Anyone have any experience with Barnes RN 400gr .416 solids?according to Barnes techies they are solid brass d/c in 05.got 300+ with a RSM 416 Rigby.shouldnt be too hard to turn the meplat flat.thanks,kim

I shot a bunch of the .416 400 gr round nose solids in my 416 rem mag.They shot very good.Remington use to load this as a factory load.I guess low demand stopped that.Its a very good solid and is very accurate.I shot some one inch groups with it.It didnt leave as much fouling as I though it would either.Its a very good bullet.I did some penetration test and they went further than any other solid I tried and did not deform.Its a very good bullet for the money.

dgr416,thanks.no reason to turn a flat meplat then.

KimR ; When They first came out in the 80,s they hadkind of pointy tips and some reports were they would wander some..That may have been to slow twist ..The A-Square Monolithic Solid just had a nice round nose .. If yours have a small tip on them then flattening them would probably help Your 416 Rigby probably has a 1in 16 " twist and the 400 gr Super Solid is a nice long bullet........They were very accurate in my first 416 Rem . and my 1 st 416 Taylor...I have shot them thru 4 ' diameter spruce trees that were solid.. As near as I could tell they went thru in a straight line...It kind of made me mad as I wanted to recover them ....

gb458,these have a round nose-no tip.penetration seems amazing to which the Barnes techie alluded.guess this was a good deal.just dont need 300+.thanks.kim

gb458,thanks.seems penetration is superb.the barnes tech guy said they were exceptional.wonder why they were d/ced?

I've used them in combination with the "X" bullets on three cape buffalo without complaint. In my rifle, M70 416 rem mag, the 400 grain X's and solids impact within a half inch of each other at 100 yds. A friend killed two addition buffalo using the same solids. I think they work great. I've yet to recover any of the barnes solids shot into game.I will be using the same combo again this year in Zimbabwe for buffalo.

quote:

Originally posted by KimR:
Anyone have any experience with Barnes RN 400gr .416 solids?according to Barnes techies they are solid brass d/c in 05.got 300+ with a RSM 416 Rigby.shouldnt be too hard to turn the meplat flat.thanks,kim

It is a waste of your effort because the performance of an ogived flat nose is inferior to that of a truncated cone flat nose. The ogived flat noses appear to leave the ogive outside of the cavitation bubble that the bullet creates, thus producing less penetration than a truncated cone flat nose, all else being equal. Of course this is just based on observations and has not been proven as scientific fact. Use the Barnes for target practice, then buy some truncated cone flat nose bullets from www.northforkbullets.com or www.gscustom.co.za.

As for using the Barnes RN solids as-is, my expreience is that they penetrate the shallowest of any solids I have tried. But many sources tell us that a hemispherical round is the least-optimal design for penetration. And brass is not so dense, making the bullet long and more prone to tumble than a lead core bullet.

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I bought some in the early 2000's and those Barnes solids made of copper filled my barrel full of copper. I don't shoot Barnes bullets anymore.

According to Barnes,these are made of brass not copper.

Yes, they are brass. Brass can foul a bore just like copper if the bore is rough or the brass is soft.

Kim
I'll bet those lowly round nose brass bullets will kill anything you shoot in the brain or heart. Good shoot'n!

BG,pretty much my thought.does a 4' spruce= an eles skull??

I have used the 400 grains on both elephants and buffalo, with good results.

In fact, one year I had no 375 caliber solids, so turned down the 416 caliber to 375 and used those with good results as well.

Saeed,thanks,did you use both diameters as RN or modify the meplat?

I bought about 1000 of them when midway closed them out in bulk packages.I wish I had gotten about 5000 .I lthink they are about as good as it gets as far as a solid goes.They had way less fouling than the barnes x bullets did.They would well with reloader 15 as any other load in my 416 rem mag.I think if you flatted the nose it would be hard to make them fly as good as they do from the factory.They cut them on a lathe I guess.I have not had any of them keyhole or tumble .I know a flat point can hit harder but it seems the round nose would penetrate deeper.

dgr,any experience on DG?thanks

quote:

Originally posted by dgr416:

... but it seems the round nose would penetrate deeper.

Just the opposite is the case.

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:

quote:

Originally posted by dgr416:

... but it seems the round nose would penetrate deeper.

Just the opposite is the case.

Keep 'em straight, 500grains.
How about talking to Charlie Kokesh to set him straight too?

Barnes have been getting steadily better. I like their current crop of flat nosed banded solids.

All bullets are a compromise somewhere. I have seen PMP mono's break up becuase they were too brittel and pure copper "solids" mushroom like a premium soft on elephant.

I haven't seen any bending, path deviation etc from the latest offerings (seen a bunch used in .458 Lot and .416 and a few in 9,3) and they are accurate as well.

Here are two of the three Barnes RN .416 solids I fired into my elephant.



This was in early '04 and Barnes was only making round nose then. The only flat nosed solids I tried wouldn't feed 100% of the time. I'm sure the rifle (CRF m70) could eventually be tuned to make some designs work but it wasn't a chance I wanted to take at the time.

Kyler

quote:

Originally posted by dgr416:
I bought about 1000 of them when midway closed them out in bulk packages.I wish I had gotten about 5000 .I lthink they are about as good as it gets as far as a solid goes.They had way less fouling than the barnes x bullets did.They would well with reloader 15 as any other load in my 416 rem mag.I think if you flatted the nose it would be hard to make them fly as good as they do from the factory.They cut them on a lathe I guess.I have not had any of them keyhole or tumble .I know a flat point can hit harder but it seems the round nose would penetrate deeper.

I bought a few hundred on-sale from Midway to, I think it was in '98. It's a great bullet. They'll shoot 1" groups in my M70 416RemMag. I noticed they do tend to foul the bore a little more than some of the other bullets I tried. I ended up moly-coating them. That seemed to help. I've shot two cape buffalo and a bushbuck with them.

quote:

Originally posted by Kyler Hamann:
Here are two of the three Barnes RN .416 solids I fired into my elephant.



This was in early '04 and Barnes was only making round nose then. The only flat nosed solids I tried wouldn't feed 100% of the time. I'm sure the rifle (CRF m70) could eventually be tuned to make some designs work but it wasn't a chance I wanted to take at the time.

Kyler

Kyler, you should load those up and use them again. They look hardly used. Reminds me of bowhunting, I've used the same arrow and broad head on 2 different deer.

I´ve been told that shooting monometal brass (or was it bronze?) bullets can destroy a rifle barrel. This obviously has to do with the hardness of the bullet etc. Which monometals are safe to use?

I have no experience with solids of any kind but I´m planning a PAC ele hunt for next April and I´d like to have some for my .416 Rigby.

quote:

Originally posted by cewe:
Which monometals are safe to use?

These: www.gscustom.co.za

and these: www.northforkbullets.com