Has anyone used the DPX [barnes all copper] load on elk ?

I would be more inclined to use a good, heavy hardcast with a big meplat for a large animal like elk. A 300 or 320 grainer.

i'm a huge dpx fan. that said, the only company i'd use their's in .44 mag on elk would be double tap. they have the 225gr at 1500fps. that said i'd only use the .454 or home loaded .475 rounds on elk. just too big imho unless i knew my shots would be 50 yards or less. in that case i'd fire away with them. i've had great results with them. used them on buffalo with great great results. huge wound channels. they always open unlike xtp's but hold together very very well. my 454 rounds open up to just over an inch and i've had full penetration through both buff shoulders with just incredible wound channels.

I'm asking about an M29 with iron sights within about 50-60 yds.Corbon DPX [225 at 1350}

I used to load the old Speer 225 JSWCHP at about 1250 and the only one I recovered took out a rib and went through almost 30" of a 200 lb whitetail opening to .50 cal.
How would the DPX compare ??

Double Tap has a nice 300 grain jacketed hollow-point if one must have an expanding bullet, but their 320 grain WFN is a killer.

i've noticed it with rifle and pistol bullets that are all copper........they penetrate much much better than their grain wt would suggest. these are phenomenal bullets and that bullet would be dynamite on elk imho from 50-60 yards. i would suspect the .429 would open to about .75" or so and would handily outpenetrate that speer. they're really a terrific bullet. today we were doing some shooting out at my land after filling up some feeders and shooting at an old farm implement wheel. at 100 yards i hit the axle dead on. the barnes bullet held together, deformed a little and went straight through the axle endcap. it was quite impressive. now i know metal and tissue are two different mediums but i'm just talking about the fact the bullet held together. my buddy looked up and said "that's why they cost what they do." he is now a convert. hardcast will work 95-99% of the time as i've had a couple failures. the all copper barnes............never ever had a failure and the wound channel is most impressive as is the smack when they hit.

Thanks Tradmark ! I would never use anything heavier than 240 in my old M29.In fact my Speer load is not max and served me for many a silhouette match and a fair amount of deer.It's still in top shape and I'll keep it that way.

Most fmj rifle ammo will zip through steel plate, but it doesn't at all indicate how it will penetrate on animal tissue. I personally would stear clear of using such a light bullet on an animal that size. But that's just me. Monometal bullets tend to be lighter at the same length as their lead counterparts. An example of this is Barnes' TSX. If that .429 diameter bullet opens up that much, I would expect that at its weight it won't penetrate very deeply. Not being argumentative, just creating a dialogue.

I've had both of my M29s for more than 20 years and I occasionally run 300 + grain bullets through them, but my go-to load is a 280 grain flat-nosed hardcast at just a hair over 1,300 fps. It's a load I am comfortable subjecting my Smith & Wessons to. They can handle heavier bullets with no adverse effects -- at least no more so than any real magnum loads.

If I wanted an expanding bullet with some toughness and did not want to go heavy I would use the 240gr Speer GoldDot softpoint. Otherwise in an expanding bullet I would use the 300gr Nosler HP bullet. I have had great performance from the Nosler on large hogs up to 350lbs and it should work on Elk very well. The GoldDots are tough bullets for sure. There is no better penetrator in a .429 caliber jacketed bullet than the Speer 270gr softpoint. None.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodrow S: There is no better penetrator in a .429 caliber jacketed bullet than the Speer 270gr softpoint. None.

You do mean as far as expanding jacketed bullets are concerned, right?

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
i've noticed it with rifle and pistol bullets that are all copper........they penetrate much much better than their grain wt would suggest. these are phenomenal bullets and that bullet would be dynamite on elk imho from 50-60 yards. i would suspect the .429 would open to about .75" or so and would handily outpenetrate that speer. they're really a terrific bullet. today we were doing some shooting out at my land after filling up some feeders and shooting at an old farm implement wheel. at 100 yards i hit the axle dead on. the barnes bullet held together, deformed a little and went straight through the axle endcap. it was quite impressive. now i know metal and tissue are two different mediums but i'm just talking about the fact the bullet held together. my buddy looked up and said "that's why they cost what they do." he is now a convert. hardcast will work 95-99% of the time as i've had a couple failures. the all copper barnes............never ever had a failure and the wound channel is most impressive as is the smack when they hit.

I have not tried the .429 DPX bullet, but I have tried the 180 in 41 caliber, the 110 grain in 38 Special and the 185 grainer in 45 ACP. I like the 185 in the 45 ACP. The 110 grain DPX in the 38 special even in +P form it gives spoty expansion and is penetration challenged. The 180 in the 41 mag expands well but there are better penetrating bulllets avaiaable

Whitworth...yes, my post was speaking about jacketed bullets. I do know the attributes of hard cast and penetration. I use both depending on the game and situation.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodrow S:
Whitworth...yes, my post was speaking about jacketed bullets. I do know the attributes of hard cast and penetration. I use both depending on the game and situation.

You know which one also penetrates well is the 300 grain XTP -- they don't actually expand much.

The best penetrating jacketed bullets are the Belt Mountain Punch Bullets and the Barnes Busters in that order. Both are heavy jacketed bullets over hard cores and are designed for maximum penetration

yeah, i can totally understand the trepidation based on the light weight. that said, i can say that 250 in the 454 just works great and penetrates far better than it has any right to. it also holds together well which was the purpose of my post on shooting into the metal above, not an indication of penetration but it is an indication on the bullet staying together. where cast bullets don't gain alot with ramping up the velocity due to deformation etc, a punch bullet will gain due to it's tougher constuction. this is similiar to the dpx bullet, you can get good expansion at lower velocities but they hold together extremely well and are extremely tough once velocity is ramped up. wound channels are particularly impressive. where i've seen cast bullets zip through animals and sure they died and the bullet did it's job, sometimes it made for some fun tracking. i've followed elk a long long way before with them. it's amazing the badness a cow can get into when it runs a hundred yards. however, i've never had anything run far hit in the vitals with the dpx bullets. then again i've never used them in the lighter, smaller calibers, just 44 mag and above. i would also add the corbon penetrator rounds are tops as well, no failures i've ever encountered in those at all as i have with some hardcasts in the past.

and whitworth, i love a good dialogue. i would never dissuade one from using a hardcast b/c it will work it's just that i've been sooooo impressed with these dpx bullets. that is one bullet that makes the 460 smith a relevant cartridge imho.

quote:

Originally posted by tradmark:
yeah, i can totally understand the trepidation based on the light weight. that said, i can say that 250 in the 454 just works great and penetrates far better than it has any right to. it also holds together well which was the purpose of my post on shooting into the metal above, not an indication of penetration but it is an indication on the bullet staying together. where cast bullets don't gain alot with ramping up the velocity due to deformation etc, a punch bullet will gain due to it's tougher constuction. this is similiar to the dpx bullet, you can get good expansion at lower velocities but they hold together extremely well and are extremely tough once velocity is ramped up. wound channels are particularly impressive. where i've seen cast bullets zip through animals and sure they died and the bullet did it's job, sometimes it made for some fun tracking. i've followed elk a long long way before with them. it's amazing the badness a cow can get into when it runs a hundred yards. however, i've never had anything run far hit in the vitals with the dpx bullets. then again i've never used them in the lighter, smaller calibers, just 44 mag and above. i would also add the corbon penetrator rounds are tops as well, no failures i've ever encountered in those at all as i have with some hardcasts in the past.

Speed is the primary factor in steel penetration and has little to do with a bullet holding together. A fragile varmint bullet fired from a 22-250 with shoot holes in 3/8" steel plate every shot and will dome the back side of 1/2" steel plate on the first shot. A 44 mag will not pentrate as much steel a s the 22-250, but will penetrate much deeper in game.

Shooting steel has np relationship to what that same bullet will do when used on game. Bad comparison

remember, i never said penetrating the steel had anything to do with anything, but subjecting any material to stress will show it's ability to hold up. that 22-250 bullet will be largely destroyed after going through the steel. and...........most .44 bullets not passing through will shatter or show bad deformation at the least. once again, and i'll say this clearly, this was not about penetration, or anything other than toughness of a bullet. and one cannot argue that a copper bullet is tougher than a lead bullet and .22.250 penetration has never to my knowledge checked on anything other than a fmj which is guaranteed to tumble or expandables guaranteed to break into pieces. find me ONE example of a bullet comparison where one bullet holds up better in an animal that falls apart more rapidly than another shooting through steel or into gravel or some other media much harder than anything in an animal. once again, penetration had nothing to do with that comparison.

now i can do the opposite, the punch bullets hold up better shooting through steel and also being shot into an animal than a hardcast of any composition at a given velocity, the corbon penetrators hold up better than a hardcast and not as good as a punch bullet, and they all tend to hold up better than most softpoints or hollow points do from most companies.
i guess whether it's steel, gravel or whatever, a bullet that holds up better being shot into those mediums will hold up better in an animal.

I am interested in the XPB also, because I have no choice (California...no more cast flat nose or 300 grain XTP's).

I have been experimenting with them by cutting new crimp grooves so that I can add more powder. This works great but is very time comsuming. I am hoping to get Barnes to make me a batch with lower grooves for the Redhawk's cylinder.

So here's the story .
My hunting buddy told me of a preserve not too far away that has red deer. They wanted to cull some of the females so we decided to give it a try. Of course it wasn't a 'hunt' but I wanted to get some meat and test the bullet.
Red deer female, about 230 lbs. M29 44 mag 6.5" barrel, 225 Gr DPX [all copper Barnes].About 40 yard range . Bullet hit high on the right side ,breaking a rib, hitting a vertabrae, holing high in both lungs ,breaking a rib on the far side and stopping against the hide. The vertabrae hit immediately dropped the back end.It was over but I took another round to the neck to quicken it. Muzzle velocity is supposed to be 1350 fps.
I do prefer an exit whole so from this one test the bullet would be fine for whitetails but a little light for heavier animals .
Comments welcome !

i"ve seen a couple of the larger animals that were hit in the vertebrae that had cast bullets break up in them and not exit. my buddy had a 375 HH barnes solid stop in the offside hide of nearly an identical shot in a gemsbock. i guarantee that if you hadn't hit a vertebrae that bullet would've still exited. i like two exit holes but i hate having the animal run off a few hundred yards. as they will often do with hardcast that don't break the shoulder. the barnes will do that as well. they may not always exit with the same efficiency as a hardcast but i feel do a tremendous amount of damage and have noticeably larger wound channels than a hardcast imhe. basically the hardcast punches a hole and will kill the animal reliably and does much more than some big rifle aficiandos claim and have a larger wound channel than just a hole the size of the caliber. that said the barnes will hold together at a much higher velocity and just create total havoc. the elk my friend shot with a .460 and corbon barnes loads was just internally destroyed. he hit it through the left shoulder barely and clipped through the right shoulder nearly dead center (slightly quartering away). the animal dropped like it was spined. we found bones fragments throughout the lungs. the main wound cavity was bigger than my fists. the lungs were just completed destroyed, the heart had bone fragments and there was a bone fragment up in the spine as well. granted this was a cow but she was about 400lbs. the thing is with these expanding monometals is that they do better with higher pistol velocities unlike hardcasts that have a sweet spot somewhere b/w 1200 and 1500 fps depending on weight and nose profile.

if you're going for elk the corbon 225's will do the job but i'd not hesitate to use teh 225's from double tap at nearly 1500 fps. those are incredible. the destruction from just the federal 250gr 454 loads is impressive and double taps 250 at 1850 fps is just a hammer. i'm gonna try and get a video of a hog getting slammed with one. every animal i've hit with those rounds looked like it was hit by lightning.

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
So here's the story .
My hunting buddy told me of a preserve not too far away that has red deer. They wanted to cull some of the females so we decided to give it a try. Of course it wasn't a 'hunt' but I wanted to get some meat and test the bullet.
Red deer female, about 230 lbs. M29 44 mag 6.5" barrel, 225 Gr DPX [all copper Barnes].About 40 yard range . Bullet hit high on the right side ,breaking a rib, hitting a vertabrae, holing high in both lungs ,breaking a rib on the far side and stopping against the hide. The vertabrae hit immediately dropped the back end.It was over but I took another round to the neck to quicken it. Muzzle velocity is supposed to be 1350 fps.
I do prefer an exit whole so from this one test the bullet would be fine for whitetails but a little light for heavier animals .
Comments welcome !

Mete, I would think they are too light as well.

Tradmark, if your cast bullets are breaking apart, they are too brittle. Also, you might be exceeding their practical velocity limits -- hey they're a lead bullet, so there are limits.

I haven't tested DT's 250, but I have used their 400 grain WFN and you want to talk about hammers!

quote:

Originally posted by Whitworth:

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
So here's the story .
My hunting buddy told me of a preserve not too far away that has red deer. They wanted to cull some of the females so we decided to give it a try. Of course it wasn't a 'hunt' but I wanted to get some meat and test the bullet.
Red deer female, about 230 lbs. M29 44 mag 6.5" barrel, 225 Gr DPX [all copper Barnes].About 40 yard range . Bullet hit high on the right side ,breaking a rib, hitting a vertabrae, holing high in both lungs ,breaking a rib on the far side and stopping against the hide. The vertabrae hit immediately dropped the back end.It was over but I took another round to the neck to quicken it. Muzzle velocity is supposed to be 1350 fps.
I do prefer an exit whole so from this one test the bullet would be fine for whitetails but a little light for heavier animals .
Comments welcome !

Mete, I would think they are too light as well.

Tradmark, if your cast bullets are breaking apart, they are too brittle. Also, you might be exceeding their practical velocity limits -- hey they're a lead bullet, so there are limits.

I haven't tested DT's 250, but I have used their 400 grain WFN and you want to talk about hammers!

+1, faulty material

i agree totally on the faulty material. i only trust my reloads using beartooth bullets. i truly have had just too many cast performance bullets break up. i sacrificed two boxes of cast performance hammering with the mallet after the failure with my .475 which was at a very very sedate velocity. seeing as there has been ONE failure with buffalo bore ammo at 1900fps+ with 435 pills from our 45/70's i figured the problem would no doubt be with just individual bullets here and there. well, out of the two boxes of 50, 6 out of the 100 cracked up when hit with the little mini sledgehammer. i've never had a beartooth breakup ever. that's why i use them pretty much exclusively in my revolvers.

which is why i love the barnes loads. i've never had them fail. ever, whether being shot into rocks, soaked newsprint, animals, bones, metal. they've always stayed together.