Which one gives the most, all else being equal?

Karl.

In 300 grain bullets, probably the Speer AGS. Because of the dense core it is quite short, allowing more powder and higher velocity. It also has a fairly narrow frontal profile. I've never tested the 350 grain Barnes.

This is a quote from George Hoffman in response to ACRECURVE's thread "Best Solid",
"I have used the 410 gr solids (that are no longer available) for many years in the .416
without any problems. I have run a number of penetration test using all of the above solids mentioned. the monolithis gives 10" less penetration in plywood than the Hornady.
The TBB has to much of a flat point(meplat)
to feed well in some rifles. One I had on a mauser action would not feed at all. The speer AGS is an excellant bullet and feed well about 4" less penetration than the Hornady. However, since you have some much peneration with the .416 a little less is not much of a problem. Good Hunting
George"

I cannot ad to what this man has already said.
Steve

Why so many threads on always the same topic?
We haved discussed penetration in about half a dozen threads, sometimes hidden in a different topic. Should we open a FAQ section? Then new members can update their knowledge easily.

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Article in the most recent (Vol 6/#6) and the author talks about the difference in penetration when the velocity of the 300gr bullet gets much about 2550fps. In fact the only one that gave straight and deep penetration was the Barnes Super Solid. The Speer Grand Slam and Woodleigh solids only worked, in his opinion when the velocity was kept below 2500 fps. This agrees with what Kevin Robertson suggests for the .375 H&H in his book "The Perfect Shot". This, of course, at close range where you need it the most.

Why did I start a new topic ? To be frank Norbert, simply because I was too lazy to look elsewhere.

I am not a new member, indeed I have been part of this site and the old one longer than you mate, although I admit putting something like this in the FAQ section does seem like a good idea.

Karl.

[This message has been edited by Karl (edited 04-28-2001).]

The article in African Hunter magazine said that the 300 grain Speer AGS BROKE APART at 2650 fps. It also said the Woodleigh exited the test medium at both 2450 fps and 2550 fps , probably due to bending.

Only the Barnes stayed together and stayed true at high velocity.

However, other people have told me that the barnes monolithic solid did not penetrate as deep as some other ones.

Another fact of life raises its ugly head and that is test medias have no substance, they are just fun and games and the results are never the same..

The best test medias are elephant, Buffalo, Lions and Eland...Cull hunting being the best source of information availably today...

I used to believe that a test media would at least compare one bullet to another, but have about decided that may not be the case...Everytime I or anyone else runs one of these scientific projects they get a different result....

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Ditto Ray:

The only tests that I feel are worth a flip are real world experience. You can take all the ballistics gelatin, computer modeling, and wet phone book tests and throw them out the window. The variables associated with live animal/actual hunting circumstances are tremendous and are impossible to reconstruct in a test environment. I have yet to run across the plywood elephant or the gelatin kudu. Muscle and bone react to bullets much differently than gelatin.

The beauty of this forum is that you have available to you a wealth of real world experience. The concept here is to exchange knowledge and actual field observations. No question, no matter how often asked, is a dumb one. Each day we learn more about hunting. In short, things change. I will step off my soap box and go earn a living so that I can obtain more field experience in Africa.

Z

I feel challenged to make a rebuttal of sorts.

While some people may approach ballistics tests as "fun and games", for me at least it is a serious attempt to learn something. My job is penetration modeling and my hobby is an extension of that (or maybe its the other way around...).

Anyhoo, the point of modeling or testing in a surrogate is to permit you to make comparisons for the purpose of analysis and design refinement. Models are intended to represent the reality of the tests. If you try hard enough, you can get the one to emulate the other.

Real tanks behave differently when hit by anti-tank missiles than stacks of steel or even complex range targets when shot by shaped charges on a test stand. But governments the world over perform such testing because it is ridiculously impractical to shoot real tanks every time you want to test performance and because of the very reason that you cite, Zero Drift: uncontrolled variables. With that situation making valid comparisons between two designs with subtle changes is totally impossible because there are so many other things going on.

Same thing goes for field experience. Sure, its the real thing, but lets be honest. Until somebody takes the time to seriously make careful and accurate observations of the shot location and path, measurements of the damage caused and bullet performance, and to document those observations then all the field experience in the world is of very limited value to anyone, even the person who has it first hand. Its too easy to mistake what is happening if you give it all a casual examination and simply commit it all to memory. Until you analyze the facts in relation to one another objectively and carefully you likely will not see the real trends and you will certainly make misjudgments. That happens even when you are careful, so it will only happen more when you don't study the problem.

I am as frustrated as anyone with the problem of how best to test or assess the performance of bullets in a consistent manner, but I object strenuously to the argument that it can't be done to any degree of satisfaction. I don't say that I have done it, but I certainly believe it can be done.

Ray, if I had the time and money I would beg onto one of your culling hunts for the sole purpose of running around with a steel ruler and a notepad in my bloody hands scribbling down all the information I could glean from the kills. Thats what we really need in order to make any meaningful conclusions about these things. I know that you and others have the first hand knowledge, but the rest of us can only benefit (as far as comparisons are concerned) if that can be quantified in some manner and clearly communicated. To date, only Hatcher and few others have ever had the inclination to do this sort of thing and few have done it with the degree of consideration that the problem requires.

Not ranting, just arguing.

Harold,
I guess what I'm saying is most people would be just as well off to ask someone like George Hoffman what works best as opposed to concocting a batch of magazines into a less than scientific study void of controls.

I have always been a bullet collector and up to my neck in the blood and gore looking at what happened, strictly out of interrest and I have learned a little from that, but mostly based on common since and nothing conclusive has come from it other than I have a fair idea of what bullets work up to a point. I know that they all fail from time to time and that bullets have come a long way in the last few years...

In know that Hornady, Speer, Nosler and all the bullet manufacturers run these test under quit controlled circumstances and yet they still produce bullets that FAIL!!...I also know that they always try them in the field prior to production as I, from time to time perform this function or arrange for it to be done, for some of the companies.

I also know that gun-nuts get awfully eat up in technicalities that are meaningless, and make since only to thier egos and wishes to be correct, so I take a lot of it with a grain of salt, and I do not exclude myself from that assault....

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Harald.
It would be great if you could get to Africa and do such tests.
Would you consider Australia instead? We have as many targets, all free to shoot. Line up a few hunting buddies, find some good hunters here and just pay for the cost of a normal holiday. No trophy fees etc.

I myself have asked on quite a few threads-
Why don't a few p.h's record range, species, calibre and bullet, distance travelled by shot game, after every kill for a year or two?

No more gut feelings, just a table of figures in yards and seconds about which bullet works best.

If someone like yourself were to do that you could do some tricky mathematical stuff correlating kill times to the wound measurements and other tricky stuff beyond my ken.

I think we would get some interesting results.

The most experienced hunters like Ray would take it in stride(after all they have been doing the job successfully for years), but it may help to explain some of the things they have witnessed but could not articulate, or weird phenomena they have seen over the years.

As you said it would quantify what experienced hunters 'know in their hearts', to the rest of us.

All in all such hunting study would be like a 577 T.Rex.

Of dubious necessity but really fun.

Karl.

[This message has been edited by Karl (edited 04-28-2001).]

If the subject is pure penetration, it is not that difficult to determine which bullet will penetrate best in game. For example, if five bullets of different construction are to be evaluated, shoot all five into the same medium under the same circumstances using the loads that would be used in practise, and measure the distance penetrated by each. Vary the medium from plywood baffles at different angles to wetpack to jugs of water and to wet sand. When all is done, add up the distances achieved by each bullet and I will put money on it, that the bullet with the biggest number will go deepest in game.

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Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets

Fair enough, Ray. Like I said, just arguing.

I wage this argument on the job too. Friday I was emailed a series of photos from a recent test conducted here of a new missile system against a tank. It blew it literally to smithereens. The engine lay 65 m from the impact point. The road wheels were at least 200 m away. The turret flew so high that it buried itself in the earth when it landed. Conclusion? Well, sfor some its that tanks are completely vulnerable to this weapon. Is that reality? Sure. But its also reality when you hit it differently and the only immediate effect is to blacken the paint job.

At some point you have to do real tests in the field against real targets. I don't want to sound like I think thats not meaningful or anything less than crucial. But those experiences can be just as misleading as the seemingly hokey tests against surrogate targets or the models.

Here's another argument. If the only time you know how a bullet will perform is when you first use it in the field then we all are taking significant risks with any new bullet (and that includes familiar designs in new calibers because dimensions change performance).

As far as Australia is concerned I go in a trice if I were independently wealthy. As it is I save for quite a while to make such expeditions and I can't take off from work for very long (thats not strictly true - I could but then I'd never have enough money to make the trips). I plan to hunt buffalo in Australia some day and maybe I can arrange to do some donkey culling at the same time. But what you suggested, Karl, is a better idea (except that there is no real incentive other than knowledge), which is to convince a lot of PHs to make notes and measurements of all the kills that they witness. That must run into the thousands each year in Africa alone.

[This message has been edited by Harald (edited 04-28-2001).]

Harold,
You make a good point, in that youre sure correct in the fact that bullets don't necessairly react the same from animal to animal, and ALL bullets fail from time to time in MHO...in animals, tanks or humans, well its been a long time since I shot a tank so lets omit that one. Tanks don't seem to leave much of a blood trail. Just sick humor, please disregard.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Embarrassed to admit I don't recall where I read the story but years ago I read about a PH that shot a charging Rhino with a 375 H&H, using a Kynoch solid as I recall, and the bullet entered between the shoulder blades, the head being down, penetrated through and along the spine and exited out through the area above and between the hips. I don't know what type bullet Kynoch used but I would say that is fair penetration.
Does anyone else ever recall reading about this?
Regards,

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'Trapper'

I don't recall reading it but it wouldn't surprise me...A solid is damn hard to stop in anything, I have shot lenth wise through Buffalo and heard the bullet screaming out across the African veld, probably wound up in Addis aBaba or some God forsaken community in Iraq.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com