Thanks Mark, well said MR Thompson, the great thing about this thing we do is the experience and knowledge we learn from others, still after all these years I pick things up from you all!

What's the worst failure you guys ever had? Or maybe it isn't possible to know if the bullet wasn't recovered??

Earlier in this thread I posted photos of two Mag XTPs we recovered from a red stag. One completely grenaded. There have been others.

Yeah I saw that one. That's what prompted my question. That was amazing.

That was actually an error on my part. Here is the second Mag XTP that grenaded. The other photo is what is left of a 500 grain LFN from Cast Performance that shattered on the onside shoulder of a downed water buffalo.

Are water buffalo that tough, or was the bullet to brittle? Cast Performance makes good stuff! Surprised their bullet would do that, but like anything else, accidents happen.

Probably a combination of the two. The stars clearly aligned for that bullet's brand of failure.

As a side note, water buffalo, like their cousins the Cape buffalo are thick-skinned bovine. Takes more to punch through them than it does a bison, watusi, etc. The skin is like an added layer of tough.

Exactly..................

DT say`s it to perfection....

Here's another example of what could have been a bullet failure but luck played some role in success.
This was many years ago when my daughter was just 14 years old & she had her first elk tag. We were down in some deep, thick timber & had left the horses at one of my old camp sites because I knew the elk would be feeding close by in an open meadow.
They much have heard us walking in the crunchy snow because they made it into the timber & we could see them milling around waiting for the lead cow to take them out. I spotted the bull & had her kneel down quickly with her 308 & pick a spot & at the shot the bull buckled, took a couple of steps & fell.
As we walked up to him about 20 yds in front of us was a 2" Quaky limb with a bullet hole dead center through the middle of it, if it had been just a bit higher or lower it would have deflected & been a complete miss. The bullet hit the bull through both lungs but had tumbled yet still made an impressive kill. Sierra 150 gr.



Dick

Been Living in Alaska most my life. I started hunting with a handgun in the late 80,s and have been lucky enough to take Bear, Moose and Caribou with the 44-454-475L.
Started with 44mag factory soft points and had ok results on caribou when hit in the ribs but had my first bullet failure with a front quartering shot the bullet cup and core came completely apart.as I stated Reloading I went with the 300ga XTP mag in my 454 and had better luck until I pushed the bullet past 1500fps and then had the same results as the soft point 44,s. After reading books and some postings on the web by Max I started down the road of Hard Cast bullets. have not been able to recover a bullet so far to see how the bullet survived but all animals hit made it to the freezer.

I`ed rather be lucky then good anytime.....

Luck is a byproduct of being prepared.

...most of the time.

shot properly is always a sticking point. you read it all the time . "i shot a buck with this gun/caliber/load combo right in the heart, it ran off with little to no blood and i never found it" then prove to me you hit it where you said. not animal no proof. when we are talking deer sized game they are not hard to kill. but like some have said what performance are YOU looking for and are YOU satisfied with.

Honest question. This is a 165gr Sierra HPBT-Game King that killed a 125lb pig at 177 yards quartering away last week. The round entered the back of the ribs, broke the off side shoulder bone, and lodged under the hide in the off side neck. Dropping the pig on the spot.



Bullet failure?

Not to me..that's what I'd expect from that bullet...if it were a Partition, an A Frame, a Oryx, a Weldcore, or an X Bullet...Yes....an unbonded, fragile bullet, this is what I'd expect

What did you expect from that bullet? I use the 165 G.K. spitzer as the H.P. doesn't shoot well for me.Never recovered one from a deer yet,have recovered the deer.

I would say it worked. Dropped the pig instantly, so it did what I would have INTENDED it to do.

Don't know if that is HOW that bullet is designed to perform, but nonetheless, the critter died quickly, so I'm good with it.

I will never be disappointed in a bullet that quickly kills a critter I shot.

Well, some here would say that it is a failure because it isn?t a picture perfect mushroom, retaining most of its weight and exiting the animal.

It separated in some regards. It fragmented in others. It failed to hold together after bisecting the cardio vascular system, breaking heavy bone, and lodging under the skin on the off side.

It doesn?t look pretty.

Therefore, to some. It failed.

I present to you the state of our expectations. Unacceptable.

A dead animal with a shitty looking bullet.

Here we are.

Some would say failure. Others would expect that. Its not a failure but should give pause as to how big an animal one should expect good results. Theres many contexts. Deer and hog bullets? Elk/moose, large bovines, elephants are a compeltely different set of expectations. I for one have been on record for years saying i didnt care if a bullet exited. Never have. In a revolver that relies more on weight for penetration especially if im gonna use it on bigger critters, i do want it to hold together. Its not an argument but a legit question to ask, would that result be good if a shot was at 50 yards (more velocity) on a pig 2x that size. They certainly do run that big in your neck of the woods. Would that be adequate on that size hog if it were quartering to you and you had to go in the front point of the shoulder. Lots of hypotheticals but thats the fun of discussing it here. Dead-yes, unacceptable-hardly, raises questions about other scenarios-certainly. No harm no foul.

While I play devils advocate and badger some for their ill-fated expectations and and presentations..............I?ll be switching bullets after these run out.

I can play good cop / bad cop with the best of them. I think you haters are off your rocker and poorly represented. While judging and switching bullets of my own accord and accordingly.

What a fun world we live in.

This is good stuff!!

Have I written books? No.
Have I killed thousands? No.

I research what is in front of me at the time and I do it more thoroughly than some.

Hard cast? I better hit a support structure.
Expandable? I better go for soft tissue with velocity.

I may have been born yesterday. But, I?ve been up all night.

Well said, i just prefer the expandable thatll do both. Thats my ideal. If i dont have any otf those, then i make my compromises.

I certainly am not trying to start an argument here, just stating what I do.

I use hard cast in my revolvers, but I shoot behind the shoulder. My wife and I hunt in order to fill the freezer, so we try not to waste much meat. Therefore, we avoid large bones if we can. Hard cast bullets hitting soft tissue still hits like a freight train. I've not shot a lot of critters with hard cast, but the ones I have shot have folded up right where they stood, or very close by.

I shot a deer on a high shoulder shot once, or what I THOUGHT was a high shoulder shot, and it was a disaster. Only deer I never found. Saw it run off with a broken leg, and swore I'd never do that again. After that, it's been behind the shoulder on everything.

I know the shoulder shot works for a lot of you guys, but I'll keep putting hard cast behind the shoulder. It's what works for me, and what I have confidence in.

I never want to sway one from their personal experience and convictions. I express what I see before me. And weigh it against science and reality.

From what I?ve seen, I have been able to eatright up to the proverbial bullet hole when using cast Bullets at reasonable velocities. There is little blood shot or temporary cavity damage as they tend to run at a slower velocity than jacketed Bullets.

They are heavy and slow (in relation), causing a generous permanent cavity with a lesser temporary (hydrostatic shock and tearing of organs due to a higher velocity, expansion, from a large temp cavity) cavity than a fast jacketed bullet. So, I personally prefer to smack something that keeps them on their feet. Dropping them in the spot and affording the opportunity for the disfunctionate cardiovascular system to cause their demise before regaining their feet.

A high velocity jacketed bullet tends to leave more of a temporary cavity to surrounding tissue (blood shot) and therefore, more inedible meet ness the path of the bullet. So, I?d just as soon send that through the ribs in a lung or low heart shot and have more meat in the end.

If you are getting good results (terminal performance) and yield (meat left over) with the bullet, velocity, and placement you are getting..........DUDE!!!!!! Carry one!!

If it ain?t broke. Don?t fix it.

edge

Have any of the bear been brown bear or grizzly with your handguns?
'
Regards
Mark

Holy Molly..... I just realized that I`am not that good with the King`s English.....just no stopping "the masked man".....Last paragraph is classic....

Coloradoyaler
Hi Mark
I have taken two black bear and one grizzly with my FA 454 using 300ga. WFNGC not had the chance for a brown yet.

Thanks edge!

My definition depends on what the bullet does, not what the critter does. How quickly or slowly it expired is not even a factor. I have had complete and utter bullet failures that both scared and angered me but the critter was deader than fried chicken. I've also had bullets that did better than I hoped or expected but the critter still ran 100yds. The difference is what to expect the next time, or the time after that. In the case of abject failure, there won't be a next time.

For you, Mr. Z.

I can't find one of your recent posts that ranted about not believing so-on and so-on, etc. about their bullet performance conclusions, and that you only believed "scientific evidence" like a thorough autopsy like you perform, and that you might get banned for saying so, etc.,; well I can't find it right now but it caused me to look through some of my recovered bullets from animals to find these two:


So just to patronize you sir here are two bullets that killed (on the right, a 295 grain Powerbelt from my 50 caliber muzzleloader rifle that penetrated the onside chest of a big bull elk and smashed out flat on the inside of the opposite shoulder. The other is a 300 grain Nosler partition from my .454 that killed a muley buck.

So...are they "perfect" or are they "perfect failures"?

Or...Not enough evidence??

Nothing personal, just wanted your "scientific opinion."

Are you

?

How's your popcorn? Hopefully you're not choking on it.

Not sure what your sarcastic post is trying to achieve. But, could you provide the Muzzle velocity or estimated impact velocity so we could learn more than a dead animal and a recovered bullet?

That might help us dertimine whether you had acceptable bullet performance as understood by some.

I just want to know the facts. Speed. Distance. Impact velocity. Parts hit. Recovered or not. End results.

You know. Simple facts. So we can all learn and not assume.

So, what was it you were trying to do with this post? Poke or provide?

Just trying to put my finger on what makes you say what you say sometimes, not really trying to poke you but you seem to go up and down on your responses as to being "likable," for lack of a better explanation. Sorta like you are more inconsistent than some bullets are.

Again, what happened to that post where you were saying negative things about this whole website?

Then speak plainly. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

I thirst for knowledge so we can all learn. Pretty simple.

Not sure what you mean about what happened to the post.

OK I am going to drop this now between us two; my apologies to the rest of our members for side-tracking.

I like craig44's wording: QUOTE: "I have had complete and utter bullet failures that both scared and angered me but the critter was deader than fried chicken. I've also had bullets that did better than I hoped or expected but the critter still ran 100yds."

Bottom line is there are so many variables here it keeps us all reloading!

Wow...

Anyway, I have a question...

I still consider myself to have limited knowledge compared to several on this forum. My years of experience are only a fraction of theirs. In my eyes, I'm extremely happy to have made a clean kill on any critter while using a handgun. I really don't have much interest in recovering the bullet, but rather am super excited to have added some meat to the freezer. Here's my question:

Did those of you with tons of head of game under your holster start off that way as well, and then "develop" a curiosity about bullet performance, or was it always there from the beginning?

Because of this thread, I'd like to start recovering bullets and learn more about the terminal performance.

I do my homework on bullets before selecting them for use in the field, but after that, as long as I have a dead critter after I hit the bang switch, I'm happy!

Perhaps I've been looking at this the wrong way the whole time.

Good question, rap. For me, I just started hunting; not really totally in to bullet performance, but I do remember that when I was reloading for my .30 Herret, there was the "new" Sierra .30 caliber "single shot pistol bullet" that had just come out. So this piqued my interest, kinda started me thinking more along those lines.

The "problem" back then (1970's-'80's??) was that bullet technology was old school (cup and core) compared to now, and there was not a suitable bullet for .30 caliber handgun velocities.

Thanks again to JD Jones; he was on his game and was testing bullets constantly for use in his JDJ line-up of cartridges.

So if you went with his recommendations you were OK.

Gregg, I think both those bullets look really good but I have to disagree on one thing. I care a whole lot about what the animal does, to me that's #1 after the shot. I'll worry about the bullet performance later but recovering the animal has to come first.
How could it be any other way? Since I use cast I almost never recover a bullet so I always have 2 holes & I think that's an advantage when hunting, especially with cast.
Those of you who use jacketed have the advantage of some expansion over my cast although I usually get some, I can tell by the exit hole.
I've said before that I never cast my bullets any harder than needed, here's one of the main reasons.
Back in the mid 70's when Handgun Silhouette first started up, guys were having a hard time knocking over the 200M Rams with their 44 magnums & cast bullets. So, they would go home & load hotter loads & the loads would still fail. This went on until guys were blowing cylinders & top straps, many of you will remember this.
The problem was 2 things, too much speed & too hard of a bullet, Bingo!! Slow down just a bit Junior & soften up that alloy & you gain a little bit of "Dwell" time on the target before bullet break up! Made all the difference in the world & guys started having instant success on the heavy Rams...or bone.
A big heavy cast bullet might start out a bit slower but it maintains it's speed better than a lightweight bullet after a short distance, trust me.

Dick