If you don't mind me asking, how do you feel the NorthFork SS performed for you? Good penetration, even expansion, accuracy, etc.? I have some of these for my own Jeff that I will be working a load up for soon. Would you use them again?
Would you mind sharing your recipe?
I would say that they worked perfectly well - to the best of my knowledge. Unfortunately, no bullet was recovered.
Thankfully, the buffalo went down in an easily accessible area, but it still took a bit over an hour to get to the car, cut a road and load it up. Then another hour to get to camp. So it was pretty late, and had been an exhausting day. So a G&T, dinner and then off to bed.
I had planned to be present at the unboxing, so to speak, but that either happend later that evening, or very early next morning. When I got to the 'skinning shed' (a tree) just after breakfast, it was already done. I did not go through the pile on the ground to determine what had happened to which organ. I did take a look inside the chest cavity though, and there was a neat hole coming in, and going out for the first shot, roughly like this - or perhaps quartering to just a tiny little bit more (pictures shamelessly borrowed from the Internet):
There was no exit through the skin that I could see, so the bullet was probably under the hide just behind - or at the rear edge of - the off shoulder.
There was also an entry for the second shot, but I don't recall if I saw an exit;
It would have been nice to recover the bullets, but the bull was just about to be loaded back upon the truck for delivery to the village, so I didn't push it.
My recipe is;
- Norma case
- Fed 215
- 72 gn Norma 203-B (which is 'the same' as Reloder-15)*
- COL: 89.3mm (3.515")
This gives 2225-2250 f/s in my rifle
* No, it is not
really the same. But they are both made by the same manufacturer, to the same specification. However, it could be that Alliant and Norma does further screening and testing before putting their name on it. I would consider them close enough to use 203-B in a RL-15-recipe for starting loads, and work my way up.
Yes - I would use again, but I will start crimping from now on.