Guys,
I've also posted this under Cartridge Collecting, but maybe some here have better insight and arent likely to see it in the other forum.

Where did this term "Velopex" come from? Boddington's Safari Rifles has a picture from a H&H catalogue that refers to the 375Bore Holland "Velopex" magazine sporting rifle ... further down referred to as "New patent Velopex cartridge" in reference to the 400/375.

But I've also just found some reference to the 400/375H&H and 375 2 1/2" rimmed using a "velopex" projectile which included a wooden peg in its nose to assist expansion. The peg is claimed to be visible in some ammunition with large exposed lead nose, but hidden within the jacket in projectiles with lesser exposed lead. It seems to be a term used by H&H, signifies a lesser weight projectile with the peg, and seems to be limited to the 375 bore?

Any insights? Interested more for its historical info.
Cheers...
Con

/

Thanks for that Alf.
The .395/310-grain SHark is a projectile performing in the tradition of the Velopex.
Thanks be to Macifej.
The large hollowpoint of the brass SHark blows off on initial contact and leaves a jagged, irregular nose and near indestructible cylinder tumbling very early on, will likely swap ends and proceed base forward and out the other side of elk-size game, as prof242 has observed. It does a smashing job on 5-gallon water buckets too.

VeloSHark.

ALF,
Your a champion! I've found reference on the 'net to a 140gr 303British projectile known as the Velopex, plus one reference in an old magazine to the 1912-13 Eley Bros cartridge catalogue listing a 365gr Velopex for the 475NE. I assume in appearing in teh Eley catalogue it wasn't a H&H only term? The Velopex was meant for lighter game ... and I'm wondering was it a lightweight/quick expanding competitor to Westley Richard L.T.Capped projectile?
Only other reference to "Velo" is the 5.5mm Velo Dog ... velo supposedly arising as a contraction of the word "velocipede" (aint that a great name for a wildcat ... 395Velocipede with VeloShark projectile ), the name given to two and three-wheeler cycles.
Cheers...
Con

/

/

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
There were two types, a FMJ and a Lead pointed "Velopex" both contained the wooden plug

The first edition was for 303 service rifle and there is evidence this was done to circumvent the Hague accord ban on the use of SP and expanding bullets on fields of battle.

If I've pieced the story together correctly, they stopped using the wood plug in the military rounds because of the cost of sterilizing the wood. Apparently, the wood had to be sterile to meet the letter or intent of some convention. Reduced the chances of infection I assume.

Dean

/

Con,
Thanks for the terminology ideas, and for starting this interesting thread. I too had read of the velopex and just scratched my head.
Velopex principles in action with the .395 VeloSHark Bullet. No wood sterilization required.

Alf,
Thanks for bringing this terminal ballistic discussion back to Oom Janie, Uncle John.
I have seen those pictures before but would like to add the reference to my "Buhmiller File."

Besides turning solid FN banded designs from copper and German Silver, Oom Janie also did the "Cup Point" and a rebated heel bullet for making a .510-caliber elephant thumper out of the .375 H&H basic case, like a giant 22RF bullet.

From Bob Bell:



The above are from the GUN DIGEST 54th EDITION, 2000.

It also appears that Buhmiller was the source of Jack O'Connors reloading instruction for the .416 Rigby: 105 grains of H4831 with 400 to 410 grain bullets. Still works well over a half century later.

There is an idea for boomstick above:
Use 1/2" copper rod for bullets in a .500" grooved barrel.

ALF,
In the archives ... other than lead and copper what else can be used as a projectile core? Also do you have any references to a plastic jacket?

Local maker that made me the 190gr 375cal pills has done some experimenting with steel cores sheathed in plastic jackets and I've offered my 375/08's bore for further experimentation. Steel is just too light however ... any alternatives?
Cheers...
Con

Well...tungsten... expensive and a b*tch to work, though...

But then there is the solid carbide drill rod sections imbedded in my annealed copper bullets( yes with driving bands. -Rob

Use air instead of wood or aluminum for VeloSHark Velopex effect.
Thanks again for helping me understand the genius of S&H. Now Macifej understands it too.

Who me??

I don't understand much....I'm just good at guessing correctly every time.

quote:

Nothing is new as they say. Not even Gerard and his Right hand men Jagter and Springtrap's claim to a "new world order" in ballistics. Seems others claimed the same as advertisement ploys in the late 1800's

The operative phrase being "claimed the same as advertisement ploys". I still see nothing that can make the claims we make and back it up in practise.

quote:

What bullet makers of that time understood what modern hunters seemingly simply do not get or seem to understand is that a pointed FMJ bullet flips around in a dense target and this increases the forward area of the bullet causing massive wounds

Alf,

The Imapala bullet is another case in point. It was trashed here on AR. Various different explanation are being offered as to how it works and differences of opinion still abound. We have that sharp cutting edge where the ogive stops, we have the COG point well aft the middle point and we have the grooves facing forward instead of backwards as one would expect. Nevertheless, the effect that we see on game is more or less what you term .... "massive wounds". Rudi Campbell used the 300 gr Impala bullet in his 458 Lott on a Blue Wildebeest. When the carcass was handed in at the butcher he remarked that he has never seen such damage and asked what kind of a canon was used.

Then I received this photo recently of a .366/180 gr Impala bullet killing a Blue Wildebeest with a heart-shot. Most Solids punch clean holes (entrance and exit) through game. This Impala bullet was retrieved on an angled shot and traveled some distance, whereas most of these bullets pass through game on broadside shots, sucking some of the lungs out on the other side where the bullet exits. It kind of creates the impression of a vacuum that was formed behind the bullet, but that may be just an illussion. Check the resultant damage:



Warrior

Alf wrote:

quote:

Gentlemen:

Nothing is new as they say Not even Gerard and his Right hand men Jagter and Springtrap's claim to a "new world order" in ballistics Seems others claimed the same as advertisement ploys in the late 1800's

Fact is Alf, so many since the 1800's till today, simply don't understand it all yet! Thus, for them it is indeed "a new world order", confirming what Gerard is saying here:

quote:

The operative phrase being "claimed the same as advertisement ploys". I still see nothing that can make the claims we make and back it up in practise.

Warrior,
Impala bullets tumble as I've reported long ago in simple tests I did. Hence the damage caused.

The Impala has reverse SHark gills.
After it flips it presents a standard SHark gill configuration to base forward motion.

By comparison the S&H VeloSHark gives the more aerodynamic gill presentation for nose-first flight through air then flips backward in target to use the reverse gills as "cutting shoulders" in target.

How can the shaft configuration of a bullet affect the size of the wound cavity if it is not in contact with the tissue? Or is it in contact with the tissue?

As the bullet tumbles from nose first to sideways and gyrates a bit into base forward travel, finally becoming shoulder-and-dart-stabilized, sometimes the bullet sidewalls are being "wetted," as Alf likes to say.

During this wetting of sidewalls, when cavitation is disrupted or transitioning to the stable final pattern of supercavitation, the magic SHark gills do their work!

Obviously Impala designers were oblivious to the tumbling thing or they would not have put reversed gills on their shanks.

Please be careful not to wet yourself from hard laughter.

On the Impala website

quote:

Since there was no chance of using mushrooming for retardation and subsequent increased rate of energy transfer, I had to decide upon the other wound ballistic concept namely transverse shockwaves that result into controlled high velocity tissue displacement. I therefore introduced the 90 degrees cutting edge in the front. To keep the nose pointing forward as far as possible during penetration through the buck, I designed the shape of the grooves on the baring surface to give increased drag to the rear of the bullet. The shape of these grooves resulted in a bonus that I did not consider. It has a ventury suction effect on exit and often sucks large chunks of lung tissue through a small exit-hole and decompress the torso that probably result in the collapsing of the lungs.

Comments?

Totally ignoring the tipping moment generated by the conical nose portion and depending on a small rim of shoulder (on the leading cutting band that will be only "wetted" on the dry hide going in) to stabilize the bullet: Pure fantasy.

Sucking/blowing lungs out the off-side of small animals shot in the chest with high velocity, large caliber, tumbling bullets: Not due to any special sucking effect from the bands.
The bands do not suck that way. They suck in another way.

Looking at that picture one gets the impression that the heart was struck by an angry bear.
The bullet seem to suck in a substantial market share in Germany looking at Impala's exports.
And that must be at the cost of some other suckers.
Whatever the fantacy, it seems to work fantastically well.
I will leave the theory to the scientists.

Warrior

Hey Warrior
What do you say about that piece from the Impala website? Agree disagree no comment? Is the angry bear caused by the transverse shockwaves or by the sucking venturi. Jagter and RIP thinks it is the tumbling that does it. Astound us with your brilliance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have just returned from a hunt in South Africa. One of purposes of my trip was to test several newly invented bullets. All these bullets had one thing in common – they were monolithic and made of brass or copper alloys. The reason why I in the first place bothered to use bullets of this kind was planned ban on projectiles containing lead. This ban will be probably imposed in Sweden and in other EU countries soon. All “environmental†gibberish about danger of lead is just a smoke screen to hide intention of curtailing shooting and hunting.

Nevertheless, I was curious about terminal ballistic of these bullets. Manufactures write all kinds of stories regarding their miraculous performance in game. I decided to conduct my test in South Africa since there I would have more chances to shoot something.

I planned to test five different bullets but ended up in trying only three, even though I managed to take six different animals. The results were quite interesting

I hunted with .30-06 bolt action and used only my reloads. Velocities of all my reloads were bit above average factory loads with same bullet weights.

I started with South African made Impala bullet. These are strange bullets intentionally designed NOT TO EXPAND. According to manufacturer (www.impalabullets.co.za), this has been done to reduce meat damage. The issue of meat damage is important to me, because we mainly hunt for venison not for trophies in Sweden.

Impala bullets are light. In .30 caliber there is only one 130 grains bullet to choose. The shape is weird, with sharp conical nose of about 1/3 of bullets length. The bearing part has several driving bands and has bigger diameter than the base of the nose. My load gave 3064 f/s with perfect accuracy.

I was rather afraid of using this bullet on some bigger game and decided to shoot a grey duiker with it. Duiker makes good eating, but is rather small. When hit with conventional bullet from .30-06, the damage to the body is extensive. As it happened, the first game I taken with Impala was a bushbuck. After the shot he jumped one stride and stood there dying (which I did not know at that moment so I finished him with neck shot using another bullet). The first bullet hit slightly farther back than I liked but punctured both lungs. He was not going anywhere, though with bushbuck you never know. Entry and exit holes were caliber size as expected. Autopsy revealed both lungs severely shattered and practically no meat damage.

Following day, I shot Impala ram with this bullet. The ram fell on impact with both shoulders pierced and never moved. Here again – in spite of hit in the bones – the meat damage was nil and lungs trashed. I finally took a duiker and results were similar.

The next bullet I had chance to try was Ferrobull, a Swedish made 180 grains moly-coated bullet, which reminds somewhat of Barnes Triple-Shock. There is slight difference in shape between those two. Ferrobull has blunter nose and is not a boat tail. With Ferrobull (2765 f /s), I managed to take enormous Eland bull with extraordinary effect. Eland is the biggest antelope, weighting about 1500 pounds, and many PHs consider .30-06 rather to small. Nevertheless, my bull run only 35 yards and fell. Ferrobull is designed to expand according to manufacturer, and I expected to recover the bullet. To my surprise, the bullet exited after breaking both shoulders. Both holes were caliber size indicating that there was practically no expansion. This explains why the bullet went through. Total penetration through both shoulders on Eland with expanding bullet from .30-06 is unheard of. What is rather less clear is extent of damage to lungs. Bullet hit slightly above the heart, smashing lungs and arteries. The meat damage was again negligible.

With the third bullet, 180 grains Lapua Naturalis I took two blesbuck rams. The bullet has a thin channel drilled from the point down to 1/3 of bullet length. The entry to the channel is covered by plastic tip. According to manufacturer, this bullet is supposed to expand no sooner than after entering chest cavity, due to hydrodynamic pressure that builds up in the channel. This pressure can build only when bullet reaches tissues full of fluids and hence no premature expansion when passing through bones.

If my experience of taking two animals (mule deer size I should think) is sufficient to judge then I have to admit that Naturalis (2752 f/s) performs as advertised. First blesbuck was hit broadside behind the shoulders. He went down immediately. The bullet expanded and penetrated totally, but amazingly only few ounces of meat was lost on the exit side.

The other blesbuck was deliberately taken with quartering shot from the left rear, which destroyed the heart and right lung. I could recover perfectly mushroomed (albeit slightly bent) bullet from under the skin over smashed shoulder blade.

The perfect performance of Naturalis could be easily explained. This bullet does expand after all. That it expands after penetrating into cavity explains little meat damage on entry side. However, amount of damage to internal organs caused by non-expanding Impala and Ferrobull cannot be explained any other way but that it happened because of driving bands.

I could not try Barnes Triple-Shock on this trip (it has driving bands too). I would be very grateful if someone could share some experience with this bullet.


Roman Knoll

.

Hey Warrior
You googled that report from 2004 from The Firing Line.

Wassamatter, no opinion of your own and desperate for some kind of reply? You should change your handle from Warrior to Gooooglemaster.

quote:

What I do not get is why your sources who make and market bullets such as Impala ignore the physical truths about what their product actually does? ( or at least that impression is created)

Alf,

Kobus du Plessis has his own view and I know it is at variance with other views that we have seen here on AR. I have discussed it with him on occasion, but it is for him to clarify or respond. I have seen only a few cases of what the Impala bullet has done and I have shown one case above. As I have said, I will leave the theory to the scientists. I have not much experience with the Impala bullet, but the reports that are coming in is surprising. As you know I have been on the other side of the fence mostly with heavier bullets that mushroom - the controlled expansion type that are bonded bullets like Rhino, Stewart & Claw just to mention the SA Manufacturers. However I am going to make a plan and put them to the test in my 9,3x62. Pieter Olivier, a friend of mine, is using the Impala bullet extensively on game and he is very happy, particularly with the 180 grainer in the 9,3 caliber.

Warrior

Another shining example of not having much of an own opinion about Impala, Rhino, Swift, Barnes, Nosler or whatever other bullet. If Alf made the same statement about GSC, you would have made at least 850 words with some sort of argumantative, fault finding reply. So transparent.


Gooooglemaster - that is funny.

Gerard,

It must hurt you to see another bullet that works.
If it did not, Kobus would not have been successful in exporting them.

Talking about being 'transparent' - give us the pressure level of the max velocity of the .366/230 gr HV.
You owe that duty of care to the users of your product.

I don't need to argue with Alf, as Alf explained why FMJ Spitzers cause severe internal damage.
You must have missed that, hey.
Whilst explanations may vary, the results are there for all to see.

Warrior

Seeing as everyones talking projectiles ... anyone remember a 30cal German offering ... gilded metal construction, cutting shoulder design with a plug that was pushed in to a hollowpoint to initiate expansion plus had "grooves" cut into the nose designed to "catch flesh" and assist opening? I think it was only available as a 154gr projectile ... very long and seemed to open to look like a Failsafe.
Cheers...
Con

Chris/Warrior/Truvelloshooter

quote:

It must hurt you to see another bullet that works.

A shining example of your attitude towards GSC. In your mind you see me hurting every time success is mentioned with another bullet. The facts are that I often recommend other brands, where I know that that brand will be better in the application than GSC. I have given advice for the correct use of other brands and load data for other brands. As recently as two weeks ago, I gave a series of talks at branches of the SA Hunters Association and, several times, gave advice on other brands and their use. I often help with the tuning of rifles and the set up of reloading procedures with other brands. The list goes on. You could not be further from the truth on that one.


The point I was making was, that when other brands are questioned, rightly or wrongly, you have little opinion. When GSC is questioned, rightly or wrongly, you will arrive with a thousand words of misguided opinion. Do you want me to show you the examples? I can also Gooooooogle.

You remain a despicable individual with questionable moral fibre and you pretend to be something you are not. You have been caught out in so many dishonesties, misrepresentations and wrong opinion, I am surprised you still show your face here.

The Impala clearly duplicates Velopex tumbling performance by lightening the forward portion of the bullet. The skinny, non-expanding/solid cone point shifts the CG rearward considerably. The first slight wobble of the bullet in target, such as will come with the slightest inhomogeneity or non-normality in the impact medium, will result in overturning immediately.

The "sucking bands" were sucked right out of someone's thumb.

I do not usually advocate for adult oral pacifiers, but warrior seems to need a "binkie."
Possibly the "witch's tit" appearance of the Impala bullet has got his cravings for the nipple in high gear? warrior is babbling like an infant as usual.

Another good thread in the potty.
We all know this potty training of warrior/truvello shooter/Chris Bekker has gone nowhere in the last seven years of its expose on this web site. He has soiled himself again, as usual. Pee-yoo!

Gerard,

I do not wish to get involved in your despicable mud throwing mode. You are simply jumping to physic conclusions when you say I have no opinion. My basic message here was to say that the Impala bullet performs in a way that even surprised me, when I am someone who used mostly higher SD bullets that expand. So I do not have to critize its performance even if I was the biggest sceptic.

Why would you not tell us straight that you have not pressure tested all your recommended max "safe" loads? If so, it would be quite simple to say you have, unless you are scared that you will be exposed. Finally you conceded that your published high-BC's were not true. All of this does not need 850 words as you hint - it simply needs a sentence or two by way of a simple question. But to no avail.

Warrior

Chris/Warrior/Truvelloshooter
You must go and read this.

Hey Warrior

quote:

Finally you conceded that your published high-BC's were not true.

Tell us more it looks like you know something we should know.

quote:

Chris/Warrior/Truvelloshooter
You must go and read this.

quote:

Finally you conceded that your published high-BC's were not true.

Yes, it would be interesting to hear your version of this. The "Finally you conceded" bit implies it was a lengthy process to get me that far. We are waiting..........

Gerard,

I have no version, only the discussion here on AR some time ago and your reply of the various methods in use by you to determine the BC's and that they will be redone. Fact is that not all BC's were correct - ie over stated. I did not make these observations - other people did.

It would be very interesting to get your reply/version on the pressure tests that I have asked you for the umpteenth time. I am still waiting.

Warrior