There has been previous discussion here about the 350 gr Woodleighs in 375s and I wanted to relate my recent experince in Africa.
Here is an example of poor weight retention and inconsistent expansion.



This bullet retained only 67% of it's original 350 gr. The fact that it broke the buffalo's shoulder on the front side and then broke his off shoulder is simply no excuse.

The next failure is of the complete opposite situation. In this case the bullet failed to expand.



Bear in mind that these two bullets are from the same box. Again, just because this bullet was fired from 300 yards, penetrated 4 ft of wildebeest and lodged under his hide in the chest is irrelevant. If the wildebeest had not succumbed to old age just seconds after being hit, this bullet would not have been recovered.
The next example shows total lack of bullet integrity. The shell in the croth of the branches is only for perspective. The branch in the foreground was hit by a bullet launched at the wildebeest and completely missed the animal.



If a bullet can't fly true after hitting a 1 1/2 inch branch, it should not be brought to Africa.
Since this heavy for caliber stuff is nonsense I took a que from others here and have decided that that light high velocity bullets are the way to go. With this in mind I have developed the 375 Blacktailer based on a blown out 50 BMG case. A new wildcat such as this deserves a new projectile which is fabricated by heating the 350 gr Woodleighs until the lead melts and pouring it out leaving just the jacket. The resulting 110 gr hollowpoint sitting atop 185 gr of Unique has turned velocities of 7400fps. The results in Africa were promising. Anything out to 100 yards was at least medium rare. Anything closer than 50 yards did not need skinning and at 25 yards hte result was instant skull mounts.
Your comments are welcomed.

My sentiments exactly!

Geronimo

Blacktailer -- thanks for posting that!! I just had a good laugh!!

Truely a ballistic genious at work.

Keith

I am sure that Saeed will pick up immediately on this idea. Having said that I think you are exagerating with the 7400 fps. No doubt someone will run Quickload and verify the actual velocity.
Peter.

Thanks BT, I need a good laugh this afternoon!

Blacktailer,
Your satire is excellent. Jonathan Swift could not have done better.

That was great shooting busting both shoulders of a buffalo with one bullet. But, if you were aiming for the vitals, that means that the Woodleigh had to have mushroomed asymmetrically in busting through the first shoulder, then it veered off course and busted the offside shoulder too. How horrible!

Also causing the wildebeest to have a heart attack from 300 yards away is a masterful hunting technique requiring careful selection of dagga-beest to pull it off. You must surely have had some good optics to pick out the decrepit one, or did you just get lucky?

And thanks for a good laugh.

Not Bad

Here is rhe warthog that was shot at 35 yards with the above load. This is all that was left.


Note the scorched earth in the background. The muzzle blast eliminates the need for burning.

Blacktailer,

Well done...all 'round.

If the ungulube above is any indication, the .375 Blacktailer shows remarkable promise. As the skull is still intact, I can only surmise that you were using the Shootaway Kill Zone as a point of aim...

I worry, though, that one of the trackers might run afoul of the muzzle blast and be badly burned...especially if your barrel is equipped with one of those spaghetti-strainer do-hickeys. An upside would be that, by pointing the muzzle at the ground and firing a couple of rounds, you could quickly clear an LZ for the MARS chopper...

I trust you're penning a nasty note to Woodleigh right about now!

Thanks for the chuckle,

Mark