stug
AH fanatic
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I'm pretty amazed you recovered that bullet matt85, was it a broadside shot or angling?
I'm pretty amazed you recovered that bullet matt85, was it a broadside shot or angling?
View attachment 43434 View attachment 43435 On my recent trip to New Zealand I was once again disappointed by the over expansion and lack of penetration on my red stag by the Hornady IB bullets. I was using 225 gr. .338 cal. IB's in my .338 WM with a muzzle velocity of 2750 fps. I shot my stag at just over 400 yd. so the velocity would have been reduced quite a bit, down to a point that I wouldn't have thought that they have blown up.
But anyway after being frustrated with those bullets I switched to my back ups, which were Swift Scirroco II's in 210 gr. I hadn't planned on shooting a Fallow buck, but it is funny how plans change when the opportunity arises. Long story short I found myself watching a real nice buck making his way through the scrub brush and making really good use of the available cover. Eventually he bedded down in a nice thick patch of thorny bushes, we laid and watched him for a while, all we could really make out were his antlers and the top of his head. He looked pretty comfortable and we figured that he wasn't going to be moving any time soon, so we inched our way uphill a bit to see if we could get a better view. After moving uphill a little bit we could now make out the outline of his body through the brush. I was in a prone position slightly ahead of Jim my guide when he says see that branch to the left of his head with a y in it? And he continues with, it's 250 yards to him from here, do you think that you can put a bullet under that branch and hit him in the base of the neck? Well I like a good challenge so I say yeah, maybe. And I also said some thing like at least even if I blow the shot he will certainly stand up. After focusing on that small opening under that branch through my scope I realized that it wasn't that open but covered by smaller branches. I figured that if I did hit some of that small vegetation that it wouldn't disrupt my bullet path all that much seeing how close it was to my target. So since my rifle was zeroed at 250 yd. I held right on where I wanted my bullet to go and squeezed the trigger. At the crack of the rifle that old buck jumped up and took off going downhill, my first thought was that I had blown it. After slamming the bolt on another round I realized that he wasn't running quite right, both of his front legs were broken between the hoof and elbow and blood was every where. He only ran a short distance and went down out of sight in some brushy cover. Jim shakes my hand and says, you go down and make sure he's down to stay and I'll go fetch the truck. When I got to him he was stone dead and I could not figure out exactly why. I rolled him over and found a gapping hole in his brisket so I now knew why he expired so quickly, but what I couldn't figure out was how that hole got there. And to further the mystery when we skinned him out we found the bullet lodged up in his left shoulder. So what I can't explain is how did that bullet shatter both of his front legs, penetrate the brisket and wind up in his off side shoulder? Especially when he was bedded down slightly below me and my shot angle was downhill on him. The only thing that I can come up with is that his legs were folded in front of him and my shot was a little low hitting his legs and then being deflected upward and into his chest. I saved the bullet, it started out at 210 gr. and now is down to 157.7 gr., it mushroomed perfectly and did a lot of damage. Here's a couple of pictures of it. If someone has a better explanation of how that bullet did all of the damage that it did and wound up where it did please share it with me.
I used swift a-frames 160gr 3000fps in my 7mm mag. The only bullet recovered was from the wildebeest and it lost 30% of its weight and looked much like your interbond. Nosler accubonds and partitions perform similarly. If you want virtually 100% retention go solid copper. The following link is informative
http://www.rifleshootermag.com/ammo/ballistics-test-best-300-win-mag-loads-market/
you must have been very close to get a Swift A-frame to lose 30% of its weight!
ill agree, if you truly want the most weight retention regardless of velocity then the mono-metal bullet is the best choice. even the best lead bullet will shed some weight when the impact velocity is overly extreme.
-matt
the animal was quartering to me very sharply, almost facing me. i wasnt there when they pulled the bullet out but my guess is they found it in the rear of the animal. in all other animals shot with this load the bullet passed completely threw the animal length wise and killed them very quickly (in some cases instantly).
-matt
@Mike B. did you send those pictures to Barnes? if not im sure they would greatly appreciate it.
thats the second time ive seen the new Barnes bullets fail. first time was shown to me by @THIS IS AFRICA SAFARIS in SA. it makes me question whether i should keep using the 300gr TSX in my 416. not too many options in the 300gr range for the 416 though.
-matt
I've been a Barnes guy all my life, untill this happened, almost cost me my life due to the fact that I trusted barnes. I stopped using them now, changed to Swift A frame.
Its saddens me to say i would probably not use barnes again in my big calibers, it was only once that this had happened to me though. But once is more than enough on dangerous game.
seeing your bullet has inspired me to try changing from the 300gr Barnes to the 325gr North Fork in my 416 RM. its a shame because the 300gr Barnes was absolutely lethal, but i cant afford for even a single bullet to fail.
-matt
You just might end up getting close to the same velocity with the NF's as you did the Barnes. I find the NF's take a bit less powder to obtain the same velocity as other bullets of the same weight. I can only attribute this to the grooves in the bullet resulting in less friction between the bullet and the case neck.