Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only .375" 300 gr Nosler Partition?

Dem Jackwabbits gets him all excited 'til he don't even feel dat recoil...

DF

John sell's Nosler well and for good reason. Me, I am and a Barnes fan, you John?

Yeah, I am. I used what are now called Barnes Original bullets long before Randy Brooks purchased the company and developed the X-Bullet, and used what might now be called the original X-Bullet (including the blue-coated XLC) long before the TSX and TTSX appeared. My wife's a Barnes user too. In fact, Eileen was the first hunter to provide Connie Brooks with a personal "field report" on a bull elk killed with the then-new TSX, back in 2003, and on the same hunt also proved a 140-grain .270 TSX will expand well on a coyote. One or the other of us has used TSX's or Tipped TSX's on some sort of big game every year since then. According to my hunting notes, we've now used variations of Barnes X's on 17 species of game in North America and Africa.

According to the same notes, I've now "field tested" a couple dozen kinds of controlled-expansion bullets on big game (including three other monolithics), along with a bunch of cup-and-cores. But in order to gather as much specific information as possible, I've also accompanied other hunters who took several hundred other animals, and also gathered detailed reports from experienced guides, outfitters and PH's. Unlike many hunters, I don't pick "the best" bullet, because I've found plenty of bullets work very well.

Woodsmaster81:

FWIW: Kevin Robertson wrote the book: AFRICA'S MOST DANGEROUS. The section regarding "Selecting The Right Bullet" pg 137. "The 300 grain Winchester Silvertip was once a popular buffalo bullet. Somewhere along the line, however, something in its construction changed and it became so "soft" that it should no longer be considered suitable for use on buffalo. To date, I have seen only two buffalo wounded and lost. The first occurred when I was still a learner PH undergoing my apprenticeship. Using a 300-grain Nosler Partition in .375 H&H calibre, our client took an easy 50-pace, full frontal chest shot at a mature herd bull in fairly open mopane country. I watched the bull thud to the ground as if lightning-struck. But he was instantly back on his feet and lost in the dust and confusion of the milling herd before any backup shots could be fired. The herd thundered off but pulled up after a short run, and I was able to observe them carefully through my binocular before they moved off again. The wounded bull could not be identified within such a large herd, and all the trackers found were a few small drops of thin, watery blood. A long follow-up ensued, but we never caught up with or found the bull. We even returned to the area the next day and searched without success until sunset. We all finally concluded that the Partition must have SET UP (caps mine) and expanded on the thick, loose, and supple frontal chest skin without penetrating into the chest cavity. Though the bull was not fatally wounded, blood had been spilled and according to the regulations our client lost what he had come all the way to Africa for."

Might behoove potential buffalo hunters to purchase a copy of Robertson's book before heading to the Dark Continent for buffalo.

TSIBINDI,

Thanks for the specific example of a 300-grain Partition "failing"--which doesn't contain any evidence except a buffalo that disappeared with the evidence of what happened with the bullet.

Kevin Robertson's suggestion contains a lot of speculation, and a misunderstanding of how expanding bullets work. With rare exceptions, mostly long-range "hollow-point" bullets like Bergers, expanding bullets start to expand the instant they hit skin, and are completely expanded by the time they penetrate their own length. This has been proven many times in test media, including videos of bullets shot into clear ballistic gelatin, as well as big game.

Also, the phrase "set up" is often used by British hunters, and others who descended from Brits. It means "expanded" or mushroomed. I don't know why Kevin used both "set up" and "expanded" here, but unless soft-points somehow fail to expand somehow, that's how they work. (I know Kevin Robertson a little, and published a couple of his articles when I was editor of a hunting magazine, which is why I'm wondering about the redundant phrasing.) If a Nosler Partition doesn't penetrate deeply because it started to expand on a buffalo's chest skin, then the same could happen to any other softpoint, including several that expand even more widely than Partitions.

But we don't know what actually happened on that particular buffalo, and neither does Kevin.

Plus, as I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, an even more experienced African PH, Kevin Thomas, killed hundreds of buffalo with 180-grain Partitions from a .30-06 when culling on a big ranch in what was then Rhodesia. I'd read Kevin Robertson's book when I hunted with Kevin Thomas the first time, and as a result specifically asked him he had any trouble with 180 Partitions penetrating buffalo with frontal shots, and he said no, not even on mature bulls.

There has always been a lot of blaming the bullet for failings of the shooter. In one of Elmer Keith's old books he talks about loosing an animal after the bullet had destroyed 6" of its spine ! I always wondered how he knew that since it got away.

The late Finn Aagaard was always polite but usually to the point and when a bear hunter returned to camp one afternoon and was telling how he had hit his bear "right behind the shoulder" with a 300 gr Partition from his 375 but they watched it run for over 3 miles and it got away, Finn's comment was "if you were using a 300 gr Nosler you didn't hit it right behind the shoulder "

I would agree that is a pretty lame explanation as to why they lost the buffalo and don't buy it. It's easier for some to blame the bullet than admit they failed to hit the animal in the right spot.

Or they are using one of 458Win's picatinny rail flashlight mounts - I've put these on a couple of my rifles and they are awesome. A sling hanging in front of a flashlight would probably block some light, but I suspect enough would "flow" around the sling much as it does the barrel itself - I'll have to try hanging a strap in front of the Surefire Scout tonight to see. Regardless, if the stock has a conventional sling swivel location, or at 45* on the tip as mine do, there's obviously no sling to get in the way. Of course if one removed the sling from one's barrel-band sling swivel/pic flashlight mounted rifle there wouldn't be an issue either....

Well, just got my 300 gr Partition order in from SPS this afternoon, hurried out to the load shop for some chrono results with RL-17, got an easy 2700 fps, loaded three and went to the bags, group went 1.15" at 100 in a 4-5 mph quarter crosswind, plus, I was in a hurry racing sundown, it'll keep under an inch with a little more relaxed shooting time, group was fired in the pre-64 model 70 Winchester 375 H&H I got from BSA here at the 'fire, used a 1.5-5 Leupold scope with standard duplex reticle on the rifle in Burris QD rings and steel Warne bases.

I'll load the rest of my new brass with this load, then load the entire 200+ sticks with this load when those are fired, here at 555 ASL Oklahoma that bullet will carry 1800 fps out to a long 450 yards, bet it would keep 1800 a good bit past 500 on the side of an Elk mountain out West.

3"s up at 100 will zero it around 235-240 yards, only drifts 2' at 500 here with a full value 10 mph wind, I'd use this load on anything from small African antelope to Cape Buffalo and everything here and there in between, with two 300 gr BBW #13 solids at the same speed in the magazine, you'd be ready for all game.

Those are some pretty good numbers men, who says the old H&H wont stretch it a little?

2700 fps with a 300 gr bullet, in a standard 375 H&H chamber? Impressive!

Not surprised at the accuracy, these things usually shoot well.

Good work!

Guy

Thanks Guy, you bet, standard H&H, I took the old H&H to max power more than 20 years ago, used IMR-4350 and W-W 760 powders to power the 300 gr BTSP's from Hornady and Sierra to 2700 fps in a Browning Safari 375 H&H, accuracy was great and brass lasted forever, that rifle is another I regret selling.

The 300 gr Partition will have a bit longer bearing surface than the BTSP's so I use RL-17, it's a bit slower burning, 81 grs in 'my rfle' is perfectly safe with both the NPT and BBW solid, that old cartridge will still certainly carry the mail so loaded ;]

My 375 AI [rube goldberg] will run the 300 gr solids to 2900 fps and the 270 TSX's to 3100 if you want to lean on it that hard, I load the 270's to an even 3K and the solids to a very easy 2700 now.

Wow! Very cool. I've only been shooting one for about nine years, and never ran it that hard. Learned that a lot of factory 300 gr ammo produces muzzle velocity in the 2400 - 2500 fps range.

I've only used mine on a few black bear now. It did work real well, despite being rather under-employed.

Regards, Guy

10-4 on the under employment, and congrats on the black bears, I've shot a few deer and pigs with my 375's over the years, told me the one gun rep for all of Africa was well founded.

I have a habit of gleaning all I can get from cartridges, don't have any of the fancy testing equipment labs have, but rely on the tried and true casehead expansion, primer pocket tightness, extraction of fired rounds and brass life methods, so far so good, a few examples of different cartridges below.

416 Taylor, 2400 fps with CFE-223 and 400 gr Partitions without heavy powder compression.
400 Whelen, 2255 fps with CFE-223 and 400 gr Woodleigh's without heavy compression.
9.3-62mm, 2400 fps with RL-17 and 320 gr Woodleigh's without heavy compression.
458 WM, an easy 2150 fps with H-335 and 500 gr Partitions without heavy compression. 2150 was all I wanted in the 458, that speed has proven effective for a hundred years in other 458 cal big bores.

As has your 24/2500 fps 300 gr 375 loads, 300 gr Partitions at 2700 fps make the old H&H a true 400 yard hunting rifle

The wind finally took a hike this afternoon, grabbed my rifle and hurried out to the bench, three shots went in under an inch at 100 yards, adjusted scope 5 clicks left and fired another 300 gr partition at 2700 fps, landed right at 3"s high, quarter inch left of center, perfect.

The remaining 200+ rounds of once fired R-P brass will be so loaded, bring on the game............................................................................just had a depressing thought, I'll have damn near 7 months of mowing, brushogging, weedeating, spraying fence rows and pastures before season opens again. too much work, not enough hunting!