I have always encouraged everyone I have talked with to do their own bullet testing. Bullet testing as with many other comparisons can be swayed to effect the outcome. If you know the gun or bullet maker personally and are friends with them, if you benefit financially from one bullet or gun doing better in the test, or if you "push" a certain bullet or gun, then one is supplied with them free or at a discounted price I just am very skeptical of the results. Point.....comparing round nose bullets to flat nosed bullets of the same configuration. The results will be swayed and not really accurate. In this Linebaugh Siminar, if the 416 Rigby was shooting a 400 gr Barnes Banded Solid or a Woodleigh Hydrostatically Stabilized Solid, the results would be very different and everyone involved already knows this. A test would need to be conducted by impartial parties without an agenda to push that benefits them financially.
I don't know who this is directed at, but if you are testing and evaluating products for a number of different manufacturers, should you pay for them? I think not. Most of us who do this work would make no money at all if we had to pay for the components as well. I have had a number of bullets/ammo/etc. fail and you won't be reading any praise about them from me or anyone else I know in the business. Who is impartial? We all have our favorites. The key is to present your findings as they are. I personally have developed favorites through testing. When you see what works and what doesn't, it makes you lean in a certain direction.
Remember that it took Woodleigh a long time to get into the current technological advances that companies like CEB, North Fork, etc. embraced a while back. Woodleigh is still looked at with fondness by the guy who is nostalgic enough to use round nose solids in his double rifle, because the original Kynoch ammo used round nosed solids, not knowing that Woodleigh now produces more modern bullets. But don't kid yourself into thinking that most guys shooting solids out of their big-game hunting rifles have accepted the flat-nosed solid. Many are still stuck on nostalgia. Those round nosed solids are notorious for not tracking straight and frankly many flat nosed profiles will handily beat them in a penetration contest.
The current trend is towards flat-nosed profiles for rifles. Do you know where they got that idea? From the handgun hunters who have been using them and have known how effective they are for decades. Elmer Keith knew.......it's about time the rifle guys get with the program!
My only agenda when testing is to present to the skeptic proof that handguns are effective tools on even the largest game in the right hands. For that I am guilty.
