Hunting Trip coming up

Share your tales (tall or otherwise) of hunting adventures.

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Bad Bill
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Bad Bill »

Went back and read your Africa Safari/hunt adventure. Good reading and pictures. That trip must have cost plenty orf else you got a "deal" 8) The bullet must have tumbled and hit something hard. Springbok don't swallow rocks, do they?
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
Brent
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Brent »

That bullet surely tumbled - in the animal. No way it tumbled otherwise. Anyway, it just goes to show: The world is full of variance and bullet performance has to be near the lead in that department.

Expensive? All is relative. I cannot go to AK and hunt a moose on a self-guided trip for that that Africa hunt cost me lock-stock-and-barrel. And Africa threw in a few days of fishing on the Skeleton Coast and some other travel as well. It was a great time. But I dream of moose.
Just straddling the hard line between "the arrogance of dogmatism and the despair of skepticism"
Bad Bill
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Bad Bill »

Well, if you want to get down to it, there's an infinite number of outliers; that is, there is some chance that anything can happen. You might even get an offer from Alaska to come up and hunt a moose :D
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
Darryl
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Darryl »

That's incredible. The Bullets are exactly opposite of what I'd bet on (the eland bullet being less upset, and the springbuck more that is).

You say you swaged them? How do they compare in hardness to 30/1 and 20/1?
It makes me wonder how much my flatnoses are actually mushrooming on my kills.

I would think that they are upsetting quite a bit based on what happens if I simply drop one on a tile floor (if it lands in the base, the damage is enough to render the bullet useless and it has to return to a pot later for casting).

Due to what happens when they hit the ground from only 4 feet, I'm tempted to believe that they would really get damaged when hitting an animal at nearly 700 MPH.
Brent
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Brent »

I think all of those bullets were 30:1. Maybe 40:1 but not harder than 30. You just can never tell what will happen with a bullet.
Just straddling the hard line between "the arrogance of dogmatism and the despair of skepticism"
rdnck
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by rdnck »

My take is that the bullets that did not penetrate straight through either stopped, tumbled, or deviated from a straight line primarily because they all had one thing in common. They all had a flat nose. They were also soft.

Both Brent and Clarence went to Africa before I did the first time, and I remember questioning both about their loads and bullets and the failure to penetrate all the way through all of the animals they shot. Brent told me that his bullets were flat nosed at 40-1 and were driven at 1185fps--which is a near perfect velocity. Clarence related that he was shooting a Paul Jones Creedmoor bullet at 1350 fps, and that he had made a jig so that he could modify the nose of the bullet and make it a flat nose. When both Brent and Clarence reoprted that they failed to get complete penetration in a couple of instances, it got my attention.

I have been to Africa three times now, and am going back in August 2012. On my last trip, I failed to get complete straight line pass through penetration on an animal for the first time. It was a zebra, and I was shooting a flat nosed bullet at 480 grains. The bullet hit behind the shoulder, took out the top of the heart, and turned and went up and took out the spine. The animal was dead on its feet, and DRT. In spite of the quick kill, I was disappointed in the fact that I failed to get a pass through AND that the bullet DID NOT give straight line penetration.

I have killed a ton of deer, hogs, several bison, several kudu, black and blue wildebeast, gemsbok, another zebra, and several blesbok as well as the smaller African plains antelope using a round nosed 511 grain paper patched bullet or a 520 grain round nosed 457125 Govt. bullet. These round nosed bullets at 30-1 have unfailingly driven straight through from side to side or on a diagonal. I shot the black wildebeast a finishing shot after I broke both of his shoulders and knocked him down with a complete pass through with the round nosed Govt. bullet, and the second finishing shot was just inboard of his left ham as the animal was facing away. The Govt bullet exited his chest after penetrating 70 inches of wildebeast.

Based on the above, I when I go back in 2012, I will be shooting 500 to 520 grain round nosed bullets at 30-1. I hope to be able to have a crack at a Cape Buffalo, and as it stands, I will be shooting the round nosed Govt. bullet and looking for all the straight line penetration I can get. Shoot straight, rdnck.
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Orville
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Orville »

On the recent trip to New Zealand, I Kirk, and Dan all used soft bullets, mine were 1-60, I think Kirks and Dan's were around 1-70. As for the shape of the bullets you can see them on the front cover of Shilohs 2012 catalog. The only bullet-bullets of mine which didn't have complete pass through were the ones which shattered bone and some of the fragments were under the hide (neck on the stag), the other one was where the bullet picked up a wad of the tahr's long hair that bullet was just under the hide and it looked like a large black golf ball, I pulled the hair off I wished I had left it on the bullet.
The bullet with the hair on it was still traveling point on, One of the bullet Kenny's used for his stag, had tumbeled and was found with just the base of the bullet protruding from the skin, when I saw it I thought is was a blackened wad, that is the unpatched bullet in the photo.
Shot placement is way more important then what your bullet alloy is and even the shape of the bullet for that matter.
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Brent
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Brent »

I'm all for the softer is better thing. Using paper patches and swaging, I shot a lot of animals with pure lead versions of my flatnosed bullet and pass throughs happened every time, including on mature bull elk. Definitely softer is better.

But just another interesting detail. A friend shot a whitetail doe - either a fawn or a 1.5 yr old - but i think it was a fawn as I recall, in Wisconsin. He was using one of my bullets in a .45-90, probably 40:1 but i don't remember, and from a few tens of yards he did not get a pass through. Hard to believe but that was the case. I wasn't there so I can't say much more. Nonetheless, ain't nothing absolute. Nothing when it comes to bullets anyway.
Just straddling the hard line between "the arrogance of dogmatism and the despair of skepticism"
Darryl
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Darryl »

Brent:
I went and re-read the link on your Africa trip.
I enjoyed reading that in the past and it was good reading again.

That is simply amazing on the Springbok, AND how that Eland didn't mash your bullet even more than it did.

I guess stuff can happen.

I'm getting pumped up about my trip. By this time tomorrow I'll be about 20 Miles West of Junction, Texas around the town of Roosevelt.

Half the darn fun in hunting is getting there and driving in some beautiful country.
Bruised
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Bruised »

When not getting complete pass-through on the smaller animals could there not be enough resistance? When a smallish deer is hit with a large slug is it possible that the animal moves with the bullet slightly thus slowing the bullet? I thought of a friend who, when in Vietnam, would shoot rats and mice with his 45acp. He said the bullet would carry the critter several feet but rarely even break the skin. I realize this is apples to oranges but just a thought.
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Darryl
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Darryl »

I don't think that has anything to do with the lack of penetration.
Also, I think your friend might have been telling some fictional stories regarding the rats barely getting penetrated by a .45ACP slug.
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Lazer
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Lazer »

Daryl:

That ranch looks to be about... let me get my crystal ball out.... let me see.... about 51 miles south east of Odessa. 8)

How'd I do?

L
Darryl
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Re: Hunting Trip coming up

Post by Darryl »

Lazer- correct.
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