I love bullet threads. They tend to very opinionated and based on limited actual experience, some internet experience, and some anecdotal evidence. So here is my opinion on bullets for buffalos, both fact and anecdotal based.

First it is almost impossible to really prove which bullet is best on live buffalo. If you could test 10 different bullet brands/weights firing 5 bullets each time from 4 different angles, it would only take 200 bullets and 200 buffalo of similar size to cooperate for somewhat reliable results.

That being said you can also shoot newspaper, which if done properly can give consistent results. Before somebody says it, newspaper is not skin, flesh, and bone.

My opinion is based on shooting enough buffalo and testing bullets in newspaper to form a somewhat educated opinion. If I am shooting a 375 or 416 the North Fork bonded bullet is in my opinion the best bullet out there. I also like the 300 grain bullet. The TSX also performs extremely well. The Swift A-frame is very good. I would never hunt buffalo with a Partition or DGX. Those opinions coincide with PH's I have hunted with, internet hunt reports, along with testing in newsprint, not animals, I just do not trust them enough to even try them on buffalo. By the way PH's are at times some of the worse ballisticians around. One of the best PH/Conservationists in Africa believes in solids for everything, so being a good PH does not mean you also know much about bullets.

I have never loaded a bullet that was not accurate enough for buffalo. Hunting buffalo is not target shooting. 1" at 50 yards is way more than good enough.

Velocity is important in bullet performance. Too fast and you can disintegrate a lesser bullet. Too slow some bullets will not expand, I have seen that happen with a 45-70 on a buffalo, but that is another story. The North Fork worked the best over a wide range of velocities, it held together as hard as I could push them.

In my 470 Nitro, I like the North Cup Point solids for buffalo. They expand and penetrate. A bullet I hate is the CEB Safari Raptors. I think the concept is ridiculous. The only thing is they are devastating on buffalo. I have hammered some buffalo with my 470 and the Raptors. I even dropped one with one of the original concept copper bullets in its tracks. Back then we called them BBW Non Cons. (Bastard Bullet Works non-conventional).

I also always carry solids. I almost always have one in my left barrel or in my magazine. And I will only shoot flat nose solids from either CEB or North Fork.

Those are my opinions; take them for what they are worth.

Again for what it is worth, these are a couple of pictures from bullet testing.


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