I have always been happy with Swift A Frame bullets, a year ago I successfully collected a Leopard at 33 yds with my .375 using factory Remington Swift A frame cartridge. Wonderful results, excellent performance, large exit hole and dead Leopard at the base of the tree. I am contimplating a Lion in my future and have been reading Doc Robertsons' Perfect Shot...he discourages use of "premium" expandable bullets for Lion, stating that at relative close ranges the bullet may not expand effectively making it a solid and therefore decreasing the overall shock and awe it was intended to deliver. What is the general opinion out there? would a 250-270 grain "sub" premium bullet be more appropriate. Just looking for some one else's experience.

If it expanded on a leopard, it will on a lion. I think you will be just fine with the Swift, one of the best bullets out there.

Thanks , I think so too, but just doing the home work. most critters I 've hunted die pretty quick with both lungs deflated, but Lion may have a little more desire than others.

I have killed two lion with premium soft point bullets, one in .338 caliber and the other in .375. One leopard too, with a premium slug from a .375. The bullets expanded and performed perfectly.

I find that I disagree with Robertson as much as I agree with him. His Perfect Shot book could be reduced to three pages: one for elephant, one for crocodile and the other for giraffe.

For everything else, just hold on the line of the near side front leg extended one third up the body from the brisket. On quartering shots, hold the same, but use the opposite front leg as the vertical axis.

His rationale for using overweight for caliber bullets makes no sense to me. I think it harkens back to the inferior cup and core bullets used in what is happily now a bygone era. I find it to be completely at odds with results I have achieved with traditionally weighted, modern, premium bullets.

Doctari has loads more experience than I do, but the lessons I have learned from mine still contradict those he has learned from his.

Just like two people can be really different in how their body is built,so are lions.I think you can get something really big,tough and heavy that might not be as easy to put down.I would like to be prepared with the right medecine for such an occasion and make my load the 458 lott cartridge with a 500 grain Swift-A-Frame.If ever his chest turns to steel and he is charging at me, and a bullet that can pentrate and expand/destruct is required.

Aside from shootaway's opinion on an animal he has never hunted, his answer is typical for him. Pretty useless.

Your Swift A-Frames will work superbly on Lion, Leopard, Eland, and anything else that doesn't require solids. I even use them as first out on Buff.

LionHunter,
I am sure glad you did not quote shootaway.
I am sure the gist of his post was merely this:

RW

I shot a lion with my 450/400 3 1/4" double rifle using 400gr Woodleigh Softs.

First shot was at @90 yards, the lion was laying down facing me, looking at me, the other lions with him, @3 or 4 females ande another smaller male had got up and were walking around kinda toward us.

The shot hit him pretty much center chest, he rolled over on his side and I gave him the second barrel.

I then reloaded, and ran up to him, made the PH a little nervous as the other lions were milling about.

I then placed a third insurance shot into the center of his back, into the heart lung area.
from about 1 foot away.

NONE of the bullets gave complete penetration. All held together perfectly and gave excellent penetration.

They performed perfectly.

I have shot cape buff and eland with 480 Woodleigh Softs AND 500 Swift A Frames with my 450 No2 double. Both bullets have killed both animals.

ALL the above bullets were recovered form the animals killed.

All expanded perfectly and gave excellent penetration, but stayed in the "body".

SO... Baised on that I would not hesitate to use the Remington factory 300gr Swift A Frame on lion, or cape buff for that matter.

I would not have a second thought about using 375 H&H factory loads with 300gr Trophy Bonded Bearclaws, or 300gr Nosler Partitions either.

Just hit him in the right spot on the first shot. And shoot again if you can still see him.

Swift A Frames are perfect lion medicine, in any reasonable lion cartridge. I have used in the past a 400 Swift A frame in 458 Winchester at 2325 fps, it knocks them flat! There are several other premiums that will do very well, depending on caliber. While Robertson is a great guy, his book is becoming a bit dated, todays premiums are better than ever, reaching perfection. Robertson book while excellent on many points, and good reading, does not take this into account. I would not hesitate to use Swifts, NorthForks, Barnes, Woodleighs, depending on caliber and cartridge!

Michael

Seems to be one of the most debated subjects on any forums relating to African game, is what bullet to use. Has anyone really done any research on comparing the old Kynoch soft nose bullets to the latest offerings whether plain round soft nose or any of the premium bullets we have today?

I keep referring back to John Taylor or J A Hunter (and others) who generally only had the choice of Kynoch or perhaps some German loaded ammo and between them knocked over hundreds and hundreds of African animals of all sorts, all without the back up of PH's.

Taylor in particular favoured the 40cals throwing a 400 - 410 grain plain soft nose with plenty of lead showing for most of the soft skin animals up to and including buffalo. For Lion he comments that the 416 Rigby, 404 Jeffery, 425 WR and the 450/400 Jeffery all throwing the plain soft nose with plenty of lead showing, as capable of crumpling lion like nothing else or the most certain lion killers obtainable.

What has changed today? The game has not got any bigger or tougher, we even have PHs or other rifles to backup.

Are todays bullets just all crap or are we as hunters so hopeless we can't place our shots into the killing zone. JT and JA and others of their era all had to rely on their own shot, with the bullets of the day, to keep themselves alive and they did it time after time.

We modern hunters seem to be so frightened to head off to Africa and endlessly wonder if the bullet we use is going to work.

Mind you it is always good to discuss these things and hear about others experiences and I suppose that' what these forums are all about. I hope though that some just don't defeat themselves before they ever get to Africa.

Have we blinded ourselves with science now and endlessly look for the perfect bullet, having gone away from what was perfect for most of the last century in the heyday of African hunting?

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
RW

I shot a lion with my 450/400 3 1/4" double rifle using 400gr Woodleigh Softs.

First shot was at @90 yards, the lion was laying down facing me, looking at me, the other lions with him, @3 or 4 females ande another smaller male had got up and were walking around kinda toward us.

The shot hit him pretty much center chest, he rolled over on his side and I gave him the second barrel.

I then reloaded, and ran up to him, made the PH a little nervous as the other lions were milling about.

I then placed a third insurance shot into the center of his back, into the heart lung area.
from about 1 foot away.

NONE of the bullets gave complete penetration. All held together perfectly and gave excellent penetration.

They performed perfectly.

I have shot cape buff and eland with 480 Woodleigh Softs AND 500 Swift A Frames with my 450 No2 double. Both bullets have killed both animals.

ALL the above bullets were recovered form the animals killed.

All expanded perfectly and gave excellent penetration, but stayed in the "body".

SO... Baised on that I would not hesitate to use the Remington factory 300gr Swift A Frame on lion, or cape buff for that matter.

I would not have a second thought about using 375 H&H factory loads with 300gr Trophy Bonded Bearclaws, or 300gr Nosler Partitions either.

Just hit him in the right spot on the first shot. And shoot again if you can still see him.

Alot of action there N E 450 no 2!.Where you using a scope?It's much better without a scope.A scope makes it seem as if you it did not really occur and you saw it on TV.

RW- Out of a .375 the swift would be one of my first choices. In Barnes bullets I would go with the 270grn...they need a little more velocity to get them to open up nicley when the animal is broadside (like when it is feeding on the bait). for the last 4 years I have been using Norma Oryx bullets in my 9,3x62. These are pretty much equivalent to the woodleigh softs that I used previously- a bit soft for buff but perfect for lion.

On Lion I like the bullets velocity to be over 2300fps. If you are bringing a .458, drop the bullet weight and load it up. A 400grn TSX at 2325fps does the job with so much more panache than a 500grn one at 2100fps.

I must note that I guide almost exclusively walk and stalk lion rather than bait and blind, and a charge, whilst not common, is a real possibility. ( I have had the male charge twice in 24 successful hunts). One of the ladies frequently puts in a very good mock charge . For this reason I prefer the clent to use a tougher bullet than necessary. A lion taken unsuspectingly with a braodside shot can be taken with darn near anything. Seen tribesmen take them cleanly with a 2 3/4" shotgun loaded with AAA. I have also personally seen OOO (brit LG) buck fail to make it through the chest of a charging lioness and the chance to inspect the carcass and scene where an A square .458 Lion load, blew appart on the chest muscles of a charging male.

On a traditional Bait and blind hunt, many PH's are, rightly, concerned with a shoot through. They will position the bait and blind such that you should have a fair angle shot on a cat that is feeding or resting. The greatest risk to the hunt is a shoot through- particularly when the cat is feeding and murphy dictates that a lioness will go and stand in line with the male on the otherside of the bait!! Given these circumstances You want the client to use a frangible bullet. The Norma Plastic point or RWS round nose that are both designed to blow up and splinter inside the animal are what is wanted. I used to load the speer 270grn SP in the .375 'loaner' rifle I had when I was still doing bait and blind hunts. Even those would sometimes exit...

Conclusion- ask your PH!! He knows what situations his style of hunting will deliver and what bullet performance he would like to see.

As much as I like Swift A Frames, I would prefer to use Woodleigh RN Softs again on Lion or Leopard as although they also have good controlled expansion , yet they open up a bit more than the harder A-Frames.

2x Woodleigh's , 1x Woodleigh FMJ and 2x Swift A's
Typical of recovered Woodleighs and Swifts with the Woodleighs opening up "big time" which produces a lot more visible shock than the super penetration bullets like the Swifts and X's.

IF, this is any indication at all, I shot an Impala at 60 yds. with a .280 REM, 160 gr. Swift A-Frame and it expanded to double it's diameter. It only lost 1 1/2 grains in the process and it penetrated from brisket to paunch (frontal shot). It looked exactly like to two right hand bullets in the above picture. I wouldn't hesitate to use them.