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I have had generally good luck with Hornady bullets in the past. I just returned from a safari where I used my new .404 Jeffery for the first time. For a number of reasons - availability being the most important - I brought Hornady DGX and DGS bullets with me.
I used the rifle on cape buffalo, giraffe, hippo and vervet monkey (!). I regret to say that I had a number of issues with the bullets, and wonder if my experience is unusual.
Firstly, I found that the bullets weren't seated very securely in the brass. When I first fired the rifle I found reloading quickly was impossible - gun was jamming. When I (finally) examined the cartridges in the magazine, I found that the bullets were being pushed back into the brass by the recoil. As a result, the bullets hit the wrong place when I was reloading, causing the jam. This didn't seem to affect the performance of the bullets - when I put the now shorter bullets in the chamber, they fired fine. But a quick follow up shot is important, particularly on dangerous game, and I don't want to have to worry about the second bullet not loading. Perhaps Hornady should consider a crimp to keep the bullets properly seated?
More important was the actual performance of the bullets. On the giraffe, I used solids. The first shot was a high heart lung shot and the giraffe immediately turned and ran. I put a follow up shot into the rear, trying to break a hip going away. As it turned out, the first shot was good (if a bit high), and the animal went down within a few hundred yards.
The bullet fired into the rear did hit bone, but failed to penetrate very far, and did no real damage. When I examined the bullet it appeared fine, but when I rolled it on a flat surface, it clearly had deformed. From the tissue damage, it looked like the bullet started to tumble after hitting a not-very-important-part of the hip bone. This resulted in a lack of penetration.
This is not what I expect from a solid bullet, particularly on giraffe bone. Imagine what would have happened if I had been shooting at elephant? The only job of a solid bullet in my opinion is to retain its shape and penetrate in a straight line through bone, muscle, stomach contents, whatever.
Now for the DGX. I used the softs for a number of shots, including a brain shot on a hippo that was mostly out of the water. The shot killed the hippo instantly, and lodged in the skull. I recovered it, and a picture is attached. My concern? Given that this soft went through some pretty solid bone, and didn't make it out of the skull, I would have expect greater expansion that I saw. Perhaps this is the most expansion that one should expect from this bullet? If so, I'd suggest it isn't really the type of bullet you'd want to use on large or dangerous game.
Am I being unfair?
I used the rifle on cape buffalo, giraffe, hippo and vervet monkey (!). I regret to say that I had a number of issues with the bullets, and wonder if my experience is unusual.
Firstly, I found that the bullets weren't seated very securely in the brass. When I first fired the rifle I found reloading quickly was impossible - gun was jamming. When I (finally) examined the cartridges in the magazine, I found that the bullets were being pushed back into the brass by the recoil. As a result, the bullets hit the wrong place when I was reloading, causing the jam. This didn't seem to affect the performance of the bullets - when I put the now shorter bullets in the chamber, they fired fine. But a quick follow up shot is important, particularly on dangerous game, and I don't want to have to worry about the second bullet not loading. Perhaps Hornady should consider a crimp to keep the bullets properly seated?
More important was the actual performance of the bullets. On the giraffe, I used solids. The first shot was a high heart lung shot and the giraffe immediately turned and ran. I put a follow up shot into the rear, trying to break a hip going away. As it turned out, the first shot was good (if a bit high), and the animal went down within a few hundred yards.
The bullet fired into the rear did hit bone, but failed to penetrate very far, and did no real damage. When I examined the bullet it appeared fine, but when I rolled it on a flat surface, it clearly had deformed. From the tissue damage, it looked like the bullet started to tumble after hitting a not-very-important-part of the hip bone. This resulted in a lack of penetration.
This is not what I expect from a solid bullet, particularly on giraffe bone. Imagine what would have happened if I had been shooting at elephant? The only job of a solid bullet in my opinion is to retain its shape and penetrate in a straight line through bone, muscle, stomach contents, whatever.
Now for the DGX. I used the softs for a number of shots, including a brain shot on a hippo that was mostly out of the water. The shot killed the hippo instantly, and lodged in the skull. I recovered it, and a picture is attached. My concern? Given that this soft went through some pretty solid bone, and didn't make it out of the skull, I would have expect greater expansion that I saw. Perhaps this is the most expansion that one should expect from this bullet? If so, I'd suggest it isn't really the type of bullet you'd want to use on large or dangerous game.
Am I being unfair?