African Outfitter is an independent international bimonthly publication promoting
fair hunting and ethical business practices within the hunting industry.
From a hunting perspective, the preservation of biodiversity on the
African continent is the first and foremost priority. The emphasis
is however also on the sustainable utilisation of wildlife.

African Outfitter Back Issues: CONTENTS - August / September 2006 - (Vol 1/5)

What is bullet failure – really? - Mauritz Coetzee

The late Les Bowman, famed big game outfitter and hunter from America, has done his share of publishing gun and reloading articles.

In Volume 1 of PO Ackley's Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders (1976), he made the following recommendation, which in retrospect has a universal truth attached to it. "My advice to old and new hunters alike, is for them to shoot any gun they like and have confidence in and can shoot consistently without flinching.

But to pay more attention to the bullets they use than to the calibre. And no type of gun or calibre is any better than its bullets." (page 61).

This viewpoint is also shared by the late Gary Sitton. In the Rifle and Shotgun Annual (1996) he distinctly supported the notion that neither rifles nor cartridges actually kill game, but bullets. Quite rightly Gary Sitton also pointed out that bullet failure was a common occurrence about thirty years ago with bullets not expanding or simply disintegrating upon impact with the animal (page 73).

Even today other well-known hunters/outdoor writers argue, any bullet, especially the soft-nose expanding type, can break up or distort upon impact simply because bullets are driven faster than their design parameters allow.

It is exactly where the problem lies with any modern bullet, simply because irrespective of modern design methods, no bullet can be guaranteed to perform from around 1 900 feet per second to 3 200 feet per second impact velocity.

To demonstrate this basic assumption we need to look at a perception of what really constitutes a perfect bullet.

Again the late Les Bowman is consulted regarding the notion of a perfect bullet: "Let me define what I believe would be the perfect bullet, although I know it is impossible to have this.

A bullet, which at any speed it's propelled, or at any distance it travels, would open up immediately on impact yet maintain its total weight, would penetrate the animal completely, dropping to the ground on the other side". (Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders, page 62).

Since Bowman conceded that such performance can never really be achieved, he maintained that the next best thing is where a bullet will open up immediately upon impact, keep most of its weight and still give enough or clear through penetration.

A bullet that keeps most of its weight implies a certain weight loss as it expands initially and still penetrates into the animal. What we can say at this stage is that too much velocity can cause too much expansion and consequently not enough penetration.

We can also say that too much velocity can cause the partial disintegration of a bullet specifically on its frontal area.

In this case the wounding or disrupting ability of the bullet is lessened to a certain degree, although only due to a smaller diameter of the neutralised penetrating bullet, and narrower wound channels.

Given this problematic situation it has been said that the trick is to juggle expansion and penetration to produce the optimum combination for the specific animal being hunted under certain conditions, like thick bush or open areas. Again what is implied here is that we want as much expansion as we can get without sacrificing adequate penetration.

Logically speaking we should ask, now, what adequate penetration implies, given the wide range of animals hunted today.

Paul van Rosenberg, in Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders 1976:56), made the following statement in this regard: "How much penetration do we want or need? The answer is not an easily determined one nor easily expressed by any unit of measurement. Two schools of thought have their protagonists. One school of thought believes that the bullet should penetrate well to the opposite side of the game but remain inside, giving up all of its energy to the animal. The other school believes that the bullet should penetrate completely through the animal and cause external bleeding . . . as it causes a blood trail from which the animal can be tracked".

The African perception of adequate penetration, especially on big and dangerous game, is that a bullet should be able to penetrate up to the heart-lung area from any angle, including so-called "going-away" shots taken at the back end of an animal. Such shots, by definition, imply shots taken at fleeing and wounded animals.

Irrespective of the viewpoints of hunters already mentioned on the requirement of a soft-nose bullet to expand, Art Alphin of A-Square warns against the carte blanche acceptance of this requirement: "Everybody wants to see a bullet expanded into a mushroom cap. Some ammunition companies even make full-colour, full-page ads showing some bullet that has expanded back into some giant mushroom cap or umbrella with the exterior of the petals at or slightly behind the base of the bullet. They seem to think that this is excellent performance. Nothing would be further from the truth . . . a bullet should expand absolutely no further than double of its original diameter if it is to maintain any stability within the animal". (Any shot you want, pages 123 & 125).

What Art Alphin is implying here is that if a bullet expands too much, the increased frontal area shows the bullet down to such a degree, or reduces the rotational velocity in such a manner that it invariably loses its direction (or forward) stability. If such a bullet does not travel in a straight line, it may not reach the vital organs.

With all the premium soft-nose bullets Like Swift A-frame, Bear Claw, Nosler Partition (Gold), Rhino, Norma Oryx, and the pure copper expanding bullets like Barnes X, optimum results are often achieved. This implies a bullet that expands to double its diameter, keeping most of its expanded form and initial weight, and still penetrates up to the vitals.

In ballistic terms we can say the impact velocity in terms of a certain distance that the animal was shot at in conjunction with the existence the bullet encountered like bone, flesh and muscle, was optimum for the design characteristics of that specific bullet at that specific moment.

More often than not game is encountered much closer than anticipated, with the result that bullets are fired into game at velocities really exceeding their design thresholds. This means a bullet that opens up immediately and also at the same time being unable to keep its expanded form. Invariably this implies petal loss or the whole front section of a bullet. This type of scenario must not be seen as an ipso facto blown-up bullet, where only small fragments of the bullet remain.

As far back as 40 years ago some hunters felt that the loss of the front section of a soft-nose bullet could be countered. A sort of "double take" situation was envisaged with a bullet that consisted of two sections. The softer front section would be designed for maximum expansion whilst the harder back section would ensure deep penetration.

Two of the earlier designs that actually produced performance like this are of course the German H-Mantel and the Nosler Partition bullet. With the H-Mantel only the rear section is more often than not recovered whilst the Nosler Partition bullet, especially when encountering heavy resistance within the animal, will be found with only the rear section of the partition remaining.

Logically speaking the question should be asked how soon the expanded front section of the bullet is lost. Ideally one would expect the bullet to keep its expanded front section for most of its path through the animal, thus delivering a large wound channel.

With the Barnes X bullets in the old design and to a certain extent Triple Shock design, the petals can be lost during the penetration phase into the animal. The same applies to the Rhino Solid Shank bullets.

From feedback over many years from hundreds of hunters those bullets are often found under the skin with one or two petals about an inch behind the bullet. However, at times some of the petals are lost earlier as the bullet travels into the animal. Proof of this is petals found in different areas of the animal's body and/or vital areas.

The back section of Barnes and Rhino after petal loss constitutes more than 60% of the original weight, which can and does produce sufficient penetration.

It is also quite obvious that the new Barnes Triple Shock bullets do not expand as widely as the old design. The more limited expansion obviously protects the petals from shearing from the main body or bullet shank.

Even with bonded partition design bullets like Swift A-Frame, weight loss from the front section can be dramatic or up to 40%.

Gun and hunting related articles for the last 25 years have all emphasised the importance of bullets that expand to double their diameter.

Often it does happen that a bullet lost some or most of its frontal (expanded) section, although the animal died quickly because the remaining section of the bullet still managed to reach a vital organ.

In spite of this the hunter will declare "a failed bullet situation" because the bullet did not retain the much sought-after perfect mushroom shape.

Bullet failure, from anybody's perception, is where the jacket and core are separated, mostly upon impact with the animal. Under these circumstances penetration in a straight line becomes nearly impossible. The first and obvious reason for this is that the jacket and core, on its own, do not have sufficient momentum to penetrate as required. Secondly, the mangled shape of the jacket and/or core is a guarantee for haphazard penetration and tumbling within the animal.

At this stage it is appropriate to ask how or to what extent the expansion of a soft-nose bullet can influence straight line penetration.

It has been said repeatedly that no bullet enters an animal in a perfect perpendicular manner. If a bullet hits terminal matter like bone, muscle and flesh at different angles, it can produce irregular expanded frontal areas, as the 470/500 grain Swift A-Frame bullets in this picture clearly show.

Some supporters of solid bullets only on big and dangerous game reckon that soft-nose bullets, especially upon constant heavy contact with bones on animals like buffalo, can produce irregular shaped frontal areas which, on its own, can alter the flight paths within the animal drastically. Simply put, those bullets are assumed to become unstable within the animal and to often follow the path of least resistance.

The loss of velocity as the bullet penetrates into the animal together with a skew frontal area can also be conducive to bullet tumbling.

This photo shows a .416 Nosler Partition bullet which barely went through the skin on a buttock of a brindled gnu, with its base facing forward.

To a certain extent, this type of performance nearly correlates with the mentioned perception of Les Bowman on perfect bullet performance and the bullet dropping to the ground after penetrating the body of the animal, thus providing an exit wound and a blood spoor.

What is rather obvious is that this bullet was fired into the left side of the gnu and from there it tumbled, therefore exiting the thick hide of the gnu on the right hand side of the animal base first.

It is open to speculation how many bullets actually exit animals base first without the hunter actually being aware of this.

In the end adequate penetration with maximum disruption to vital organs/bone remains the primary objective with any bullet.

It needs to be understood that any premium soft-nose bullet can lose a substantial amount of its frontal (expanded) diameter and look extremely "shabby".

The key question to be asked here is how quickly the animal died in the process.

After this one needs to salute the bullet for penetrating in a straight line and disrupting vital or key organs.