michael458
AH fanatic
Good Morning Gentlemen ...........
I wanted to share something with you that was sent to me and brought to my attention earlier this morning. It ties in with exactly one of the subjects we discussed, and my opinion is that in some cartridges/rifles, that Only Solids should be used. I do not know this fellow, but I believe he chose very well, and handled the situation perfectly. Below is his words, his accounting, and like I said I do not know this fellow.
I wanted to share a couple of photos of my recent safari where I took a buffalo with my Turnbull 45-90 and 400 grain Lever Gun Solids from Cutting Edge Bullets. This combination worked very well.
To answer some of your questions...the rifle has a white bead on front and a Williams rear peep sight with twilight aperture. We snuck up to a group of bedded bulls and after waiting seemingly forever for him to stand, I shot this buffalo at 30 yards or so, facing me, quartering slightly to the left. The bull reacted to the shot well and ran to my left about 30 yards into the bush and stopped. He stood for a few minutes, then lay down and bellowed. We thought he was finished when all of a sudden he jumped up and moved about 20 yards to our right. I was able to get a follow up shot through the brush and I hit him high in his left shoulder. Due to the thick brush I couldn't see him well enough to shoot again but it was just as well because after a few more minutes he expired.
The first shot penetrated from the chest and was recovered poking through the hide just in front of his right hind quarter. The recovered bullet had only rifling marks, it looked like it could have been loaded and shot again otherwise. The second bullet was not recovered.
I'm pushing the 400 grain solids to 2100 fps.
There are a couple of things I would like to point out. 1st is the mention of time and a few minutes here, few minutes there. This can be really deceiving. The buffalo I went to war with using one of my lever guns 50 B&M Alaskan, from the first shot to the last, if asked, I would have told you it was 30-40 minutes at least, without a doubt in my mind. The entire affair was videoed, in review of the time stamps in the video the entire affair lasted less than 5 minutes.............
#2 Mention of Follow up shots---"Shot through the Brush"....... Due to THICK BRUSH.......... One of the PRIMARY reasons to have those Solids......... This is why we prepare for such scenarios, having to deal with brush after that first shot, sometimes before the first shot, is very very likely....... Properly designed FN Solids give you the very best "shot" (Pun Intended) at accomplishing your mission in these circumstances.
#3 First shot penetrated from front of the chest and found poking through the hide if front of right hind quarter. Excellent penetration, sounds like it is dead straight, and a Lever Solid suffers from a short nose projection, which is one of the 8 Factors of Solid Terminal Penetration. Also, this is a 400 gr .458 caliber bullet, SD of .272, well below the mythical standards, there are 7 other factors of Solid Terminal Performance that are more important and have more effect than SD alone. Below explains Factor #4, which mostly deals with shorter nose projections which are required for Lever Guns to keep overall cartridge length short enough to work through the action.
#4 Nose Projection
Nose Projection above the top bands was the last factor discovered. There may be more factors, but currently they remain undiscovered at this point in time.... We found that nose projection above the top of the bands of current CNC monolithic bullets is very important to depth of penetration. Some bullets designed to work through lever actin riflers require a SHORT NOSE PROJECTION in front of the bands so that they can be loaded deep enough to work through the actions of these guns... Nose Projection of these same bullets for bolt guns, single shots, and double rifles are longer, from .600 to .700 in front of the top band. The LONGER NOSE PROJECTION solids will penetrate on average 25% deeper than the shorter nose projection. Now, these bullets already have all the other required factors for stability, nose profile, construction and radius, so it is ONLY DEPTH Of penetration that is effected with properly designed bullets.
As stated, I am retired from hunting, have been now for a few years, so this is really a moot point and of no future consequence, PH's, you need to evaluate your clients as much as possible, and make a judgement based on the clients experience, which is tough at best. In over 20 years of being in the field, over 35 + hunting trips in Africa, I hunted with many incredible great PH's over the years, know many more on top of that, most which are good friends today, I have never once not ever had one of the PH's give me advice on what cartridge, rifle, bullet, nothing......the vast majority of the time they were asking the advice and learning from what we were doing, which is great and very much welcomed. Some of these PH's today are carrying my rifles, my cartridges and shooting the right bullets for the mission. But rest assured, had any PH ever told me what bullet to use for what mission, that would have been the end of our relationship, nicely and politely, but the end regardless. I do however recognize that in many cases a PH needs to do just that, and I am not saying that it is a wrong thing to do, sometimes required with those of less experience, both on the range, and in the field.
I wanted to share something with you that was sent to me and brought to my attention earlier this morning. It ties in with exactly one of the subjects we discussed, and my opinion is that in some cartridges/rifles, that Only Solids should be used. I do not know this fellow, but I believe he chose very well, and handled the situation perfectly. Below is his words, his accounting, and like I said I do not know this fellow.
I wanted to share a couple of photos of my recent safari where I took a buffalo with my Turnbull 45-90 and 400 grain Lever Gun Solids from Cutting Edge Bullets. This combination worked very well.
To answer some of your questions...the rifle has a white bead on front and a Williams rear peep sight with twilight aperture. We snuck up to a group of bedded bulls and after waiting seemingly forever for him to stand, I shot this buffalo at 30 yards or so, facing me, quartering slightly to the left. The bull reacted to the shot well and ran to my left about 30 yards into the bush and stopped. He stood for a few minutes, then lay down and bellowed. We thought he was finished when all of a sudden he jumped up and moved about 20 yards to our right. I was able to get a follow up shot through the brush and I hit him high in his left shoulder. Due to the thick brush I couldn't see him well enough to shoot again but it was just as well because after a few more minutes he expired.
The first shot penetrated from the chest and was recovered poking through the hide just in front of his right hind quarter. The recovered bullet had only rifling marks, it looked like it could have been loaded and shot again otherwise. The second bullet was not recovered.
I'm pushing the 400 grain solids to 2100 fps.
There are a couple of things I would like to point out. 1st is the mention of time and a few minutes here, few minutes there. This can be really deceiving. The buffalo I went to war with using one of my lever guns 50 B&M Alaskan, from the first shot to the last, if asked, I would have told you it was 30-40 minutes at least, without a doubt in my mind. The entire affair was videoed, in review of the time stamps in the video the entire affair lasted less than 5 minutes.............
#2 Mention of Follow up shots---"Shot through the Brush"....... Due to THICK BRUSH.......... One of the PRIMARY reasons to have those Solids......... This is why we prepare for such scenarios, having to deal with brush after that first shot, sometimes before the first shot, is very very likely....... Properly designed FN Solids give you the very best "shot" (Pun Intended) at accomplishing your mission in these circumstances.
#3 First shot penetrated from front of the chest and found poking through the hide if front of right hind quarter. Excellent penetration, sounds like it is dead straight, and a Lever Solid suffers from a short nose projection, which is one of the 8 Factors of Solid Terminal Penetration. Also, this is a 400 gr .458 caliber bullet, SD of .272, well below the mythical standards, there are 7 other factors of Solid Terminal Performance that are more important and have more effect than SD alone. Below explains Factor #4, which mostly deals with shorter nose projections which are required for Lever Guns to keep overall cartridge length short enough to work through the action.
#4 Nose Projection
Nose Projection above the top bands was the last factor discovered. There may be more factors, but currently they remain undiscovered at this point in time.... We found that nose projection above the top of the bands of current CNC monolithic bullets is very important to depth of penetration. Some bullets designed to work through lever actin riflers require a SHORT NOSE PROJECTION in front of the bands so that they can be loaded deep enough to work through the actions of these guns... Nose Projection of these same bullets for bolt guns, single shots, and double rifles are longer, from .600 to .700 in front of the top band. The LONGER NOSE PROJECTION solids will penetrate on average 25% deeper than the shorter nose projection. Now, these bullets already have all the other required factors for stability, nose profile, construction and radius, so it is ONLY DEPTH Of penetration that is effected with properly designed bullets.
As stated, I am retired from hunting, have been now for a few years, so this is really a moot point and of no future consequence, PH's, you need to evaluate your clients as much as possible, and make a judgement based on the clients experience, which is tough at best. In over 20 years of being in the field, over 35 + hunting trips in Africa, I hunted with many incredible great PH's over the years, know many more on top of that, most which are good friends today, I have never once not ever had one of the PH's give me advice on what cartridge, rifle, bullet, nothing......the vast majority of the time they were asking the advice and learning from what we were doing, which is great and very much welcomed. Some of these PH's today are carrying my rifles, my cartridges and shooting the right bullets for the mission. But rest assured, had any PH ever told me what bullet to use for what mission, that would have been the end of our relationship, nicely and politely, but the end regardless. I do however recognize that in many cases a PH needs to do just that, and I am not saying that it is a wrong thing to do, sometimes required with those of less experience, both on the range, and in the field.
