RayAtkinson
AH fanatic
Digging For Bullets
.416 Rigby
I have been digging bullets for near 65 years now, got shoe boxes full of them, bullets from the smallest of African antelope to elephant, I have shot quite a number of animals with some of these bullets, and it has given me a pretty good idea of which bullets work best...
For what its worth I like the Noslers, Woodleighs, North Forks and GS Customs in monolithics..I have used a number of most of the new bonded cores and I suspect they all work as advertised...
Bullet failure is what caused me to be a nasty old bullet digger, way back when most bullets failed, today its probably a waste of time as the manufacturers have come a long ways and bullet failure is a thing of the past and for the most part most of todays hunters don't even know what bullet failure is, the misread what they see in that if the bullet isn't a perfect little pretty mushroom then its a failure! That is not the case and I have seen certain well known bullets that mushroom perfectly into a smooth as a babys butt little mushroom and as a result they don't kill well and they don't always leave a good blood trail. I like the Woodleighs for this very reason, they have long ragged cutting buzz saw like arms with lead core bonded to them and they are a virtual propeller of destruction..
The Nosler is another fantastic bullet and it may in fact blow the front portion of the lead out, or even the front end off, and that lead and copper is destruction inside an animal and the rear portion will exit leaving a small hole..I have heard some call this failure, but that is far from the truth, many of the most famous of European bullets such as the tug are designed to do just that! If one does not want that to happen then the answer to the so called problem is go to the next heavier weight of Nosler such as from say the 165 gr. Nosler to the 180 or even the 200 gr., then you get the pretty little mushroom.
Keep in mind that any bullet can fail for a number of reasons, anything made by man can fail, but todays bullets are very close to fool proof and bullet failures are mostly BS today, bad shot placement and unrecovered game that was shot through the heart is the scenario of todays bullet failure.
Kudos to todays bullet makers, I remember the days when bullet failure was common and their efforts and advancement to oleviate the problem has been a success, is one of the great wonders of the hunting world...
They had a lot of help from the gun scribes, hunters sending in failed bullets and complaining and they acted on the advise received, it worked.
.416 Rigby
I have been digging bullets for near 65 years now, got shoe boxes full of them, bullets from the smallest of African antelope to elephant, I have shot quite a number of animals with some of these bullets, and it has given me a pretty good idea of which bullets work best...
For what its worth I like the Noslers, Woodleighs, North Forks and GS Customs in monolithics..I have used a number of most of the new bonded cores and I suspect they all work as advertised...
Bullet failure is what caused me to be a nasty old bullet digger, way back when most bullets failed, today its probably a waste of time as the manufacturers have come a long ways and bullet failure is a thing of the past and for the most part most of todays hunters don't even know what bullet failure is, the misread what they see in that if the bullet isn't a perfect little pretty mushroom then its a failure! That is not the case and I have seen certain well known bullets that mushroom perfectly into a smooth as a babys butt little mushroom and as a result they don't kill well and they don't always leave a good blood trail. I like the Woodleighs for this very reason, they have long ragged cutting buzz saw like arms with lead core bonded to them and they are a virtual propeller of destruction..
The Nosler is another fantastic bullet and it may in fact blow the front portion of the lead out, or even the front end off, and that lead and copper is destruction inside an animal and the rear portion will exit leaving a small hole..I have heard some call this failure, but that is far from the truth, many of the most famous of European bullets such as the tug are designed to do just that! If one does not want that to happen then the answer to the so called problem is go to the next heavier weight of Nosler such as from say the 165 gr. Nosler to the 180 or even the 200 gr., then you get the pretty little mushroom.
Keep in mind that any bullet can fail for a number of reasons, anything made by man can fail, but todays bullets are very close to fool proof and bullet failures are mostly BS today, bad shot placement and unrecovered game that was shot through the heart is the scenario of todays bullet failure.
Kudos to todays bullet makers, I remember the days when bullet failure was common and their efforts and advancement to oleviate the problem has been a success, is one of the great wonders of the hunting world...
They had a lot of help from the gun scribes, hunters sending in failed bullets and complaining and they acted on the advise received, it worked.
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