While I've admitted many times a cast bullet has its limitations compared to the premium bullets like the A Frames, etc it comes down to what is a BIG bone. I'll always be in the minority camp on this but I'm comfortable with it because I've never had a problem with cast in my type of hunting. I don't hunt the megatron's & I've killed a hell of a lot of big game with cast & I always shake my head when others have had problems. I've always said I "think" it's because they use hard cast but we can argue that forever & never sort it out. I've always been open about shooting them as soft as possible & still maintaining accuracy & seldom at speeds above 1300 fps. I've said it before, a hard cast on a hard bone, especially at high speeds is asking for trouble, better used a jacketed here. I've never changed because I've never hunted anything bigger than elk, moose, bears, lion, plains game, etc. I've maybe recovered 5-6 bullets over a 50 year span & almost all of those have been in the last 5-6 years using some cast HP's on deer. When you are breaking both front shoulders of large elk with a cast bullet & exiting you don't need to make excuses for your bullets but you do have to concede to better bullets if you hunt the really big, big stuff.... I don't. I can make my cast bullets expand as much or as little as I like by adjusting my alloy & speed & it's never, ever failed, I've never lost an animal or had to have any help & maybe 3 have even got out of sight. Where I live & hunt it's usually more open so getting out of sight can be a little tougher than for many of you, I do it to suit me, others do it for the same reasons, why would we do it any other way? Match you loads & your style to the game at hand & then become a practiced hand & you'll answer to nobody!
Dick
You're right, Dick. I really hadn't questioned the effectiveness of cast bullets that I have used on quite a few heads of game over many years. I used to always joke about pictures of cast bullets I've used, but the trouble is that I had never recovered one until the Bovine Bash happened. Granted, it's on the extreme end of testing, but that really is the purpose. I lived in Florida where I hunted hogs regularly and also used to make forays down to North Carolina at least a half-dozen times a year to kill hogs and more often than not I used cast bullets and these were free-ranging so nothing was keeping mistakes I made on shot placement from running away to never be recovered. Never an issue.
I resisted the A-frame for years, but Mark kept sticking them in front of my nose having been recovered from all manner of animal from thin-skinned to big and heavy boned with all of the same results seemingly no matter what the bullets came in contact with. It's almost ridiculous, and unrealistic, but they really seem to have nailed the design on these.
Most every failure I have experienced with cast bullets has resulted in a dead animal so one could argue semantics, but it has always been the really big animals where my concern has been centered. I killed a large cow moose in Maine years ago with cast bullets and they did their job without issue and frankly I will continue to use them in a certain capacity.
The Swift A-frame is clearly an anomaly and an exception to the rule in my experience!
