What 404 Jeffery solid would you pic?

[aminkus]

I am looking at two different solids for my first Elephant hunt. I am shooting my Custom Built CZ 550 404 Jeffery. I am considering either 400 grain Woodleigh Hydro or 430 grain North Fork Flat Nosed Solids. My rifle shoots them both very well but i was wondering if anyone had any experience with either bullet?

 

[deewayne2003]

Not for elephant but I used a Hydro in .404J on water buffalo in the NT, after seeing the results I decided to get a supply of them for the .404J I'm having built.

 

[Wahoo]

No experience with .404 but in .470 NE the Northfork FNS was superb on 2 bulls for me.

 

[eyedok]

I used a CEB solid in .450-400 in Dec that worked well, some am using the same in my .404 for this fall, have never had issues with them being out of stock either

 

[Green Chile]

I used NorthFork cupped point solids in a 416 Rigby on bull ele with great results. I got an exit on the heart shot and he was down in 50 yards.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

I am looking at two different solids for my first Elephant hunt. I am shooting my Custom Built CZ 550 404 Jeffery. I am considering either 400 grain Woodleigh Hydro or 430 grain North Fork Flat Nosed Solids. My rifle shoots them both very well but i was wondering if anyone had any experience with either bullet?

You can’t go wrong with either. 400Gr gets my vote because you can load your rounds out to a little hotter velocity than 430Gr. Which is very beneficial for frontal brain shots on elephant bulls.

By the way, when you hand load your .404 Jeffery rounds… emulate the German loading (2350 FPS). Not the old British loading (2150 FPS).

 

[Green Chile]

By the way, when you hand load your .404 Jeffery rounds… emulate the German loading (2350 FPS). Not the old British loading (2150 FPS).

Exactly! That gets you into 416 Rigby ballistics instead of nitro express.

 

[aminkus]

I used NorthFork cupped point solids in a 416 Rigby on bull ele with great results. I got an exit on the heart shot and he was down in 50 yards.

View attachment 682340

Interesting , i also have a box of 430gr cup nosed solids too and did not consider them for elephants?

 

[Fatback]

I use 400 grain Barnes flat nosed solids in my 404Jeffery and my 416 Remington. Used them in the 404 for on land hippo with great results and will be using them in my 416 for elephant later this year. One of the bullets we recovered from my hippo looked like it could have been reloaded and used again.

 

[Green Chile]

Interesting , i also have a box of 430gr cup nosed solids too and did not consider them for elephants?

I learned later that they do not recommend the CPS for ele...but I will say it absolutely hammered that big bull. It absolutely crushed a big eland too length-wise...and a big zebra stallion lost both shoulders and died before he hit the ground. There is a lot of kinetic energy in the nose of those CPS bullets. You hear the hit like a baseball going out of the park. I definitely recommend the flat nosed bullets.

 

[deewayne2003]

I learned later that they do not recommend the CPS for ele...but I will say it absolutely hammered that big bull. It absolutely crushed a big eland too length-wise...and a big zebra stallion lost both shoulders and died before he hit the ground. There is a lot of kinetic energy in the nose of those CPS bullets. You hear the hit like a baseball going out of the park. I definitely recommend the flat nosed bullets.

View attachment 682403

View attachment 682404

That recovered cup point looks just like the .375 cup point that was recovered from another hunters bull elephant in Zim, it was a body shot and several were recovered that looked the same.

This is was a .470ne Hydro looks like after it cuts a 3" tree limb nearly in half, breaks a front shoulder on a quartering to shot, then breaks a rib, penetrates the heart, breaks a rib on the opposite side and is found by an axe during the butchering process.

 

[Rare Breed]

I used a CEB solid in .450-400 in Dec that worked well, some am using the same in my .404 for this fall, have never had issues with them being out of stock either

I used CEB on my elephant and love them though I have not used them in my 404

 

[JohnD29]

Whichever route you go, I would encourage you to spend some time to verify feeding in your specific rifle.

For me, the feed ramp of my Parkwest Arms 404 ended up making my choice of solid for me. I found that certain solids with a flat meplat. (Cutting Edge for example) would not feed reliably in my rifle. While I'm confident that a gunsmith could address this issue, it was simpler for me to choose the solid that functioned better in my rifle as-is.

 

[Cme1983]

Out of the two mentioned above NF.

 

[eyedok]

CEBs wouldnt feed at first in my .404, but my gunsmith polished the ramp and now they feed perfect

 

[bowjijohn]

I don’t know what’s best but the two I reload for 404 J are

peregrine 400gr
and
Woodleigh hydros, also @ 400gr

Both 2300 ft per sec or there abouts

 

[TOBY458]

Having just shot a bull elephant with a 458 Win Mag and 450gr CEB solids, last week, I can highly recommend CEB brass solids. Very good penetration, and even though a couple passed through the skull into the neck, the one we were able to recover was picture perfect.