Greetings Carnivore hunter,
Fast light weight bullets are appropriate for light animals at longer ranges.
Slow heavy weight bullets are the best, if not the only sensible option, for large heavy animals at close range.
Here in the USA, many hunters seem to believe that extra velocity is a good idea, no matter what the animal’s size and temperament and no matter how close-in said animal’s are usually encountered.
John “Pondoro” Taylor humorously referred to this as “Velocity Madness”.
That interesting fellow is unfortunately long gone now but, I still agree with him on this topic.
With that, my opinion on calibers and bullet design, is not especially popular with hunters who think new products are always better than old designs that have been working for a long time.
The Barnes mono metal expanding bullets are quite popular today, especially with the aforementioned Newer is Always Better crowd and with the High Velocity crowd as well.
The line between those two camps is often blurry to indistinguishable.
Having blathered all of that, I readily admit that when they actually expand, indeed they are quite effective.
It’s when they once in a great while fail to expand, thereby zipping through critters as if stabbing them with an ice pick, that keeps me from using such trendy bullets.
My recommendation for buffalo is to use the .375 H&H as your minimum caliber, with 300 grain Swift A-Frame bullets.
If you can shoot accurately with larger, heavier calibers, (not faster calibers), then so much the better, as there is no such thing as “too much gun”.
Of course again, this is provided that one can shoot quite accurately with whatever shoulder cannon they choose.
Cheers,
Velo Dog.
