes, but I have never seen it happen). I will also dispute that they "are design wise a fair bullet but nothing more". IMHO they represent a significant improvement in expanding handgun bullets.

I have never hunted anything larger than elk (and probably never will) so, for my use, believe the NPHG to be the best combination of penetration and expansion I can buy. You favor penetration over expansion...I guess we would have to shoot a fair number of animals together to prove who is right.

Just offering another opinion, dvnv

Jaycocreek,

Seems you are getting a little heated about this debate and I have no idea why.

I have never said the Nosler and A-Frame handgun bullets would not fully penetrate an elk or bear, I'm sure they would and in the 300 gr .452", I'm sure they would fully penetrate and exit as well.

Your comments about the 30-30 and the 270 are also a little confusing to me. I though we were talking about big bore revolver bullets?

But to answer your question, no I would not use solids inthese because they lack the frontal area to do any good at all as far as tissue disruption goes, the LBT designed bullets move alot of tissue from impact to exit. In fact over the full length of the bullets path, more tissue is disrupted by a WFN bullet then either the Partition or the A-Frame.

Here is why, the Partition and A-Frame bullets loose alot of energy just in the expansion process. SOme feel this transfers energy to the game animal, others do not. What is a fact though is that this energy loss in expansion slows the bullet to a greater degree then an LBT designed bullet.

Now velocity is also a major factor when the bullet is in the critter. True the expanding bullets have a greater frontal area, well, maybe a bit larger, but they are traveling much slower in the animal they a LBT designed bullet would be.

This is where we get into permanent and temporary wound channels. The expanding bullet will have a very large initial pernanant wound channel but will taper off quickly and then very small at the end of its penetration because of quickly lowering velocity.

The LBT designed bullets have a moderate permanant wound channel fron the start and it stays the same for the entire penetration path because the heavier bullet has more momentum, and the bullet looses no energy in expansion to reduce its velocity in the animal.

Back to your question on the 30-30 and the 270. THey do not have enough frontal area to be much good with solids. What they do have though is a very good sectional density in their bullets which are traveling at much higher speeds then any handgun bullet ever will, at least revolver.

Because of the higher S.D. they can expand and still penetrate very well.

With the right bullet these two rounds would penetrate with any other rifle out there, and plenty for game up to and even larger then elk.

I also will say that it has been proven for a fact that the Barnes X handgun bullets are not very good penetrator. On light game they are fine but on heavy game they are very poor performers again because they have the extremely poor S.D. numbers because they are very light for how long they are.

Compared to other "JACKETED" bullets they may perform well, I could care less, I am saying that the heaavy LBT designed bullets will out penetrate them all with plenty of tissue damage for a quick kill plus cost several times less them the Partition and A-Frame.

Your comments about the hard cast bullets not creating shock is almost laughable. Figure out the frontal area of the 425 gr WFNGC compared to the .452" partition. Then remember that those big flat nose edges stay sharp during recoil, they do not round off like an expanding bullet. This means they will penanantly cut tissue for the full penetration of the bullet, the expanding bullets simply push tissue aside for the last half of penetration.

Freedom arms used jacketed bullets simply because the 454 runs in the 50,000-60,000 psi range where the jacketed bullets would hold the rifling better for better accuracy.

Talk to any one that has taken the 454 to Africa and ask what they shoot. I bet 80% use hard cast, gas checked LBT designes of at least 360 grains and most will push 400 grains. The velocity is much slower then the 300 gr super pills.

Gee, wonder why they use those heavy bullets in Africa. Most be because they do not have access to the Partitions and A-frames over there.

If you think any handgun bullet will shock the central nervous system without a direct hit, I am sorry to tell you you are mistaken. That is not how handgun bullets kill game.

50

fifty, you are absolutly correct. Way to go! I would not use a condom bullet for hunting anymore since the first animal I shot with one. I use LBT's and homemade moulds like them and would never consider a store bought bullet anymore. Killing power of the LBT is massive.
Why someone wants to compare small diameter rifle bullets with handgun bullets is beyond me. Apples to grapes!

Fifty-Would you use solids in your .06 or .300 if they were legal or the 30-30 or 270 two bullets that are not known for penetration but have killed a lot of Deer and Elk?I wouldn't.It is like the 45-70.There are many that think it has to be a hardcast for penetration.Not true.The new Barnes and Nosler each out penetrate with expantion all the othe Jacketed bullets for it including 350 and 400 grain bullets.

For the .454 with Nosler and A-Frame bullets out there I doubt that neither one of them can't penetrate the vitals of any Elk or Bear.It's been proven many times.If you don't want shock and penetration use a hardcast.If you want a bullet that does both and dumps its energy in the animal instead of whats behind it choose a Premium pistol bullet.

Freadom Arms made such a bullet in 260 and 300 grains that has taken many a Bear and such.Winchester followed with there loads(Jacketed).Hardcast are for breaking bones not tranfering energy and causing shock to the nervous system from the shrapnel.

I may be wrong but Freedom Arms did not make Hardcast ammo and did jacketed.I know they designed some hardcast but I am not sure if they ever put it in there ammo line?

To each his own on solids against a quality jacketed bullet.

Have a good one.........Jayco.

50-If I seemed that way,my appoligies.I just totally disagree with you on Hard cast bullets.That's what forums are for I thought to get both sides of the story and let others decide.You have your opinion and I have mine on this one.....And we disagree.I have many sites I could go to that say why an expanding bullet is better in life and death situations and there are probaly just as many saying Hardcast are better.

Shot placement is the key and bullet choice is second.

If I iritated you????Sorry......Jayco.

Jaycocreek,

I am perfectly content to agree to disagree.

Like I said on an earlier post, we are using two different methods to skin the same cat. As long as the pelt is on the wall and the critter is harvested quickly and humanely, we are both correct in our methods.

Good Shooting!!!

50

Bfrshooter,

I agree with you as well!!!

Once the efficency of the LBT designed bullets are witnessed on game, they will be the only bullet used again. That happened to me and for every one of my customers that actually have taken game with them.

Good Shooting!!!

50