Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Your choice for deepest penetration on game

For deepest penetration Fail Safe. Google search comes up with some comparisons.

All of those mentioned will penetrate more than enough. But as Mule Deer mentioned, caliber, muzzle velocity, construction, range, size of animal and its structure, and bullet placement all have a bearing on it.

However, which bullet gives the most penetration, by itself, is not the be-all and end-all of successfully harvesting game animals even though the .300 Win Mag has been a favorite of mine for several decades.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

+1 on the old Failsafe.

If you were looking at only raw penetration for maximum, I'd say the Partition would slightly trump the Swift, but a Barnes may trump the Partition and the old Winchester Failsafe load would trump the lot by a fair margin. Probably around 17" to 20" in test media for the Swift, Partition and Barnes, with around 2' plus for the old Failsafe.

But a measure of penetration alone is not the be all to end all with the 300 Win mag. Compared to some big bore handguns shooting punch bullets, the handguns will shoot through the same test media around 5' to 6' deep! You cannot begin to come close to that level of penetration with a 300 Win mag, yet it is still more than capable of cleanly taking down most anything you'd hunt.

Best

I've shot Interlocks, Ballistic Tips, and Gamekings clean through our large Alaska moose. I've also had Xs, FailSafes, and A-Frames stopped quite handily by them on broadside shots.

If I were ranking the four bullets originally queried, I would expect the AB to be lowest most times, the A-Frame next, and the Partition and Bear-Claw greatest. Of course that could change depending on a wide assortment of variables.

Gary,

In my tests I never found the Fail Safe to penetrate any deeper than a Barnes X of the same weight, diameter and velocity. I did use them more on game than the X-Bullet, mostly because when the FS was around, the X wasn't all that accurate.

Among a number of other animals taken with with the Fail Safe in calibers from .270 on up were a big Alaskan moose shot between the right shoulder and sternum with a 230-grain .338 at about 125 yards, and a Cape buffalo shot at 60-75 yards with a 300-grain .375. The 230 .338 was found resting against the front of the pelvis, missing one petal, and the 300 .375 left an exit hole the size of my fist, with one broken-off petal in the skin. (Broken or missing petals are irrelevant, in my experience, with FS, X or whatever petal-type bullet.)

But later Fail Safes often failed to open, resulting in a long chase or even a lost animal. This was most common among the smaller .270-.30 calibers--and has also happened among X-bullets of the same diameter.

I suspect this is why Winchester eventually replaced the FS with the XP3. This is a decent bullet but, like the Swift A-Frame, the rear core often expands so much the bullet doesn't penetrate any farther than bullets that don't retain as much weight but have less frontal area.

Expanding bullet performance is always a compromise between interior damage and penetration.

John,

I follow what you're saying, but Bryce M. Towsley published an extensive test on those bullets back then and the Fail Safe consistently out-penetrated the Barnes by a test average of 5.6" when shot at the same speed. About ten years later, Richard Mann conducted a Rooster Laboratories Bullet Shootout, which included the newer TSX, and the Fail Safe penetrated the deepest of all tested. The results mirrored the earlier Towsley tests.

There were several other published tests during that decade showing the same results. That along with my personal experience with the old Fail Safe compared to the Barnes, Partition and Swift was why I ranked them in that order when measuring nothing but raw penetration. If asked how I would rank them as my personal favorite hunting bullets, the order would be different.

Best

Nothing exceeds excess huh?

Gary,

Thanks for your info.

I believe I know why my tests differed from Bryce's and Richard's. When the Fail Safe was still being made, I did most of my tests of "tough" bullets in dry newspaper, which I found simulates hitting heavy bone better than any other reasonably cheap test media.

After Richard developed the Test Tube with Rooster Laboratories, I started using them as well. I don't know what Bryce used (do you still have that info?) but suspect it was wet newspaper or ballistic gelatin--though he also started using Test Tubes too.

Bullets tend to open more widely when shot into dry newspaper, as opposed to softer test media such as wax, gelatin or wet newspaper. When Fail Safes were forced by dry paper to open wider in my tests, they didn't penetrate deeper than X's.

In the field I've never been able to tell much difference between the penetration of Fail Safes, X's, E-Tips, etc., but there are so many variables in actual game shooting that differences would be hard to see, even if they do show up in media.

For instance, in my first tests of prototype E-Tips they didn't penetrate quite as deeply as TSX's, which I attributed to the E-Tips opening wider. But when I took the prototypes to Africa a month or two later on big cull shoot, the PH and I eventually had to go find a blue wildebeest quartering toward us, and shoot it in the big shoulder joint in order to finally recover one. By that time we were down to two rounds out of my original 20-round box of handloads, and all the others had zipped right through everything else.

John, he used a wet pack made up with newsprint. Most I know, in my gun circles, including myself, at some point made an attempt to use dry newsprint when on the cheap, but eventually gave up on dry in favor of some form of wet pack to better compare with results from calibrated ballistic gelatin. Even so, I'm of the strong opinion that any controlled lab testing is of little value unless the lab results can be validated through observation of data collected from actual field use on live game.

Best

I have a test result article and wall mounted picture done by Gary Schiuttie (sp) back several (15)+_years ago with 180 gr. 308 dia bullets of many makes. The Barnes bullet was not listed but many mentioned here are. I believe he was also using wet news print. He tested each bullet at different velocities trying to emulate distance as well as velocity. The deepest penetration was by the Partition, the Bear Claw, and A-Frame, Fail Safe were not far behind. He also weighed each bullet for weight retention the PT was number two, the surprise for me was the Remington Cor-loc it was in 6 th place. Great performance from a cup and core bullet.

It's Gary Sciuchetti, below is a link to view the poster.

That test in relation to the OP's 300 Win Mag question but using 180 grain bullets:

Average measured penetration at an impact velocity of 2800fps:
- Fail Safe 28.3"
- X Bullet 18.2"
- Partition 18.2"
- A-Frame 18"
- TBBC 17.3"
- RN SPCL 14.3"
- PSP-CL 14.3"

Average measured penetration at an impact velocity of 3000fps:
- Fail Safe 26.5"
- X Bullet 20.2"
- Partition 17.8"
- A-Frame 15.6"
- TBBC 17.3"
- RN SPCL 12.3"
- PSP-CL 12"

Same bullets to simulate way down range
Average measured penetration at an impact velocity of 1900fps:
- Fail Safe 32.2"
- X Bullet 19.8"
- Partition 57.7" (*2 of the 3 did not open)
- A-Frame 23"
- TBBC 64" (*2 of the 3 did not open)
- RN SPCL 18.8"
- PSP-CL 16.5"

In the tests, the Barnes and Fail Safe gave best maximum overall penetration. But, I'd take this with a grain of salt because there is a measured trade-off in having a more narrow wound channel.

You can view the manuscript here:

http://stevespages.com/jpg/bestbullet.jpg

Best

Gary VA
Thank you for correcting my mistake. It been a while since have reviewed that data. I also agree with your statement regarding wound channel. I used the barnes TSX for a few season because the rifle I was shooting, shot them very well, but I was not happy with them. I have used the PT on many more, and will stay with that.

Sorry just saw this.I'd need to have a press conference just to explain how chitty the 154 IB 7mm is to me.