The third annual JRH Holiday came to a close last Friday the 15th of September. Hondo, Texas was hot and dusty, but the attendees were enthusiastic and ready to go when it kicked off. Held again at Action Outdoor Adventures of Hondo, Texas. We kept a much more measured pace this year in an effort to gather data more thoroughly.

For the uninitiated, the "Holiday" is an invitation only gathering of terminal ballistics handgun hunting truth seekers willing to put their loads/bullets/theories on the line on large bovines (other game is included, but bovines are the preferred media).

I will add more detail as we go along.

First up, with his gorgeous blued Model 29 was Jack Huntington. This man's shooting ability is something to behold. This wildebeest was his first animal of choice to start the blood letting. He was shooting vintage Norma Triclad loads. They worked but left something to be desired. His first shot reached and destroyed the heart, yet the animal was able to move off a couple hundred yards at least, again proving the point that each and every animal is a law unto itself.



While heading back to the skinning shed with Jack's conquest, we saw this hog off in the distance. A rare occurrence during the day and this heat. We jumped off the truck, and tradmark and I discussed who would do the honors. He insisted I go and use his newly massaged Super Redhawk in .454 Casull (tweaked by Jack Huntington), loaded with Lehigh Defense flat-nosed 300 grain solids. The moving target was put down with a shot to the forehead. Decisive.....

Yep, I've tracked "dead" deer some pretty long distances. They just didn't know they were dead. By the looks of postings this week it looks like y'all had a good time despite the heat.

Day two started with CraigC taking this water buffalo with his Super Redhawk in .44 Magnum, loaded with Grizzly Cartridge's Punch Bullet loads that ran a scorching 1,400 plus fps over the chronograph. Craig displayed some really fine shooting!



Next up was Pasco's Ibex with a Super Redhawk in .480 Ruger loaded with Hornady 325 grain XTP loads. He was running and gunning and shot really well offhand.



Jordan, an associate of Jack's shot this Watusi initially with a Contender in .375 JDJ. He finished the job with his revolver (a Redhawk in .44 Mag with a Dan Wesson barrel and shroud) even though it was fatally hit with the first shot.

Day three was a busy day. It started off with my bull water buffalo. He was nearly an albino with a golden color. We nicknamed hi "Blondie." We had a number of touchy encounters with him over the previous couple of days. He aggressively followed us when we weren't hunting him and we actually had to back out of a couple of situations to avoid him. He was also over a ton in weight on the hoof. I took him with my BFR in .500 JRH loaded with Punch bullets right around 1,350 plus fps. I center punch his chest with the first shot, puncturing his heart. He ran off (I tried to hit him running through the thick brush) and slowed up allowing me to put one in his shoulder. At this point he looked as if he would charge, but I changed his mind with another Punch bullet. He ran off a short distance and piled up. Wasn't able to recover any of my bullets.

Looks like a lot of fun! I'm looking forward to the performance analysis!

These others will be out of sequence.

This is the water buffalo shot by tradmark with his BFR in .460 S&W. He was shooting Grizzly Cartridge's 300 grain Swift A-frame load. It worked like a charm to say the very least, and as usual his great shooting was on display.



This is Michael with his goat nicknamed "wildegoat" because its horns resembled a wildebeest. He used a scoped GP100 .357 with a 140gr Barnes and I believe a 180gr A-frame.




This Watusi was taken by Mike -- another attendee -- with his BFR in .45/70. I believe he was using Lehigh solids. Tradmark can fill in the blanks here. It was good work and great performance.



CraigC took a second water buffalo with his SRH in .44 Mag, stoked with Grizzly Punch loads. That is one great bullet/load combination for bovines and again, Craig shot really well.



The eleventh hour tenacious handgun hunter award definitely goes to our very own James from Jersey! He shot this Sika deer in the near dark with his .475 Linebaugh FA 83, while the rest of us were enjoying a barbeque. James is what I would describe as "hardcore," and was a welcome addition to our gathering!

Left to right - Jack Huntington, James from Jersey, 45MAN, and yours truly:



Some of the participants' tools of the trade:

Blondie was a real menace. He was always between us and the rest of the buffalo when we were on the ground, not at all impressed with our presence. Sneering defiantly and very obviously contemplating stomping us into a pulp. We all know this ain't chasing Cape buffalo along the Zambezi river but it ain't shooting cattle in a pasture either. These critters routinely make things interesting and most definitely do not like being hunted. It's part of the reason why we hunted in groups, not only because we are unapologetic voyeurs but also to stop a charge if necessary.

Not fair....In the photo above you guys are all waxed and polished while I look like a slob.......

You look like a real handgun hunter - that beats wax and polish on every day of the week!

Next time we need to all get together for a big group pic.

James, that's called "huntin' Purdy". Good going guys.

Looks like all had a great time.

I WAS JUST A 1 DAY OBSERVER, BUT ALL THE GUYS I MET WERE GREAT GUYS, AND REAL BULLET HOUNDS, BUT HOLY S... WAS IT HOTTER THAN HADES. IN THE BULLET PERFORMANCE STUDIES ON RECOVERED BULLETS, CAST BULLETS DID NOT DO WELL, BUT I WILL LEAVE IT TO OTHERS TO COMMENT ON THESE STUDIES. A PLEASANT SURPRISE TO ME WAS HOW WELL THE 300 gr. SWIFT A-FRAME 460 LOAD AT 1,900 fps + DID ON A WATER BUFFALO.

Looks like you all had a good shoot, nice animals, congrat"s to you all.

Looks like a good time. I thought the same james.....you look like a hunter lol.

Looks like you guy"s had a good shoot, congrat"s to you all.

Looks like fun, apart from the heat. Got any pictures of recovered bullets?

Sounds like it was due to the extreme heat returning the lead to liquid form.

Congrats to all, it looked like a great time.

Some pics of recovered bullets are at the bragging board

Congratulations guys - that's a lot of meat on the table.

Thanks Gary! It was a good test. A majority of the meat was donated to victims of Hurricane Harvey.

I brought home the first and donated the second. Had some tenderloin Sunday night. Good Lord it was good!

This is interesting.
Who can fill in the blanks here?

Glad you guys had a good time.
That is good news!

As we have found and reiterated, cast bullets definitely have their place. In my opinion, when the animals get big and heavy boned, their usefulness is limited. It's okay if you pick your shots and deliberately avoid heavy support bones - much like you would do with lesser, non-premium jacketed expanding bullets. We shot into harder portions of the downed animals to see which ones hold up and which ones fail miserably. I had a 500 grain hardcast bullet fail in a big way on two different animals in testing on water buffalo, but the same bullet worked admirably on the Canadian moose I shot in Maine years before.

The XTP continues to show its true nature at this event. This is a 400 grainer shot out of a .475 on a 120-lb deer. To me this performance is just as egregious as the cast bullet whose nose distorts. I figured this application would be in its wheelhouse.

I think we've learned a good bit from all of this. We've learned that while hardcast bullets are very good, they also have limitations. Some did very well and reached the hide on the far side. Some were heavily damaged but still worked reasonably well. Some failed miserably. We had a 500gr .500Linebaugh come completely unglued. How do you predict which result you'll get if you only get one shot at a trophy Cape buffalo? Personally, I wouldn't and would consider the $4 a shot for Punch bullets to be cheap insurance. We're also learning that bullets that maintain their nose shape penetrate measurably better than those that deform or flatten even the slightest amount. We're learning that weight is probably not quite as important as we once thought. The Punch bullets are 270gr and 285gr at well over 1400fps and they did better than hardcast WFN's that were 85gr heavier. I was extremely impressed with the Swift A-frame. We saw bullets pushed to nearly 2000fps that expanded well but held together enough to also penetrate extremely well.

The Barnes Buster is a great penetrator but the meplat is pretty small, even smaller than an LFN. Because it's all copper with no lead core, it's also a very long bullet for its weight. Loaded to the bottom crimp groove and filled with 300MP, I could get them to 1380fps but that is too long for anything but the Redhawk/Super Redhawk or custom long cylinder single action. In my opinion, the Punch is the best combination of freight train tough construction, weight, meplat size and nose shape and would be my choice for dangerous game. For an expanding bullet on elk, moose or big antelope, the A-frame would be at the top of the list.

Recall that a couple of years ago I shot this water buffalo at the first bovine bash. He was a very large animal I think you will agree. I shot it with three 405 grain Garrett hardcast bullets. One exited and the other two were found poking through the skin on the offside shoulder. All hardcast bullets are not created equally and they often do work well on very large game. The risk for failure however, is something to consider.

I've been informed that the Buster has a lead core, sorry.

I want to add that there is a marked difference in the toughness of the water buffalo compared to the other bovines we've shot like the Watusi and long horns. Their skin is much thicker and consequently tougher to penetrate.

Just glad a little light has been shown...BTW It looks like a great time. All handgun hunting is and should be. Experience teaches us a lot doesn't it guys 😆

Awesome hunt, Awesome Results, and Congratulations to everyone

My buffalo was fatally shot with the first shot, but I paid the insurance. I ALWAYS pay the insurance.

Here's a pic of the heart.

BTW, if you are wondering about all of the holes in the shoulders of Craig's two buffalo, they were put there post mortem. Paying the insurance ensures bovines don't reanimate and ruin your day.

Oh, and Craig is the other recipient of the "hardcore award" for killing one water buffalo one day, contacting his wife/CFO that evening, getting the clearance to launch, and killing another water buffalo the next. He never missed a beat.....

Guys, I mean Zero disrespect, it's just these bullet results aren't news to me. I'm glad that hunts like these happen, they are fun times and great learning experiences. I just wish this had happened a long time ago

Before Nosler discontinued their Partition I bought some A-frame`s and tested this bullet back in 2011 as shown in my article
"Double Boar Saturday by Swift Bullets" using their 280 gr A frame
in a handload from my open sight FA`s 44 mag.. The terminal results were spectacular as shown with the photo of one of the boar`s blown up heart.... Its a sin that I forget what I`ve done in the past and have to see my experience in print to get the memory going....Tried to pass on my experience about A-frames back in 2011... I wonder what else I`ve tested in years past??
What`s great about the recent bullet tests is that is saves a novice plenty of time and money when selecting a good bullet, unlike what I had to learn without outside help those few years ago....

Seems to me that the results and corresponding commentary may be getting misinterpreted. No one is concluding that hardcast bullets are crap. Quite the contrary. They work extremely well most of the time. They simply have limitations that are not present in bullets such as the Punch and Buster. That said, I never expected a cast bullet to pass completely through a 2000lb bovine, breaking large bones that may be as much as half an inch thick, without at least some deformation. What did surprise me is how much difference that deformation makes in penetration depth. You need significant velocity to exit the hide on a big water buffalo. Not only is that skin thick but it's extremely elastic and acts as a catcher's mitt for those big bullets. That tells me the Punch and Buster bullets are still clocking along pretty well when they reach the hide, that they would have more potential on even bigger game. This is something not evident in shooting smaller, more slightly built critters. What also surprised me is that apparently weight isn't as much of a factor when your bullet does not deform. The 270-285gr Punch bullets outpenetrated cast bullets 85gr heavier. Of course, meplat diameter also plays a role here and we already knew that.

What does startle me is the utter failure of the 500gr .500Linebaugh bullet. I would really like to know why it failed and how to best avoid it.

Testing done in ballistic media, whether it's newspaper, gel or SIMTEST gets misunderstood constantly. It's not to predict exactly what a bullet will do in flesh but is only useful for comparing one load to another. In my testing with SIMTEST, the media proved to be much tougher than live tissue, which is usually the case.

That said, I don't see anything here to vindicate a cast bullet hater or to offend a cast bullet fan. I will continue to use them prolifically, I'm just not taking them to Africa.

I can only assume that the "8 shots" comment is in reference to the eight holes in the shoulder of my first buffalo. Let's clear the air a bit. The buffalo went down and would have been dead with the first two shots, probably just the first, which was placed in a trot, the second in a dead run. The rest were after the buffalo was down. Same for the second. We easily could have waited for the buffalo to expire but this wasn't just a buffalo hunt, we were there to test bullets and the more bullets used the better.

Franchise, im in the same boat you are. I had numerous dead cattle experiences that shaped my views. Then i got on forums and was somewhat dumbfounded by whatbi saw. Ive used cast successfully and seen failures. Ive used xtps to great effect and great failure. Ive had nothing but glowing results with aframes and barnes bullets. The solid coppers i shot into the warerbuff cooked along after penetrating like they came out of a double rifle. Despite their light weight like craig had said earlier. Cast can work but ive had different results with bullets from the same box and dont know how to quantify a cast bullets effectiveness before they are shot. One 500L bullet smeared and deviated course and the other blew up. Im not sure how to tell which one its gonna do before shooting them. Others worked well in the past and thats why i attend these shoots. Its the opportunity to see many many large dangerous animals being put down and with the extra shots and tests that are done it is literally like being on 50 cape biff hints where a different load has been used and comparing. Very different than literally 3 or 4'buff shot by a few aquaintences and them telling you what did and didnt work and i think thats happened in the past. In fact, theres alot of suppression out there as i proved on another sight when i posted an old article about a hardcast buff hunt.

The 8 shots were not in reference to this year's Water Buff....last year's longhorn, maybe...how many HC bullets were required to put it down? I knew that there was a lot of shooting done on deceased animals this year, plus if it took a bunch of shots that close together to kill something, I'd be very surprised

I personally think a lot was learned from last year's hunt. No one can argue about monolithic solids, they perform as advertised 👍

Learning and being able to admit that we've learned from our past hunting experiences, is what makes us all better handgun hunters

The performance of handgun bullets on game is not an exact science.....
to, to many things can happen once they hit an animal....that leaves us to purchase the best we can buy and to make sure we place the bullet in the right spot, no matter if its a cast or jacket bullet....The bullet testing done by the members in Texas should clear any doubt about which bullet does what....

Wisely stated James!

Same story last year. Would have been dead with the first shot but I kept shooting until it was down. Recovered bullets were found under the hide on the off side. Just because I shot it so many times does not mean it took that many to put it down. We don't fire a shot and wait for that shot to take effect. We push them so we can put as many bullets into them as possible. Again, we're testing bullets and you learn a lot more from 12 or more than you do one or two.

Its interesting to see how the Swift A-frame performed in Texas exactly mirrors the results in the article I posted 2 years ago that was titled "Terminal Performance of XTP and Swift...Will I stop using the XTP??? Never.... just know its limitations... Last year I took one of the top 3 thickest gristle shield boar ever using my FA`s model 83 in .41 mag loaded with a 210 gr. A-frame handload with a 1647fps MV.... The right and center bullets are Swift while left is a 325 gr XTP needed to finish the boar. The A-frame on the right went through the shield and was mangled losing 85 grs.. You never know how a bullet will perform, but by using the best, it will increase the odds for a clean kill......

Its a big thanks to whit for putting this together and expanding our experimentation and testing. Truly the highest compliment i can pay to any author is to test and evolve views as their experience grows. Ive watched his writing encompass this testing and his vast hunting experience and the inevitable evolution of his views. This only comes with shooting lots of dangerous animals on foot within spitting distance of them. He embraces what many authors run from and always prints what actually happened, unlike some authors i know fudged the facts. He also doesnt hide behind a scope and a few hundred yards so all the kudos in the world to whit and im glad to be invited to this get together.

three cheers for Whit......

let me add a case of whatever beer Max enjoys.....

Whit, Trademark, Craig, Rich, Give me a few day`s to rest

and I`ll be ready to go back after that blackbuck.....

Ill be going withbya if ya want.

Great work guys! Thanks for what you are doing to advance knowledge in our sport. Any thoughts on how your experiences with big, dangerous game and bullet performance can transfer to "smaller" big game like whitetail and hogs? Will your bullet selection for them be affected by your experiences with bigger animals?

Oh yeah. I shoot many deer off my property with handguns and so does my family and friends and its interesting but im kimda favoring premium expandables for deer and such on up thru plainsgame and elk/moose.

Not at all. I'm very interested in seeing how the Oregon Trail 310gr does on whitetail with its big honkin' meplat. I'll never give up on cast bullets, I just no longer think they're optimal for large/dangerous game.

WELL SAID CRAIG! IF IT IS BIG, DANGEROUS AND/OR EXPENSIVE, I AM NOT USING CAST BULLETS.

Here are a few pictures of recovered bullets. tradmark will fill in the blanks.

I have descriptions on the corresponding bragging board photo.

The commercial hard cast Bullets have gotten sorter this is obvious. When I first started casting for my big bores was around 1985 or 86. I used straight wheel weights water quenched out of the mold. These worked very well on big Alaskan moose and bear. Around 95 or 96 I tried some Cast Performance and they worked well. But they are a bit softer today in my opinion.

Hard cast does indeed lose some nose shape if enough heavy bone is hit, but I have also shot completely through both shoulders of Asian buffalo and exited breaking the main support bone.

The mono metal solids will definitely out penetrate any other type of bullet in both rifle and handgun.

Awesome job boys. Y'all have too much fun! Good info.

at what distance was the bullets fired that were stated to pass/fail?

Varying distances. The aframes and barnes were both from 30-50 yards. The hard cast from 5 to 30 yards. The punch, monometals and busters were from 5 to about. We like test from both dangerous game hunting and "stopping" distances.