Good Morning Mark, and Gentlemen................. Indeed. When the research was done on the CEB #13 Solids, I proceeded to the Trauma Inflicting bullets (My brain is focused on Buffalo Always) With the Solid design finished, I focused on what is now the Raptor. In the early development I called them "Non-Cons", for "Non Conventional" as the behavior and performance was nothing like a conventional soft expanding bullet. Later Dan at CEB came up with the "Raptor" name, which is very very appropriate.
The CEB Bullets were designed with double rifles in mind. If you take note of the band configuration, this was finalized after doing extensive research on barrel strain in double rifles, which is another topic far beyond what we will dive into on this thread.
Back to the Raptors.........Thinking buffalo, thinking the Raptor needs to hit at the same POI as the Solid, primarily at 50 yards....... First shot Raptor on buffalo, followed by Solids, the goal is to have both hitting same POI, or damn close. In the old days, sometimes that would be a mission, to get a Swift A Frame or other conventional to hit the same POI as your solid of choice. I had a theory that if you took the CEB Solid, put a hollow point in the front to certain specs, and that is all, the rest of the bullet remains the same, same length, same bearing surface. I theorized that POI would be the same, even though the Raptor would come in lighter. That is no longer theory of course, it is fact. Raptors are made from a matching Solid in the case of the Safari Solid/Raptor lineup. For instance my favorite .458 buffalo bullets are the 450 #13 Solid and its Matching 420 gr Raptor, same bullet......... And accounted for many a damn buffalo. And the list goes on in all calibers, mentioned above
@wildwilderness used the .416 350/325 Solid Raptor combination. I designed these bullets to work in my 416 B&M which has the same or close case capacity as the 416 Taylor, better suited for the lighter bullets at 350/325....... the same as 458 Winchester is better suited to 450 gr bullets. Pretty much for every Safari Solid, there is a matching Raptor, somewhat lighter. Now, this lighter Raptor concept has another valuable factor. Weight Equals pressure, the lighter Raptor has less pressure by 5000-7000 PSI than the matching solid with the same load. Same load, same POI at 50 yards. But if you add a grain or two extra powder with the Raptor load, you will get some added velocity. POI will change, most of the time 1/2 inch to 3/4 dead center Higher than the Solid..... this is a POI you can live with in the field easy. Raptors love velocity, they are wicked bullets and velocity enhances that. Without sacrifice of POI, and without adding pressure issues.
@SRvet, sorry you had that issue, that seems odd to me, and has not been my experience, however I am not sure what caliber or combination you might have used on that. I had the exact opposite when I have taken frontal shots on buffalo, but most of that has been with 458 to 500 calibers. This is the results of a 420 gr .458 Raptor at 2250 fps from a 458 B&M on a frontal shot on a cow buffalo;
This is the heart removed from that frontal shot, as you can see, the blades obviously did their job, and blades were recovered in the chest cavity;
I was determined to find the Raptor base, and it took a lot of digging, finally we found it after it had exited the rear of the stomach, after passing through the entire content of the stomach as you see in this photo, I was astounded at the amount of penetration and damage this bullet had done, at really a modest velocity.........
This was another frontal shot on buffalo with 500 MDM and a 450 gr .500 Raptor at 2450 fps. Damage was massive to say the least.........
But I can imagine shooting a smaller caliber the smaller blades might have a hard time getting through all the muscle in a frontal shot, in your case that happened, but not sure if it was a smaller caliber? Smaller caliber blades have a harder time on buffalo, just a plain fact.
Indeed, Dan got wind of some issues with 375 caliber Raptor blades having a difficult time with getting into the chest cavity on buffalo. This was 2012 I recall. We spoke about it and he wanted to try some 3 blade versions, instead of the normal 6 blades. Theory, larger blades would slice deeper. I was about 3 weeks from going to Australia to do test work there on buffalo, I don't own, never owned, and never will own a 375 caliber anything, but I had planned to to my 9.3 B&M along for the ride on this Australia trip. So for me to test, Dan made up some 255 gr 9.3 Caliber Raptors with 3 blades instead of 6 for me to test. The current TSG version. I did test, and the larger blades indeed made it into the chest cavity of various buffalo I shot with the 9.3 B&M. But I have to honestly say that the buffalo did not pay much attention to being shot with a 9.3 caliber bullet, more like a damn fly biting them than anything else. Not surprised by this reaction, I did not use the 9.3 but on about 10 buffalo before I put it away in favor of something more effective. But the test was successful none the less. But I don't recommend 9.3 or 375 for buffalo regardless.
Yes, Mark is 100% spot on. Raptors once 1.5-2 inches of terminal penetration is achieved those "Blades" shear, all at the same time, and it is really an explosive event unto itself, if you look closely at the various videos in ballistic gel, you can see this effect. I could see the effect of it in my test medium of wet news print, but could not put a name to it until I saw the videos, you can also see it in animal tissue at 1-2 inches past the entry, many times blowing large holes on entry. In the beginning some less educated thought the bullet had "Blown Up" as they put it....... well it had, but the blow up is intentional and controlled for effect.
Once shear has been achieved, the blades travel closely with the center bullet as it passes, for about 4-5 inches before moving away from center, in this area tissue is sliced, diced and destroyed, after the bullet passes, tissue does not come back into the wound channel like a normal conventional bullet, the tissue is destroyed. Then the blades work away from the center bullet slicing and dicing tissue, vessels, organs and everything else they come in contact with, resulting in massive blood loss internally, all the while the center full caliber broken beer bottle of a solid continues dead straight until it exits most of the time, especially broadside buffalo.
They are blades, not petals. Petals peal off and use blunt force for penetration. Raptors are blades, they slice and dice their way through tissue to much added penetration.
Raptors are the most wicked, tissue destroying bullet I have ever seen, tested and witnessed. I shot a lot of critters before the Raptors existed, with Woodleighs, Swifts, Barnes and others, and none can even come close to comparing with a Raptor.
Raptors all behave exactly the same, time after time after time, whether it is .224 caliber right on up to .620 caliber. I have used extensively in the field personally most all the larger calibers from .416 to .500 caliber. I have seen many other Raptors do their jobs in other calibers such as .510, .585 and more. I used 9.3 effectively on Plains game, very impressive, but not much worth a crap on buffalo. For my personal use at home, I rely on Raptors in .224 and .308 calibers.......
These bullets are considered 1st Generation CNC Copper Trauma inflicting bullets, such as the CEB Maximus, the various Hammers and Lehighs. I used these copper Lehighs early on before anyone understood what they were and how they behaved, including me. JD Jones and I were busy working with .500 caliber bullets for my various .500 caliber B&M rifles and cartridges. He had close ties with David Fricke, owner of Lehigh at the time, and JD and I had several runs of various copper Hollow Point bullets made. In the test work, this is what happens;
Once terminal penetration begins, the bullets open up like a traditional expanding HP. As the bullet moves along, these "Petals" start to peal back until they break off within the wound channel. They do not shear at the same time, but at different intervals along the wound channel, eventually all the petals peal back and break off, staying within 1-2 inches inside the wound channel. The center remaining bullet continues to penetrate like a solid at that point much like the Raptor does, only most of the time these are more rounded and not as sharp on the edges. These are devastating bullets, and far more effective than conventional expanding bullets are. If there were no Raptors, I would be using these, and I would not feel under bulleted with these at all.
I found these type bullets very effective on buffalo using 500 MDM. Later when we started work on the Raptors I never got back to using Maximus or Hammers in the field, I had retired from hunting at that point, but have on occasion tested various versions of both, and found them very effective in the test work. One would not be undergunned going to the field with Maximus, Hammers or the various Lehighs.........
Well done Mark.......
Well done, congratulations, I am glad you found them effective and helped you accomplish your success, that is what they were designed for, although I do admit, I did that for me! LOL But I have not put the 416s to near the amount of work as .458 and .500 caliber.
Take a look at the 100 Flat Base Raptor.......... Incredible .308 caliber bullet.......... depending on your mission of course.....
Albert, I assume that blades exited at about 8 inches from the center bullet correct? That would be about right. Wicked......... Congrats....... I have the photo....... thanks.....
Well, hope that helps understand how these work...........
Michael
