Best Solid for Buff/ Elephant

[ikeda]

Any one have experience with either of these two bullets? I have a choice between the .510" Barnes 535gr. solid or the Woodleigh .510" 535gr. FMJ. Which would you choose?
I'm a little leery of pressures with the longer bearing surface of the steel jacketed Woodleigh.

 

[Mike70560]

I have shot both in other calibers. I will almost always choose a Flat Nose monolithic solid over over a round nose solid.

However they will both work fine, IMO the Barnes (if it is a Flat Nose as the newer BBS are round nose) is better performing.

 

[classicsafari]

They are both good but I use the Australian Woodleigh FMJ bullets.

 

[classicsafari]

Killed this Tuskless with a Barnes in the awesome penetrating 416. No recovery.

 

[Bert the Turtle]

I have shot both in other calibers. I will almost always choose a Flat Nose monolithic solid over over a round nose solid.

However they will both work fine, IMO the Barnes (if it is a Flat Nose as the newer BBS are round nose) is better performing.

I just got off the phone with Barnes. They will continue to make the flat nose if that is what you want. They had a very few reports of them not feeding well (which is not a surprise if the gun was set up for a lead cored round nose solid) and decided to go with a round nose profile because they felt that with this type of bullet, feeding problems could cost someone's life. These bullets have a different profile from the older bullets that older guns were set up for, so make sure your rifle feeds them well, especially including if you really run the action hard like you might do when an elephant is about to kill you.

They had a lot of calls wanting still the flat nose, from people who thought they performed better and for whom they fed without problems. Since they CNC machine them, it is no problem for them to give you what you want, so they decided to let the customer decide.

 

[Mike70560]

I spoke to one of the reps at the Barnes Booth in Reno. He told me they were being hammered pretty hard about dropping the line of Flat Nose bullets. I have also been in contact with one of the factory reps by email. Through email they stated production of the Flat Nose would continue but would be only available as a factory ordered item and would no longer be sold by dealers.

Regardless there are still North Fork and Cutting Edge (which may be the best of all) Flat Nose solids available.

 

[sestoppelman]

In my CZ 550 .404 Jeffery the 400 gr BBS bullet hangs up on entering the chamber coming off the left rail but not the right. They shoot well but so do other bullets and there are other solids to choose from so I just wont use the flat nose type in my gun. Standard style bullets all feed fine, just that BBS with the nearly 5/16 inch flat "landing pad". I could get chamber work done to make it feed but who cares?

 

[bwana ndege]

Morning Ikeda,
I wouldn't worry so much ,just concentrate on placement of the first shot and just reload like there is no tomorrow and try to get a solid in afterwards. I bet you that that buff of yours has no complaints whether it was a barnes or woodleigh that did him in.
enjoy your hunt, (that is hunt hard, fair and with good friends)