460 S&W hunting bullet

[.45 colt hunter]

@Mentone Mike .
Danish gun laws are strict and it is illegal to use revolvers and pistol for hunting. A rifle is defined as being at least 60 cm (24") in total length, with a minimum barrel length of 30 cm (12"). If you plan to put a stock on a revolver or pistol with a barrel that is 30 cm = 12 inches then the stock must be non detachable. So a revolver carbine can be approved as long as it is permanently changed with some kind of stock that cannot be removed in the field.
Although Greenland is in some way a part of Denmark, they have their own gun an hunting laws. You may most likely get permission to use a revolver on the Musk ox. If your Contender is 24" overall then at least according to Danish law it will be legal. Danish laws for hunting class 1 game i.e. Red deer , Fallow deer or anything bigger than roe deer must produce at least 2000 Joule (1475 ft/lb) at 100 m , with a minimum bullet diameter of 6 mm (.243 ). Its then up to the "operator" to figure out if his reloaded ammunition will produce the needed power. Factory ammo normally has the power level in joule, printed on the box. In Denmark only ammunition with a max content of 2 % lead is allowed, don`t know about Greenland, but i am quite sure lead is allowed. There are several outfitters in Greenland that do Musk Ox hunts, they will know if your favourite gun is legal.
The lead bullet on the left in your pictures looks identical to the few bullet i have retrieved from African game, as in Eland, Gemsbuck and Giraffe as the largest. They lost a little weight and the sharp edges on the meplat was rounded off some with very little expansion. I actually saw that as an advantage as some of the other guys in this thread has mentioned. If a relatively heavy bullet keeps its meplat and most of its weight, what more could you ask for. I trust that you have a lot of experience and your findings are correct and i will not for a moment argue with you whether the AF is better than a correct hardened cast 350 gr. LFN LBT, because there are thousand of factors that determine how an animal behaves after a "perfect" shot, with the "perfect" bullet. I have been a commercial reloader for many years and i load my ammunition with what the customers want. If asked when lead was allowed, i would recommend the Swift AF. Now that lead is out and we cannot get Swift bullets at all, i tend to recommend Barnes TSX , TTSX or the new Sako Blade. I get a lot of feedback from my customers and the funny thing is that they all have very different opinions on how a specific bullets work. Some say that bullets brand X is useless and the animal ran 200 Yards with at perfect shot and some say that the same bullet killed like lightning but destroyed so much meat that they will never use it again. All with the same bullet and in the same caliber, loaded to the same velocity. What i am trying to say is, that it takes many thousands of real hunting situations before statistics can clearly define which bullet at what speed is the very best.
I would love to try the Swift AF, but i just cant get it. My lead bullet have never disappointed me, but i have on the other hand never shot a buffalo, so i cant say how they will behave on such a beast. In the 460 XVR i will not go for max velocity, maybe a bit over.454 Casull , but rather go a bit heavy.

@michael458
I already have some Peregrine 250 grain expanding copper bullets waiting for me in RSA, together with some Barnes 325 gr. Buster and Barnes 250 gr. XPB that a friendly american guy handed over to my PH in RSA. I will also take some of my home cast bullets along for testing. The Dios Y El Rey Hunting Outfitters & Equipment, seems to be closed for now, but i will try them later. Thanks for the tip. I am a bit pessimistic about getting any US made components in RSA for quite some time, as everyone (gunshops) i have talked to say they just cant get what they want, probably due to all the trouble around the world. No primers no powder no cases to be found right now. I was lucky to secure what i needed about 6 months ago. It took a lot of searching on the internet for available component, most of it was delivered to my PHs local gunshop by courier, from all over the country. Next April i will hopefully put it all together on the reloading equipment, that i set up on the hunting Lodge a year ago.
I will give Dawid a call.

I am now in contact with a Danish bullet manufacturer, who can make me a solid copper bullet with at large meplat and/or a hollow point that will expand some. I cannot test it at 460 velocity as this revolver is in RSA and will not be allowed in Denmark, but only in the Freedom Arms .454
They will most likely be quite expensive as i am probably the only individual here in Denmark that are interested in a revolver hunting bullet for big game.
Any ideas how this bullet should be designed ? I will probably do something similar in shape to a 380 gr. LBT LFN. In copper that will be around 320 gr. i guess.
Please show pictures of your favourite copper revolver bullet in .452. Hollow point or with a meplat.

 

[Mentone Mike]

Thanks for all the information. My Encore is in 454 Casuall, 16.25" barrel. So should be OK by what you
said. When I emailed the Danish police about hunting in Greenland they said handguns were not allowed. Too bad as that would be preferred.
That's cool you are a commercial reloader. It is interesting the different experiences folks have with different bullets. I like to think I have considerable experience when it comes to hunting big game and bullet selections. When I look back at all the game I have killed using cast bullets, I now understand why I switched to hollow point jacketed. Many from antelope up to the bison showed no reaction. Unless you hit bone, it takes a long time for them to bleed out. Made me wonder each time if I missed. I compare it to squirrel hunting here. A solid 22 LR just punches through giving the squirrel time to run in a hole, hollow points drop them right there.
I am sure you are familiar with Veral Smith of LBT and his book. He started all the wide meplat craze and deep penetration school. John Linebaugh always called the revolver a long range paper punch.
And so penetration was the key. But like I told him, over penetration is a concern hunting in farmland.
Jacketed bullet development has come a long way since I started handgun hunting.
I have shot many game animals with cast bullets and now only with jacketed bullets.
I prefer Swift AF but really have to settle for Hornady's XTP bullets as they are easily available here.
I have no practical experience hunting with all copper bullets. Sorry you guys have to deal with no lead ammunition.
I have yet to see any proof that hunters are responsible for lead poisoning in the general wildlife population.
I attached a couple pics. The ammo I took to Argentina was Grizzly Cartridge. Those punch bullets have a lead core, so would not be legal in Denmark I guess. The other pic is of my 460 Smith guns. The BFR I have used for deer and also a black powder revolver. Another topic for sure.
The MOA was the pistol I took to Argentina for the water buffalo. Since been upgraded with optics and a muzzle brake.

 

[.45 colt hunter]

Mentone Mike​

I am not 100 % sure, but i do not believe that the Danish police are the right authority to ask if handguns are allowed in Greenland. There is also a big difference between taking a handgun for self protection and a hunting handgun. I can mention a danish adventurous women who travelled across the ice with a dog sled, she was given permission to carry a 44 mag !
I am a licensed gun dealer and gunsmith and i am in weekly contact with the danish police and they are just a pain in the a..
I can tell you that the level of the staff that you probably were in contact with, do not know a hoot about the finer details of danish gun laws, not to mention the rules in Greenland. I am not saying that revolvers are Ok in Greenland, but it is worth investigating it. The right persons to contact are a licensed PH or outfitter living in Greenland. They should also be able to help you with taking your firearms into Greenland, be it a revolver or rifle. I have a friend that have relatives in Grenland and has hunted there often, i will ask him if he can find out. One of the most frequently used calibers for everything is the .22 rimfire magnum, and when they want a true bigbore then the 222 rem. That would never be allowed in Denmark. They do have rules of their own up there.

I have never met Veral, but i have had numerous conversations with him before he was thrown in jail and when it was time to order, i wrote him a letter specifying what i wanted and sent it to him by mail, with a real stamp on. Those were the days ! But very very slow. I got in contact with him after he made a mold for Ross Seyfried, when he wanted to take down a Cape buffalo with his John Linebaugh custom made .45 revolver. Verals contact information was in the article Ross made for Guns & Ammo, as i recall it.
Later on when out from jail, i only corresponded with him by email. As the years went by, he started to do mistakes and some of his molds were totally out of spec. He promised to correct it but never did, even though i reminded him, so eventually i gave up on him. I have the deepest respect for his work and his book. The molds that he did right, are fantastic and i use them a lot. I just think he got too old and too difficult to communicate with. I have around 20 of his molds in 9mm , 358 .452 and 1 in 458 Win Mag.
I then had my moulds done by Mountain Moulds and lately by Accurate moulds as Mountain M. shut down. I am very pleased with Accurate moulds although they do not invent/design moulds. As a Cast bullet man, i believe you know them and their extensive catalog. I have quite a few molds, but the best molds to cast with are 2 identical 6 cavity Hensley & Gibbs #316BB in .358 158 gr. truncated cone design. Very accurate in my S&W 686 Distinguished hunter.
I truly respect your views on the cast bullet with a large meplat, which is one of Verals many ideas and i cannot say that i don`t accept the concept of a quality expanding jacketed bullet, i do, but the bullets i could get my hand on were too soft and would not stand up to .454 and .460 velocities.
You are probably absolutely right when you claim that the jacketed handgun bullets got much better and i will certainly give them a try when i get to Africa, where i have a selection of them waiting for me.
You mention that it is interesting to read that people have completely different opinions on the same bullet in the same caliber and velocity. The Hornady XTP that you want to use is a good example of just that. I know that there are 2 versions of this bullet, but i have read a lot of negative results with not just the soft version, but also the tough version has been said to completely disintegrate when hitting bone and tough hide. I know absolutely nothing about that particular bullet, but i just found it funny that there are so many different opinions about the same bullet.
The Punch bullets is from what i have read a solid brass bullet withsome of its base filled with lead. Now without testing it, i will assume that this bullet will behave more or less like a hard cast LBT LFN except that the cast bullet will, as you also have seen yourself, shed a bit of the sharp corners on the meplat. Brass is not my favourite bullet material as i have tested many of them in rifle calibers and did not like what i saw. They are too hard and brittle when they are constructed with a hollowpoint or "weak" points in the nose portion. They will not expand at all, but only fragment. In my opinion copper is the way to go, maybe not with the same design as the punch, but rather with a shallow hollowpoint that will allow the bullet to expand moderately, maybe shedding a bit af the expanded nose like a Nosler partition. As i mentioned in my last post, i am now in contact with a danish bullet manufacturer, that was a "brass man" but now has started to look at copper. I will try to design a copper bullet as described and your input will be highly appreciated. Weight, nose profile, some kind of hollowpoint . Or ?? For use in the .454 casull and the .460 S&W.