Roman Knoll
New member
I have just returned from a hunt in South Africa. One of purposes of my trip was to test several newly invented bullets. All these bullets had one thing in common – they were monolithic and made of brass or copper alloys. The reason why I in the first place bothered to use bullets of this kind was planned ban on projectiles containing lead. This ban will be probably imposed in Sweden and in other EU countries soon. All “environmental” gibberish about danger of lead is just a smoke screen to hide intention of curtailing shooting and hunting.
Nevertheless, I was curious about terminal ballistic of these bullets. Manufactures write all kinds of stories regarding their miraculous performance in game. I decided to conduct my test in South Africa since there I would have more chances to shoot something.
I planned to test five different bullets but ended up in trying only three, even though I managed to take six different animals. The results were quite interesting
I hunted with .30-06 bolt action and used only my reloads. Velocities of all my reloads were bit above average factory loads with same bullet weights.
I started with South African made Impala bullet. These are strange bullets intentionally designed NOT TO EXPAND. According to manufacturer (www.impalabullets.co.za), this has been done to reduce meat damage. The issue of meat damage is important to me, because we mainly hunt for venison not for trophies in Sweden.
Impala bullets are light. In .30 caliber there is only one 130 grains bullet to choose. The shape is weird, with sharp conical nose of about 1/3 of bullets length. The bearing part has several driving bands and has bigger diameter than the base of the nose. My load gave 3064 f/s with perfect accuracy.
I was rather afraid of using this bullet on some bigger game and decided to shoot a grey duiker with it. Duiker makes good eating, but is rather small. When hit with conventional bullet from .30-06, the damage to the body is extensive. As it happened, the first game I taken with Impala was a bushbuck. After the shot he jumped one stride and stood there dying (which I did not know at that moment so I finished him with neck shot using another bullet). The first bullet hit slightly farther back than I liked but punctured both lungs. He was not going anywhere, though with bushbuck you never know. Entry and exit holes were caliber size as expected. Autopsy revealed both lungs severely shattered and practically no meat damage.
Following day, I shot Impala ram with this bullet. The ram fell on impact with both shoulders pierced and never moved. Here again – in spite of hit in the bones – the meat damage was nil and lungs trashed. I finally took a duiker and results were similar.
The next bullet I had chance to try was Ferrobull, a Swedish made 180 grains moly-coated bullet, which reminds somewhat of Barnes Triple-Shock. There is slight difference in shape between those two. Ferrobull has blunter nose and is not a boat tail. With Ferrobull (2765 f /s), I managed to take enormous Eland bull with extraordinary effect. Eland is the biggest antelope, weighting about 1500 pounds, and many PHs consider .30-06 rather to small. Nevertheless, my bull run only 35 yards and fell. Ferrobull is designed to expand according to manufacturer, and I expected to recover the bullet. To my surprise, the bullet exited after breaking both shoulders. Both holes were caliber size indicating that there was practically no expansion. This explains why the bullet went through. Total penetration through both shoulders on Eland with expanding bullet from .30-06 is unheard of. What is rather less clear is extent of damage to lungs. Bullet hit slightly above the heart, smashing lungs and arteries. The meat damage was again negligible.
With the third bullet, 180 grains Lapua Naturalis I took two blesbuck rams. The bullet has a thin channel drilled from the point down to 1/3 of bullet length. The entry to the channel is covered by plastic tip. According to manufacturer, this bullet is supposed to expand no sooner than after entering chest cavity, due to hydrodynamic pressure that builds up in the channel. This pressure can build only when bullet reaches tissues full of fluids and hence no premature expansion when passing through bones.
If my experience of taking two animals (mule deer size I should think) is sufficient to judge then I have to admit that Naturalis (2752 f/s) performs as advertised. First blesbuck was hit broadside behind the shoulders. He went down immediately. The bullet expanded and penetrated totally, but amazingly only few ounces of meat was lost on the exit side.
The other blesbuck was deliberately taken with quartering shot from the left rear, which destroyed the heart and right lung. I could recover perfectly mushroomed (albeit slightly bent) bullet from under the skin over smashed shoulder blade.
The perfect performance of Naturalis could be easily explained. This bullet does expand after all. That it expands after penetrating into cavity explains little meat damage on entry side. However, amount of damage to internal organs caused by non-expanding Impala and Ferrobull cannot be explained any other way but that it happened because of driving bands.
I could not try Barnes Triple-Shock on this trip (it has driving bands too). I would be very grateful if someone could share some experience with this bullet.
Roman
Nevertheless, I was curious about terminal ballistic of these bullets. Manufactures write all kinds of stories regarding their miraculous performance in game. I decided to conduct my test in South Africa since there I would have more chances to shoot something.
I planned to test five different bullets but ended up in trying only three, even though I managed to take six different animals. The results were quite interesting
I hunted with .30-06 bolt action and used only my reloads. Velocities of all my reloads were bit above average factory loads with same bullet weights.
I started with South African made Impala bullet. These are strange bullets intentionally designed NOT TO EXPAND. According to manufacturer (www.impalabullets.co.za), this has been done to reduce meat damage. The issue of meat damage is important to me, because we mainly hunt for venison not for trophies in Sweden.
Impala bullets are light. In .30 caliber there is only one 130 grains bullet to choose. The shape is weird, with sharp conical nose of about 1/3 of bullets length. The bearing part has several driving bands and has bigger diameter than the base of the nose. My load gave 3064 f/s with perfect accuracy.
I was rather afraid of using this bullet on some bigger game and decided to shoot a grey duiker with it. Duiker makes good eating, but is rather small. When hit with conventional bullet from .30-06, the damage to the body is extensive. As it happened, the first game I taken with Impala was a bushbuck. After the shot he jumped one stride and stood there dying (which I did not know at that moment so I finished him with neck shot using another bullet). The first bullet hit slightly farther back than I liked but punctured both lungs. He was not going anywhere, though with bushbuck you never know. Entry and exit holes were caliber size as expected. Autopsy revealed both lungs severely shattered and practically no meat damage.
Following day, I shot Impala ram with this bullet. The ram fell on impact with both shoulders pierced and never moved. Here again – in spite of hit in the bones – the meat damage was nil and lungs trashed. I finally took a duiker and results were similar.
The next bullet I had chance to try was Ferrobull, a Swedish made 180 grains moly-coated bullet, which reminds somewhat of Barnes Triple-Shock. There is slight difference in shape between those two. Ferrobull has blunter nose and is not a boat tail. With Ferrobull (2765 f /s), I managed to take enormous Eland bull with extraordinary effect. Eland is the biggest antelope, weighting about 1500 pounds, and many PHs consider .30-06 rather to small. Nevertheless, my bull run only 35 yards and fell. Ferrobull is designed to expand according to manufacturer, and I expected to recover the bullet. To my surprise, the bullet exited after breaking both shoulders. Both holes were caliber size indicating that there was practically no expansion. This explains why the bullet went through. Total penetration through both shoulders on Eland with expanding bullet from .30-06 is unheard of. What is rather less clear is extent of damage to lungs. Bullet hit slightly above the heart, smashing lungs and arteries. The meat damage was again negligible.
With the third bullet, 180 grains Lapua Naturalis I took two blesbuck rams. The bullet has a thin channel drilled from the point down to 1/3 of bullet length. The entry to the channel is covered by plastic tip. According to manufacturer, this bullet is supposed to expand no sooner than after entering chest cavity, due to hydrodynamic pressure that builds up in the channel. This pressure can build only when bullet reaches tissues full of fluids and hence no premature expansion when passing through bones.
If my experience of taking two animals (mule deer size I should think) is sufficient to judge then I have to admit that Naturalis (2752 f/s) performs as advertised. First blesbuck was hit broadside behind the shoulders. He went down immediately. The bullet expanded and penetrated totally, but amazingly only few ounces of meat was lost on the exit side.
The other blesbuck was deliberately taken with quartering shot from the left rear, which destroyed the heart and right lung. I could recover perfectly mushroomed (albeit slightly bent) bullet from under the skin over smashed shoulder blade.
The perfect performance of Naturalis could be easily explained. This bullet does expand after all. That it expands after penetrating into cavity explains little meat damage on entry side. However, amount of damage to internal organs caused by non-expanding Impala and Ferrobull cannot be explained any other way but that it happened because of driving bands.
I could not try Barnes Triple-Shock on this trip (it has driving bands too). I would be very grateful if someone could share some experience with this bullet.
Roman