quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
If there is a question, just use a TSX and be done with it.

+1

Friend was PH in Alaska. They hunted also Polar Bears. He said me they found Barnes X bullets loosing all petals on Polar Bear shots. Since that time he use A-Frame exclusively. Are TSX better than old X?

Jiri

quote:

Originally posted by Jiri:
Friend was PH in Alaska. They hunted also Polar Bears. He said me they found Barnes X bullets loosing all petals on Polar Bear shots. Since that time he use A-Frame exclusively. Are TSX better than old X?

Jiri

Considerably.

quote:

Originally posted by bluefish:
Woodleigh's site lists their optimum bullet velocity windows. Stay within those parameters and I imagine one would have no trouble.

This is the conventional wisdom, and what I was counting on in Zim last month.

I was using the .458 550gr softs for cape buffalo. I was careful to load to only 2,170fps instrumental at 15 feet, in my 450 Dakota.

I smacked a buffalo in the shoulder at 40 yards, quartering slightly to (impact velocity about 2,050, or 150fps below max recommended) and the bullet stopped in the thoracic cavity. It did not make it to the ribs on the off side, let alone the shoulder or the skin.

59% weight retention (327gr).

Geoff is checking to see if he has any retains from that lot, to test. The bonding didn't appear to hold up.

The good news is the bull died in about 10 seconds, from this single impact. But - this bullet did not perform as designed and I can easily imagine scenarios where this could have turned into a shit-show. I feel as though I dodged a bullet, no pun intended.

Thats the first actual "failure" I've heard of

There has never been a bullet made that has not failed at one time or another, Im convienced of that..

I shot a half dozen buffalo when testing Woodleighs 550 gr. and the 450 gr. for the 458 Lott, 416 Rem. and 404, and not any failures, since I did those tests for Geoff Ive shot another half dozen perhaps, again no failures..in fact I felt the extra 50 grs. seemed to put the caliber up one caliber, the 450 gr PP killed as well as a .458 IMO..In my lifetime I know of one other Woodleigh failure and it was written up in that African magazine some years ago wherein I responded to its failure..The jacket was split before it left the manufacture, just one of those things.

A bullet cannot be judged by one bullet alone that never works, it takes years to establish a bullet and many animals..The long term is the key. Ive always considered the Woodleith one of the most dependable..

Ive witnessed or been made aware of failures of almost all the bullets out there at one time or another, My personal most common failures were the original monolithics, but the new and improved ones seem to be excellent and especially on Buffalo and other large animals...

One thing comes to mind, you did not stipulate if you used a RN or a PP? There is a big difference in penetration of the two as they were designed for different types of hunt for buffalo..PP for Dagga boys and RN for herd hunting, The RN are somewhat softer to prevent over penetration and wounding another buffalo..The RN expands violently and does a tremendous amount of internal damage has been my experience, probably a good idea to keep them off the heavy shoulder knuckle??? maybe.

quote:

Originally posted by Hyak55171:
Thats the first actual "failure" I've heard of

What's interesting is while in the Bulawayo airport waiting for my stuff, another hunter who was inbound was telling me horror stories about his 400gr Woodleighs from a 450-400 losing >50% of their mass last year on a buff hunt. Multiple bullets doing the same thing.

I wrote him off as a nut with a vendetta!

Sorry man!

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
There has never been a bullet made that has not failed at one time or another, Im convienced of that..

I shot a half dozen buffalo when testing Woodleighs 550 gr. and the 450 gr. for the 458 Lott, 416 Rem. and 404, and not any failures, since I did those tests for Geoff Ive shot another half dozen perhaps, again no failures..in fact I felt the extra 50 grs. seemed to put the caliber up one caliber, the 450 gr PP killed as well as a .458 IMO..In my lifetime I know of one other Woodleigh failure and it was written up in that African magazine some years ago wherein I responded to its failure..The jacket was split before it left the manufacture, just one of those things.

A bullet cannot be judged by one bullet alone that never works, it takes years to establish a bullet and many animals..The long term is the key. Ive always considered the Woodleith one of the most dependable..

Ive witnessed or been made aware of failures of almost all the bullets out there at one time or another, My personal most common failures were the original monolithics, but the new and improved ones seem to be excellent and especially on Buffalo and other large animals...

One thing comes to mind, you did not stipulate if you used a RN or a PP? There is a big difference in penetration of the two as they were designed for different types of hunt for buffalo..PP for Dagga boys and RN for herd hunting, The RN are somewhat softer to prevent over penetration and wounding another buffalo..The RN expands violently and does a tremendous amount of internal damage has been my experience, probably a good idea to keep them off the heavy shoulder knuckle??? maybe.

Ray - if there is a 550gr PP, he's hiding it very well. I've never seen it, and I just looked on the website.

And regarding your last paragraph, can you imagine making a bonded core 550gr .458 bullet with a sectional density of .375, and saying "don't shoot a buff in the shoulder with it"???

I've seen bullets fail. I really did not expect to see this 550gr Woodie expanded waaay down the shank with little to no lead adhering to the jacket!

It essentially did what that bloke in the airport said his 400gr Woodies did from his 450-400 (I asked him his muzzle velocity, thinking he pushed them too fast...he said 2,150).


Tim

quote:

What's interesting is while in the Bulawayo airport waiting for my stuff, another hunter who was inbound was telling me horror stories about his 400gr Woodleighs from a 450-400 losing >50% of their mass last year on a buff hunt. Multiple bullets doing the same thing.

Shot a cape buff at 20 yards with a 400 grain .411 Woodie Weldcore with MV of 2076 fps;
bullet entered body behind left rear rib and exited between front legs, leaving a big hole in the heart. Measured penetration was approx 40 inches and bullet not recovered.
It was all soft tissue and no bones.

Bullet placement rules!

Well you state you were using the 550 gr. 458 and I assumed it was the PP, as far as I know he still makes it in a PP..When he and I were putting these bullets in the planning stage he made a PP, and I wanted the RNs,..and he just satisfied both of us and produced both PP and RN, in 350 gr. .375, 450 gr. in the 416 and 404, and 550 gr. in the .458, In the end I had to admit Geoff knew bullets better than I as the PP was the better bullet based on my tests on buffalo..

I dont' doubt your experience at all, its just one of those things that happens with all bullets, Ive had Barnes X, and Nosler partitions and Bal. tips come apart on rare occasions, I had a woodligh 400 gr. 404 hit a buff in the teeth and the teeth cut the bullet in half lengthwise as it apparently slid across the jaw, wasn't a failure in that half went out the jaw and back into the shoulder, not doing much damage, the other half went down his gullet and into the lungs and heart and killed him. He was charging with nose pointed straight and died at client Bob Breedings feet...My whole point is one cannot use one bullet failure to judge a bullet..measured penetration has more to do with bullet travel and what it encounters to a great extent IMO..a belly full of wet grass will stop bullets at times, a hip bone shot slows one down. We are dealing with a multitude of varibles in bullet performance. BTW I received a large supply of those heavy bullets in all calibers mentioned from Hunting at the request of Geoff..much appreciated.

Todays bullets are the best every, but on occasion things go south..

There is no 550gr PP.

The bullets I tried were 550 gr. same with 404 and 416 and 375,all had an extra 50 grs.. Geoff said they were to be manufactured?? and Im still using the 450 and 350s in 40 and .375. I never did follow up on the 458s after the test..

I still have boxes of 40 caliber and 375 in in 450 and 350 gr. but no 458s. Maybe my memory is slipping, they could have been the RN in .458 but the others had both so I may have assumed too much..sorry if I confused. At my age long term memory goes South. Im assuming there is a 550 RN, correct. Im sure there is a 450 gr. and a 350 gr. in both PP and RN.

With luck you still have one of those 550-grain PPs, Ray. If so, put it on cotton wool in a jeweller's box with a label. If some old cartridges are worth $3000 each, a rare bullet must be worth something

The too soft a bullet is addressed in the Woodleigh Loading manual.
Geoff McDonald listened, and toughened the jackets on his bullets, while still getting good expansion.
Dave Lindner a parks service man in the NT with some 10,000 buff, hunted on foot, not from choppers, has tested his bullets. Lindner took McDonald on his first buff hunt, and Geoff thought he could build a good bullet for the British bolt and Doubles Lindner was using at the time. Years of testing between the maker, Geoff and a day in day out user, Dave has brought them to this point.
This is a simplified version of how the bullets came about. A good read if you have the manual.

quote:

Originally posted by theback40:
The too soft a bullet is addressed in the Woodleigh Loading manual.
Geoff McDonald listened, and toughened the jackets on his bullets, while still getting good expansion.
Dave Lindner a parks service man in the NT with some 10,000 buff, hunted on foot, not from choppers, has tested his bullets. Lindner took McDonald on his first buff hunt, and Geoff thought he could build a good bullet for the British bolt and Doubles Lindner was using at the time. Years of testing between the maker, Geoff and a day in day out user, Dave has brought them to this point.
This is a simplified version of how the bullets came about. A good read if you have the manual.

I do have a manual, but its with my gunsmith who's building my no1 500 nitro

Based on the posts I may have used the 550 RN as opposed to the PP in 458 Lott, the 375, 404 and 416 were produced in both PP and RN so its reasonable to think Im the culprit..I have a email into Geoff, if it got through is questionable..but no matter let my post refer only to the 375 an 40 calibers only.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Im with McGuire on his post, I see folks fawning over those smooth as a babys butt mushroomed bullets..I don't care for them at all, they make campfire conversation and impress the newbes and some oldies too..

Give me a ragged edged bullet like a Woodleigh and internal damage is much better.
:

You have mentioned this previously Ray, and I agree with both of you.

Case in point : Six sambar deer kills. All broadside or slightly quartering. All unalarmed. All at between 80 and maybe 120 yards. All hit pretty much in the same place, with shots angling through the chest about half way up and in line with the front legs. All travelled at least fifty yards, one over 150, one straight down and straight up again, one ran 30/40, down and up again for maybe 20/30 secs before finally going down.

Using a well known and regarded fully bonded, 100% weight retaining bullet. Only recovered one, but it was a very pretty round mushroom.

I was rather puzzled by all this until I read one of your earlier posts about "pretty mushrooms"and "round balls". So I tried partitions of the same weight. Eight or nine( I think) so far with the partitions. Everything unchanged except the projectile. Bingo ! Shorter flight distances. No more 150 yard runs. No more down and up again. All shots taken in identical circumstance to the first six (or maybe seven ?)

This is a small sample, but because the shot circumstances were as close to identical as you could get outside a lab, I think the results are significant.

Thanks for the light bulb moment Ray.

A pretty round ball is not like a flat nose. It is like a FMJ, and just pushes through. A flat nose, which I have used, works extremely well.

Far too much preoccupation around here with weight retention, pretty mushrooms, and meat saving.

An animal dies because the bits it needs to live get broken. The more effectively and violently they are broken, the quicker it dies. The quicker it dies, the better your chances of recovering it. Meat will be lost. Get over it.

A recovered animal with smashed front legs provides more meat than one that hasn't been recovered because it wasn't broken thoroughly enough and retained enough juice to get away and not be found.

For years I contacted a number of bullet makers asking for a flat nose solid on the order of Keith simi wad cutter that he used in pistols that killed so well...one outfit sent me a box of 375 round nose solids with the round nose ground flat and they actually worked pretty well. Some years later GS Customs came out with a true flat nose solid and later North Fork did the same and these two bullet were the best on buffalo, Hippo and elephant. I gave Pierre van tonder a bunch of them for his 500 and they were awesome. I got to be good friends with Mike and sent him a bunch of recovered bullets, He kidded me about not cleaning them and they smelled terrible! He graciously cleaned them beautifully and returned them after photographing.

I don't recommend solids as a rule for PG, but if you stick one into the shoulders, as opposed to behind the shoulder, it makes all the difference in the world, they normally just go down and will be dead upon your arrival. Its hard to recover with two shattered shoulders!!

I believe even cup and core bullets of yesterday perform great with that shot, so its probably more about bullet placement in that a behind the shoulder shot will kill, but you have to expect a run of 25 yards and maybe a 100 yards..

As to meat loss, in order to kill or knock down at the shot meat loss is a given with a soft point bullet and the faster the bullet is and in most cases its a lighter bullet, the more meat is damaged..In most cases there is little meat to be had in the shoulders especially in deer size game so no big deal, In larger animals its not a prime cut...but a flat nose solid that breaks both shoulder can be the best of both worlds..Its been a topic of conversation for years and good and bad points can be made on such subjects.

I have always thought a cutting shoulder to be better than just a flat point, again the same as Keiths pistol bullet..for one thing Ive notice the cutting shoulder shaves the hair on a wound for an inch or more around the entrance hole and that does help with a blood trail on many animals. Ive been advised by experts that can make no difference, but that has not been my observation..I also prefer a soft that when recovered looks like a propeller with long ragged edges and a bonded core can have jacket and lead on those wings..One of the pluses for a properly made monolithic, not one that loses its wings however, but some think those secondary petals flying around inside an animal are great! IMO I will say perhaps on smaller game they are right, maybe??...So many of todays super bullets turn into a mushroom ball, smooth as a babys butt, make beautiful photographs, but allow the animal to make too many tracks on occasion...Just some thoughts to consider, then make up your own mind, it will actually take you about 50 years!

I mentioned in my recent blog on bullets that Phil Shoemaker didn't have good results from a bonded core 500gr Woodleigh RN soft in recently following up a wounded brown bear. He shot it four times and none of the bullets penetrated very deeply. He won't be using that one again, he said.

He had a stash of them, but I'm now wondering if perhaps they were of the "old" type before Geoff toughened the jacket!

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
... I have always thought a cutting shoulder to be better than just a flat point, again the same as Keiths pistol bullet..for one thing Ive notice the cutting shoulder shaves the hair on a wound for an inch or more around the entrance hole ...

I bet the taxidermists love that

Dontcha know it!