Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Do flat nosed solids really help penetration?

In recent years most manufacturers of solid bullets are switching to flat nosed bullets because of public demand.

The AR forum has logged on years of argument showing they penetrate much better in wet newsprint and flesh than round nosed solids.

But is this not solving a problem that does not exist?

I have never heard of anyone complain about the penetration of solids in flesh.They whizz right through flesh.

The problem comes when the bullets hit solid bone. That is when they bend, flatten and go of course and flat nosed bullets cannot create a leading vacuum in bone.

Its seems to me a round nosed solid would concentrate the energy in a small place when it hits bone and break through bone much better than a flat nose.

If you look at the people on the AR forum most of the tests they have made have been on elephant cows which have very small heads and are regularly killed with 308 hard ball ammo by elephant cullers.

Clem Coetzee shot at least 15,000(and maybe 25,000) elephants using military hard ball ammo.

If the cow shooters on AR had used these sharply pointed 308 bullets on their elephant cows they would likely have had just as much luck as they did with their much larger calibres shooting the more expensive flat nosed solids.

I believe them to drive straighter without deflection and have seen this in reality...

I know they open a better hole, much like a wadcutter that does not close up and they let more blood out as a rule, and the flat nose solid entrance hole is not as likely to fill with fat..

I will never use another round nose solid, have not used them for quit some time other than on one 450-400 that doted on Woodleighs and wouldn't shoot much else..I have seen many RN solids fishtail, bend, break, squirt out lead, and long for weight monolithics turn over and stop or break..I have yet to see a GS Customs, Northfork, or Bridger Flat nose solid fail in any respect or under any conditions.

I have also shot Buffalo with military ball 8x57 ammo and its terrible ammo IMO and very ineffective but like any bullet it will kill most of the time, but you can bet some will take off in any direction, and some will tumble as they are designed to do btw...

Most of the elephants killed with .308 are shot with full automatic firearms, that is what is usually left out when sighting this equasion...

As to the 15 to 25,000 elephants killed with GI ball, I have no clue as to the legetamacy of that claim, or the actual results as to how many ran off wounded out of that very large number etc....I don't know how accurate that claim is and have no way of checking it out. Many such claims have been made, some true and some not so I don't have a clue on that.

Bottom line is I will continue to use only flat nose solids, as I have for years..I decided this many years ago from using the Keith simi wadcutter in the 44s, it killed better than the RN pistol bullets, that is common knowledge amongst pistoleers, so why would that not apply to rifles?

Just my take on the subject and only my opinnion for what its worth.

They do work better for several good reasons. penetration is more likely to be in a straight line among others.

Dear Ray,

The guy who told me about using the 308 on elephants was Clem Coetzee. I spent the day with him at a game auction in Zimbabwe and then had dinner with him. He showed me his own personal 100 pound elephant tusks in his home. He said he used an military FN semi-auto 308 for cows and calves and a FN bolt action 458 for bulls with thicker skulls. I have seen refernce to him using a 470 double and a Russian cartridge on AR forum but Clem told me himself it was a FN 308 with hard ball and a 458 Win Mag.

I was at a party given by either Trish Bolt or Rob Murray when they worked at Savannah Safaris. Trish introduced me to Clem's flanker on the culls. I think his name was Garry. He said Clem had shot either 1,500 elephants a year for 19 years or 1,900 elephants a yewar from 15 years. He said he could not have shot less than 25,000 elephants. They also shot a BBC camerman but I don't know they he made the shot with a 308 or a 458. Likely didn't do any harm.

I have shot RN and FN into cow ele and bull ele and also post my results on AR.

There is little dicernable difference in cow and bull heads in so far as a bullet's trip is concerned. If a RN solid will penetrate 36" in a cows head it will penetrate about the same in a bull's. Caveat: where the bull has heavy bone it is heavier, and the tusk sockets are another issue altogether and are incredibly dense and hard to penetrate.

But, assuming a straight on shot, which will encounter minimal bone, that 30", 36" or 48" whatever penetration is about the same, cow or bull.

Where FN solids shine is with body shots, where a bullet may need all of the penetration it can muster to reach the heart/lungs of any elephant.

In my first shot results and bullet digging and my dead ele tests, I have found that a 450gr, .458" North Fork Flat Nose solid running 2220fps MV will out pnetrate a 500ge .458" Woodleigh steel jacketed RN solid at 2145fps. By something between 20% and 40%, I think closer to 40%. The math indicates that the RN has greater momentum and greater energy, but the FN penetrates deeper. This can only mean that the FN shape adds to penetration more than enough to make up for the momentum or energy shotcoming, so there is a very substantial influence increasing penetration directly attributable to the FN.

Some believe that the enhanced penetration of FN's is attributable to reduced tendency to tumble, and tumbling bring penetration to a quick halt. RN do have a strong tendency to tumble, but in my experience, they do not tumble until well into their in game journey, and after their job is done. So, while I believe that FN's reduce tumbling and that part of their enhanced penetration is attributable to this, I also believe that the shape itself cuts drag, through reduction of wetted surface area. You can read much on this from Alf and from Gerard of GS Custom Bullets on AR and on GS Custom Bullet's website.

Also, most all bent, flattened and deformed quality RN's have been deformed while the bullet is tumbling.

When it comes to smashing heavy bone, I believe that the RN Steel jacketed bullet is the preffered bullet. (Maybe Hornaday's new FN steel jacketed bullet will prove to be the perfect choice, but I have no experience with them.) Copper mono bullet can and will rivet and deform when striking heavy bone. Brass bullets can and will rivet, deform and mat also break, though the newer Barnes are doing much better than their predeccesors. The thick steel capped nose of the RN's doesn't deform whe it hits bone, and if that is what you need to break load them!

My lading for elephants has evolved from all RN solids to all FN solids and finally to a RN steel jacketd solid in the right barrel and a FN solid in the left. Right barrel is first, and first shot is going to be a brain shot more likely than not. Frontal,m maybe from an imperfect angle, side with the zygomatic arch invloved... give me the steel jacketd solid. Second shot is going to be an insurance shot or it is going to be a shot on a whirling and departing elephant after a missed brain shot - possibly, if not probably, lots and lots of penetration required... give me the deep penetration of the FN solid!

JPK

BTW, as far as using a .308" ball or even smaller, lots and lots of culling for cows and bulls. Recall that whats his name commercially hunted eles with the 6.5MS and the 275Rigby/7mm Mauser.

But the culling was brain shots only, when the ele didn't drop to the light rifle an assistant or the culler put it down with a 458wm. So I have been told by those who participated in lots of culling in Zim.

Weapon of choice for many was the 7.62 Nato (aka 308Win for most purposes) FN.

Very good argument JPK!

jburner,
That is typical of a culling operation, a 308 auto backed by a big bore, and be assured that I ment no doubt of your post or of Mr. Coatzees elephant numbers which are very high in the scale of elephant hunters of the world and thought I was clear on that, only that I did not know him other than by his name in the Safari business....

I would also add that the early elephant hunters that use very light rifles knew elephant anatomy very well from shooting so many of them I suppose, but the elephants of those days were mostly Savannah elephants and I have read that they were much less aggressive as they had not been hunted much..It is pretty easy to kill an elephant at 10 yards with a brain shot, it can be considerably different when one is coming to you and the angle is changing constantly, that's when a big bore hammer is really conforting..

I have attended elephant culls, but not shot in one other than one back up shot, but I have had many hours of talking to some of the most well known of elephant hunters from yesteryear, and their deeds are overwhelming and of the utmost interest.

Dear Ray,

I met Clem 20 years ago and took notes of what he said and I may even have made a tape but I can no longer remember if I did or where I put it. Alot of water has passed under the bridge.

Clem would not discuss the number of elephants he shot although the guys who worked with him did. It was more than the entire total elephant population of West Africa, but he was culling an overpopulation and nobody came up with the cash to move them elsewhere which he would have done were it at all possible.

It seems to me that I read somewhere that in Zimbabe elephants have increased from about 30,000 in 1930 to about 100,000 today and tha something like 500,000 have been shot while this increase was taking place.

Somebody who worked for Zimbabwe National Parks will have the exact figures.

Jburner,
Man, that is an enourmous amount of elephants, I would not care for that job..I have culled an enourmous number of buffalo and plainsgame by US standards, but probably not that many by the old African PHs standards, and after a while it started to bother me. Todays young PHs have not culled many either, albiet a number of them claim otherwise to clients. The old culling days of the big 5 have pretty much come and gone and the numbers culled today are not impressive as far as I know. Another generation has passed it seems.

Many of the old PHs have told me how hard culling became for them..but by the same token I would not trade those experiences for the world. I have been on several elephant cull hunts, and on rogue elephant or problem elephant hunts wherein I was not allowed to shoot, and its something to behold, especially the very young ones. But I realize its a necessity, and is the salvation of the elephant in Africa..they just require an enourmous amount of feed and Africa is shrinking. I fear with the indigenous government takeovers, the bush meat market is growing, especially in Zimbabwe, and the world is changing too fast for me...I hope our children will know the Africa that I have known, but even now its 100% different than when I first stepped foot on that continent and the last 15 or 20 years have been dramatic...

Dear Ray,

There is no doubt that culling is very dangerous work but I think it must also be very soul destroying.

If my memory serves me correctly, and these days it seldom does, Clem said he would run at the herd and expect to have to shoot about 4 charging cows.

After that the young ones got frightened and went into a kind of huddle where they were shot and killed. Many were 110 pound calves. Cute little buggers who would have followed you home once their mom was dead.

Dreadful stuff.

I have never culled elephants but I have helped to tag their tails and put radio collars on their necks including lone calves whose mothers were missing (the herd no longer accepts them) and they are sweet little characters. No fun to shoot. But they make up much of the bag of elephant culls.

It disturbs me enormously to see all the $millions and $millions of dollars wasted by these mail order animal rights groups whose only goal is to fill their own pockets.

They focus on swindling little old ladies suffering from dimentia out of their inheritances. Sick sick people. There were a ton of them sitting vulture like at the death bed of billionaire Leona Helmsly. They will all be at the funeral of billionaire Robert Schad when he dies.

If they had given the money to Clem he would happily have moved all the elephants he was forced to cull to other parts of Africa where their numbers had been depleted.

There is no more loathesome human being on earth than an animal righst activists.

As a person who is somewhat biased towards flat nosed solids, when I see it written that steel jacketed solids are tougher than mono solids, I tend to want to temper it with information like this. With all respect to those who hold the opinion that steel with a lead core never fails, it is not so.

I'm glad Gereard contributed to this....... I've been using his flat nosed mono solid for (if I remember correctly) about 10 years now and they beat the shot out of anything and everything else I've ever used.

Gerard (and Shakari):

What do you think about JPK's observation that round noses are better for brain shots and flat nosed solids ahould only be used for follow-on shots, generally body shots, where they will penetrate deeper?

Also, what do you think about the oft-posted observation that a 450 grain flat nose will penetrate deeper than a 500 grain round nose?

Gerard,

And exactly how do you claim to be an expert on flat nosed solids? Huh? Come on man?

Just kidding with you. Great to see you posting! For those that don't know him, Gerard makes some of the best, if not THE best, flat nosed solids in the world. I still have several boxes of them and I am almost afraid to shoot them up. Almost.

Indy,

I think we must all make our conclusions based on our own experiences.

My experiences lead me to to come to the conclusion that Gerard's FNMS give considerably more straight line penetration than anything else I've ever used under every circumstance I've used them, but if JPKs experiences lead him to form a different conclusion, that's fine by me.

Personally, I'll continue to use the GSC FNMS.

The other thing I like about GSC is their incredible customer service. A few years ago, I had to unexpectedly and very quickly load some ammo for my new 404 loaner and as I couldn't get GSC in time, I used another (local) brand.... and had problems with them.

I had about 24 hours to go before I was due to go to Tanzania for about 5 months and called Gerard for advice...... his instant reply was 'I can't comment on your problem because I can't see the bullets but if it'll help, I'll have a courier at my factory within the hour to collect some of my GSCs and you'll have them ASAP. You can pay me when you come back to SA.

As it happened, it was quicker to pull the dodgy bullets I had and turn them down in the lathe at the gunshop that had made the rifle, but Gerard's offer of instant support was very much appreciated and I'll never forget it!

That's what I call customer service!

Hi Shakari,
I have made an effort to arrange more time for answering mail and visiting forums this year. Hopefully I can contribute to the pool of knowledge here. Gina is in the USA now so Elmarie and myself are looking after matters in SA. Here is hoping we can continue to live up to expectations.

IndyCA35,
I don't know what speeds JPK gets up to and, when limited to slow impact speeds and normal linear stresses, there is not much difference between the penetration depth of RN and FN solids on ele heads.

There are a few caveats and these are based on the cumulative obeservations of many knowledgable people over a ten year span of time. When solid bullets encounter no severe test in penetration, such as ele teeth or leg bones and hip sockets, steel jacketed RN solids are for the most part ok. However, throw in a molar or so and mono solids start shining. Any mono solid. The problem is that there is no way of combining two different materials in a bullet that will stay together under such extreme stresses. Any obstruction that causes a bullet to turn from its path even in a small way will reduce the reliability of a bimetal bullet over a mono.

Whether it is a steel jacket bonded to a lead core, a steel core inside a copper jacket or a steel nose disk on a brass or copper solid, apply enough penetrational stress and the two metals will start parting company and throw the integrity of the bullet out the window.

Not every time but enough times to make a statistic of it.

Longbob,
Thanks for that. You can rest easy, Gina is in the USA for a reason other than to get married as well. The love of her life, Anthony, is a very capable young man. Between the two of them, planning to attend to the difficulty in getting product over there is progressing nicely. We are very happy for both of them.

So after reading this thread, where can one get hold of some of these Flat Nosed GS bullets? I wish to use them in a .470 Capstick and a .458-Lott. Will have a trip coming up in 2011 and I would like to try them out myself.

Tonk,

I think you'll find they have agents in the States but their website is www.gscustom.co.za