375H&H Mag 300gr Nosler Partition...surpassed?

[Rubberhead]

I've never shot any of the bullets being discussed. I've never loaded a rifle round. I'm 58 and didn't even consider myself a big game hunter until 2017. But, even I knew that the Nosler Partition and Swith A-Frame were designed for different purposes. Even I knew that the Partition, conceived and designed before "bonding" was a thing, was intended to bridge the gap between cup and core type bullets that fragment on impact and solids that drove deep without a lot of "shock". I think I know (I could look this up but I won't to prove my point) that the Partition was designed after Nosler tried to kill a moose with a "deer" bullet. The front of the Partition is designed to fragment and cause shock while the back portion is designed to stay together and push deep. It was not intended to have a 90%+ weight retention. That's a feature not a flaw.

The A-frame was designed to mushroom at the head, stay together and push to a maximum depth at it's new, larger, post-impact frontal cross section while retaining a high percentage of its original weight..

Comparing these to is like arguing which is better a Porsche or Ford F150...

 

[Joker12]

All of this bickering about what's "best" is interesting but pretty much played out. There are lots of very good bullets available today, no one of them the best for everything. A good friend of mine on a PG hunt in SA shot and killed very dead 14 animals including kudu, wildebeest, gems ok none of which is a pushover with 180gr Hornady interlocks from an '06. I know because I loaded the ammo for him. If that bullet was good enough for PG then certainly the Nosler partition 300gr from a 375 will do the job!

 

[BeeMaa]

I’d encourage every hunter who is going to Africa to ask their PH what bullet they would recommend before telling them what you already use. Get THEIR true opinion on what they have seen work best for what you plan to hunt.

I’ll lay odds that the Swift A-Frame, Federal TBBC, Barnes TSX or Norma Oryx are at the top of their list.

 

[CrippledEagle]

They did bond it…it’s called the Nosler AccuBond. Crazy huh?

Only took them 50 years to figure it out.

Smart marketing.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Imagine if you will this scene below from about 1950. There was no internet. There were certainly magazines, and those magazine articles certainly drove much conversation at local gun and sporting goods stores like the one below.

I can imagine a conversation/argument/discussion like we have here on AH from time to time going like this:

Billy Bob: Say Jethro, how'd your elk hunt go?

Jethro: It went great, got me a nice bull.

Billy Bob: Well tell us about it.

Jethro: Got him on opening day. Saddled up my horse in camp and headed up to no see'em ridge that overlooks no tellum canyon. Got their just a bit before light. When the sun come up, he was there just a couple hundred yards from me and I shot him.

Billy Bob: Did you have to track him far to retrieve him?

Jethro: Nope, one shot and just a few yards of walking he went down.

Billy Bob: You must've hit him in the heart.

Jethro: Nope, the bullet went thru both lungs and out the other side. I have to tell ya, I'm impressed with this new bullet I used.

Billy Bob: What new bullet?

Jethro: They call it the Nosler Partition. You see it has two sections of lead, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the back is......

Bubba Jay: (interrupts Jethro) Wut in the hail are you yammering about Jethro?! My dear ole grampa has been killin' deer for more dan 50 years now. He been using da same rayfle for more dan 40 years wit da same damn bullet. He dun killed more dan a thousand deer now and many of dem been turdy point bucks!

Jethro: Well the thing is Bubba Jay, this John Nosler fellow. You see he had this moose get away from him after he shot him. And so he developed this new bullet he calls the Partition. And.....

Bubba Jay: (interrupts Jethro again) Well obviously he dint know how to shoot, it's after all where the bullet goes that means ever thang. Naw sir, I'll stick with grampa and his boolits........parteeshun my ass.


Hopefully this was taken humorously as intended. As far as the turdy point buck goes, it is that time of year after all.

 

[CrippledEagle]

Imagine if you will this scene below from about 1950. There was no internet. There were certainly magazines, and those magazine articles certainly drove much conversation at local gun and sporting goods stores like the one below.

View attachment 500767

I can imagine a conversation/argument/discussion like we have here on AH from time to time going like this:

Billy Bob: Say Jethro, how'd your elk hunt go?

Jethro: It went great, got me a nice bull.

Billy Bob: Well tell us about it.

Jethro: Got him on opening day. Saddled up my horse in camp and headed up to no see'em ridge that overlooks no tellum canyon. Got their just a bit before light. When the sun come up, he was there just a couple hundred yards from me and I shot him.

Billy Bob: Did you have to track him far to retrieve him?

Jethro: Nope, one shot and just a few yards of walking he went down.

Billy Bob: You must've hit him in the heart.

Jethro: Nope, the bullet went thru both lungs and out the other side. I have to tell ya, I'm impressed with this new bullet I used.

Billy Bob: What new bullet?

Jethro: They call it the Nosler Partition. You see it has two sections of lead, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the back is......

Bubba Jay: (interrupts Jethro) Wut in the hail are you yammering about Jethro?! My dear ole grampa has been killin' deer for more dan 50 years now. He been using da same rayfle for more dan 40 years wit da same damn bullet. He dun killed more dan a thousand deer now and many of dem been turdy point bucks!

Jethro: Well the thing is Bubba Jay, this John Nosler fellow. You see he had this moose get away from him after he shot him. And so he developed this new bullet he calls the Partition. And.....

Bubba Jay: (interrupts Jethro again) Well obviously he dint know how to shoot, it's after all where the bullet goes that means ever thang. Naw sir, I'll stick with grampa and his boolits........parteeshun my ass.


Hopefully this was taken humorously as intended. As far as the turdy point buck goes, it is that time of year after all.

Thanks Mr. Phil. Humor is awesome. This looks like a good exit point for me. After over 70 years of hunting and shooting experience I thought I'd seen it all. I joined this forum thinking I would enjoy the camaraderie I used to feel in bush camps, SCI meetings, and especially the times I spent with my mates in Rhodesia 50 years ago (google my user name and you'll know). I related a little experience I had with the 375 partition on one of our missions. Just telling a story, not giving shooting advice. Right off the bat I was attacked and accused of BS by some pompous ass who will never see Africa as I did and probably couldn't carry my shooting sticks. Then, just to show he was King Kaffir, he had to copy and paste from my starting profile before I even finished it.

ivW-
'
"What a load of BS....it is posts like these that get people killed...

How many elephant you shot with this combination???

Having below resime I quess you know more than the rest of us... ..

Hello! I am the past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter and past board member of SCI. I was "active" in the Rhodesian Bush War and veteran of many safaris."


Hiding behind a computer keyboard must make your balls grow, boy. You never know who you're talking to. One of my Selous Scouts buddies would have said "Giv da fooker a backhand and let's drink an ABF!" Yes, humor is awesome. I think I'll hold on to this for a little while, I might even post again, but I really think I have more important things to do. Good luck on your trip BeeMaa (I can't call high fence or ranch hunts safaris). Hope you find out what a bongo is some day. G'day all.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Thanks Mr. Phil. Humor is awesome. This looks like a good exit point for me. After over 70 years of hunting and shooting experience I thought I'd seen it all. I joined this forum thinking I would enjoy the camaraderie I used to feel in bush camps, SCI meetings, and especially the times I spent with my mates in Rhodesia 50 years ago (google my user name and you'll know). I related a little experience I had with the 375 partition on one of our missions. Just telling a story, not giving shooting advice. Right off the bat I was attacked and accused of BS by some pompous ass who will never see Africa as I did and probably couldn't carry my shooting sticks. Then, just to show he was King Kaffir, he had to copy and paste from my starting profile before I even finished it.

ivW-
'
"What a load of BS....it is posts like these that get people killed...

How many elephant you shot with this combination???

Having below resime I quess you know more than the rest of us... ..

Hello! I am the past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter and past board member of SCI. I was "active" in the Rhodesian Bush War and veteran of many safaris."


Hiding behind a computer keyboard must make your balls grow, boy. You never know who you're talking to. One of my Selous Scouts buddies would have said "Giv da fooker a backhand and let's drink an ABF!" Yes, humor is awesome. I think I'll hold on to this for a little while, I might even post again, but I really think I have more important things to do. Good luck on your trip BeeMaa (I can't call high fence or ranch hunts safaris). Hope you find out what a bongo is some day. G'day all.

Well I hope you’re not leaving on my account. As mentioned previously, I’m a fan of the Partition. Mr. Nosler saw a problem, envisioned a solution and brought that solution to the market. For that he has my respect, very much so as an engineer.

As an engineer, there’s always something that can be improved upon from my experiences. We move forward with the new solutions to old problems. But we also have to look forward to improving on current designs.

The Partition was in my opinion a quantum leap forward. The Swift A-Frame is essentially a NP but with bonded technology not available during Mr. Nosler’s time. That is an improvement on an old design in my opinion and field experience seems to prove that out. It certainly doesn’t mean the Partition is a bad bullet. I would still be happy to use it on elk here in the USA if I wasn’t exclusively hunting them with my bow. I used an NP to take down a large bull Shiras moose some 20 years ago or so, would use the Partition again for that.

Hope you stick around.

 

[lockingblock]

All of this bickering about what's "best" is interesting but pretty much played out. There are lots of very good bullets available today, no one of them the best for everything. A good friend of mine on a PG hunt in SA shot and killed very dead 14 animals including kudu, wildebeest, gems ok none of which is a pushover with 180gr Hornady interlocks from an '06. I know because I loaded the ammo for him. If that bullet was good enough for PG then certainly the Nosler partition 300gr from a 375 will do the job!

This is very true. As much as we all love to debate the "best" bullet...the market is full of exceptionally capable bullets that are more than adequate for the job.

At the end of the day, the bullet really only has to be accurate enough to hit the target where aimed, expand to 1.5x diameter, penetrate no less than 12 inches (hopefully much more), and be relatively blind to bone.

There are many bullets that will do that well and the animal won't know the difference.

I do wish Nosler would do an updated partition. Boat Tail, bonded, polymer tip...

 

[Nevada Mike]

Nosler Partitions are very good bullets for what they were designed to do... the front rapidly mucherroms and the rear core stays intact and keeps going. This is designed for shock and penetration.

I used them on bull elk in my 7mm RM for many years and never had a failure. I think you would be fine on a PG hunt (possibly excepting eland) using a .375 with 260 or 300 grain Nolser PTs.

 

[BeeMaa]

I do wish Nosler would do an updated partition. Boat Tail, bonded, polymer tip...

I hope this helps you out...came out in 2003.

 

[Forrest Halley]

I think Jethro would've kicked Bubba Jay's teeth in eventually and rightfully so. Thank goodness for electronic campfires...lest the outhouse shovel have to pull double duty.

 

[Graham Hunter]

I hope this helps you out...came out in 2003.
View attachment 500825

No Partition no comparison.

 

[lockingblock]

I hope this helps you out...came out in 2003.
View attachment 500825

I never had great luck wit ABs. Even bonded, they always seemed a little fragile to me. I only used then in the US and on medium game…but they all seemed a bit soft. I don’t have enough to make a definitive statement, but my small sample was a very accurate, but soft, bullet that was ideal on deer.

 

[BeeMaa]

I never had great luck wit ABs. Even bonded, they always seemed a little fragile to me. I only used then in the US and on medium game…but they all seemed a bit soft. I don’t have enough to make a definitive statement, but my small sample was a very accurate, but soft, bullet that was ideal on deer.

Maybe give the Barnes TSX/TTSX a chance.

 

[BourbonTrail]

Maybe give the Barnes TSX/TTSX a chance.

Those clunkers are only good for the dump

Btw, call me the trash man.

 

[lockingblock]

Maybe give the Barnes TSX/TTSX a chance.

I use them a lot and I think it’s the best monometal bullet on the market.

Fun fact, Osama got a X bullet or three to the face in the form of Brown Tip Optimized. https://defensereview.com/556-optimizedbrown-tip-ammo-enhanced-terminal-ballistics-for-specops-sbrs/

I am optimistic about the Hornady Outfitter line and I have a pile of it but I only have a year or so of time with it…too early to say.

Mono is the future of bullets. The newest bullet from the Marine Corps, MK 318 Mod 1, is basically a TBBC that has had the lead core replaced with a soft copper slug. They also added relief grooves and shaped the profile to make it aerodynamic. If someone would scale it up, I think that projectile has potential to dominate the lead free expanding bullet world as it retains a valid hollow tip but has a solid shank and the one piece copper slug in the nose mushrooms cleanly without fragments.

 

[Graham Hunter]

I use them a lot and I think it’s the best monometal bullet on the market.

Fun fact, Osama got a X bullet or three to the face in the form of Brown Tip Optimized. https://defensereview.com/556-optimizedbrown-tip-ammo-enhanced-terminal-ballistics-for-specops-sbrs/

I am optimistic about the Hornady Outfitter line and I have a pile of it but I only have a year or so of time with it…too early to say.

Mono is the future of bullets. The newest bullet from the Marine Corps, MK 318 Mod 1, is basically a TBBC that has had the lead core replaced with a soft copper slug. They also added relief grooves and shaped the profile to make it aerodynamic. If someone would scale it up, I think that projectile has potential to dominate the lead free expanding bullet world as it retains a valid hollow tip but has a solid shank and the one piece copper slug in the nose mushrooms cleanly without fragments.

If you like the TTSX try the Hornady CX.

 

[Scott CWO]

Basically, the front of a NP blows up while the back end penetrates but doesn’t expand much. It will kill but that’s not the performance I am looking for in a DG bullet.

What @IvW, @BeeMaa and many others (including me) are trying to say is that we prefer a bullet that stays together more and forms a larger-than-caliber big expanded mushroom that creates a wider wound channel in the later stages of penetration than a NP while still penetrating deeply due to weight retention momentum. Make sense??????

 

[Ray B]

In response to various "premium" bullets being offered for sale in the early 1980s, Nosler decided to review their options for adding to their hunting bullet line. they had already added their solid base, but it was more of a standard design. So they invited makers of the new wave bullets to meet with Nosler staff, possibly to negotiate an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial. they invited the fellow from HT bullets as well as Bill Steigers of Bitterroot Bullets. Bill's advice to them was that they couldn't stay married to the Partition design and make a fully bonded bullet. (With the Swift A-Frame only the front section is bonded). bill also told them that "bonding" lead to copper was a mechanical operation and was so "old" that it was basically public domain- no one could patent the process.
It took a few years but Nosler finally did come out with a bonded core bullet, however the last I knew they didn't follow Bill's advice regarding the jacket. He said don't expect bonding to correct for an inadequate jacket.
From what I have read regarding "new" Nosler bullets, including the Partition, the jacket is inadequate- but this is of just the new Partitions- not the older bullets that were unaffected by the cost accountants.

 

[IvW]

Thanks Mr. Phil. Humor is awesome. This looks like a good exit point for me. After over 70 years of hunting and shooting experience I thought I'd seen it all. I joined this forum thinking I would enjoy the camaraderie I used to feel in bush camps, SCI meetings, and especially the times I spent with my mates in Rhodesia 50 years ago (google my user name and you'll know). I related a little experience I had with the 375 partition on one of our missions. Just telling a story, not giving shooting advice. Right off the bat I was attacked and accused of BS by some pompous ass who will never see Africa as I did and probably couldn't carry my shooting sticks. Then, just to show he was King

Thanks Mr. Phil. Humor is awesome. This looks like a good exit point for me. After over 70 years of hunting and shooting experience I thought I'd seen it all. I joined this forum thinking I would enjoy the camaraderie I used to feel in bush camps, SCI meetings, and especially the times I spent with my mates in Rhodesia 50 years ago (google my user name and you'll know). I related a little experience I had with the 375 partition on one of our missions. Just telling a story, not giving shooting advice. Right off the bat I was attacked and accused of BS by some pompous ass who will never see Africa as I did and probably couldn't carry my shooting sticks. Then, just to show he was King Kaffir, he had to copy and paste from my starting profile before I even finished it.

ivW-
'
"What a load of BS....it is posts like these that get people killed...

How many elephant you shot with this combination???

Having below resime I quess you know more than the rest of us... ..

Hello! I am the past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter and past board member of SCI. I was "active" in the Rhodesian Bush War and veteran of many safaris."


Hiding behind a computer keyboard must make your balls grow, boy. You never know who you're talking to. One of my Selous Scouts buddies would have said "Giv da fooker a backhand and let's drink an ABF!" Yes, humor is awesome. I think I'll hold on to this for a little while, I might even post again, but I really think I have more important things to do. Good luck on your trip BeeMaa (I can't call high fence or ranch hunts safaris). Hope you find out what a bongo is some day. G'day all.

I am well known for not beating around
the bush and calling a spade a spade...

And irrespective of who it is I will call BS on using or suggesting the use of expanding bullets for elephant .

I hope you feel better now after refering to me as a pompous ass and a King Kaffir...well done on that....

I salute you for being active in the Rhodesian bush war....I was also very active in our own war to no avail....and just as you who is a CrippledEagle.....like it or not so am I.....abandoned by my own government.....

I know and still befriend a few Selous Scouts and other members who where very active in the Rhodesian bush war....perhaps you know some of them...

Selous Scout Ray Godbeer, who joined the RLI in 1970 and then joined the Selous Scouts in 1975 and then joined the South African Special forces 1 Recce and 5 Recce as the main tracking, anti tracking and survival instructor.....he was my main instructor on survival, tracking and anti tracking when I did my course....he is considered the main man when it comes to sub saharan survival tracking and anti tracking.....

John Stanton Selous Scout....very active in fund raising and support to ex Scouts....I support them as well...

Rob Bristow ex BSAP and intelligence....we see each other at least once a month......

I will carry your shooting sticks anytime.....but shure as shit not if you have a NP in the chamber and the quarry is elephant......