Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa .405 Win vs Cape Buff - who wins?

Jorge1,
I shoot my 450-400 at 2225 FPS!

Well, you have inspired me..I am going to practice fast reloading with my Win. Mod 95 SRC in 30-06. I love the rifle and have restocked it with a longer stock and it dotes on 220 gr. Noslers..I have it up for sale over this reloading issue.

If I can learn to reload it as fast as you do then it will be one of my favorite rifles, and I will move it to my keeper corner!..

I have some difficulty in putting the round forward and then pushing it back as they tend to roll form side to side and miss the slot as I push it back, especially under the rush stress!..

Thanks for the advise and I will work on it and see how it goes. Hopefully I can get it together.

I used my Winch 95 in .405 with Hornady 300 sp on a cow Buffalo ( American Bison) the bullet was behind the shoulder, so no major bones were hit and the jacket and core still seperated. Found under the off side skin. Love the rifle and cartridge. But would not use Hornady bullets for anything else. I talked to Hornady about the bullet performance and got little more than a shoulder shrug from the guy who said they shouldn't have done that. Barnes or Woodliegh I guess, because Hornady don't cut the cheese.

A good bullet properly placed from the 405 will indeed make short work of a Buff. No dought.

jorge--I really think you would be better off using that hard cast 400 grain FNGC bullet shown earlier. The poster is getting 1900 fps out of it, and that load and bullet will do a better job on a buffalo than any of the jacketed choices you have.

I know you are hot to trot with the 405 Win, but your best choice really is the 45-110 Sharps. It will knock him on his azz with your FN bullet.

Sharpsguy,Jorge is a HUGE Teddy Roosevelt fan and killing his buff with the 1895 TR African Commemorative is a MISSION!! Like I HAVE to kill a Wyoming buffler with my Sharps because it WAS a buffler gun in Wyoming 130 years ago. A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do!!!

ET--Thanks for the heads up. You're right about a man doing what he's gotta do. I would still use that hard cast FN bullet in the 405 Win, though. What ever he uses, he's gonna have a ball.

The short answer guys is: "Too many guns" and not enough money to do what I want to do! OF COURSE that 45-110 will do a better number on a buffalo, no doubt about it, but like ET says, the 1895 is just something I want to do and I'm sure that 400gr cast will do the job as well, might even be better than the TSX. The Sharps is reserved for now to American hunting and remember, I also have a 45/90 in the works. I also have a personal rule that I don't do DG with single shots, I'm just not that profficient.

Patrick, do you have a stock number on the bullets or do you cast them yourself and what powder/weight primer? Also, North Fork makes a CPS (a cross between a TSX and a solid that would work very well also. This hunt is still a ways away, so I have plenty of time to figure out what is best, but I have to say, the 300gr TSX is a good one. jorge

The CPS would indeed be excellent

Ray,
At one time Winchester had illustrated instructions on loading the 95 but I'll be darned if I can find a copy so I made a set. Please excuse the poor pictures as I took them with one hand while demoing with the other. This is with my Granddads old 30-40 but should be the same with a calibers except possibly the 7.62 Russian which had an integral clip guide. Hope this is of some help, works well for me.
Doc

While grasping the bullet end of the cartridge push down on the lifter or loaded cartridge in front of the rear clip guides with the base end of the cartridge you are loading.


Slide the base to the rear of the magazine inside the clip guides...


And lay the cartridge down.

I'd be happy to throw some .411-.413 375 gr. Hardcasts his way....I've finally got around to getting bullets made for some of my patient fellows

I'd love to try some!

Jorge-1, I have done some testing over the last 2 years with hardcast bullets and those Barnes bullets. We have shot them in an 8 foot stock tank, various media etc and the hardcast bullet always comes out on top. Those being Beartooth Bullets and some that were made by a friend of mine, who shoots nothing but hardcast in his guns.

I personally like the idea of the "hardcast" Piledrivers which I use in my 45-70 and .444 Marlin with amazing results, when your speaking of Cape Buffalo. A friend of mine shoot those Northfork bullets to but I have never tested any of them.
Good Luck!

I have no doubt a hardcast will penetrate more, however, I contend the TSX will penetrate enough plus cause more tissue and disruptive damage. The hardcast will penetrate like a solid.

jorge--A solid is not a bad thing, is it? Lots of buff have been shot with solids. I would much rather have a hole in one shoulder through the lungs and out the other shoulder and the resulting air leak and lung collapse than some additional internal bleeding due to expansion. Collapsed lungs kill things RIGHT NOW. It usually takes a bit longer for something to bleed out.

It's not a bad thing if you are having to use a slow (405 with 400gr bullets below 2100 fps) and/or poor sectional density cartridge (like the 405 with 300gr bullets) to kill big animals that often times even though they are dead on their feet can still kill you. TR killed lots of animals with his 405 and the 300gr soft points and solids of his day, but he readily admits in his writings the 500gr 500/465 H&H was far superior when it came to buffalo, elephant and rhino. The 300gr 405 has LOUSY sectional density, but I am convinced the TSX will offset that and penetrate enough to kill a buffalo with plenty penetration because I can push it to 2250. Now a 400gr 405 with better SD means I have to drop the MV below 2000 and with a soft, the penetration will not be there with that speed, so a good solid or hardcast of 400gr will make up for that. The downside of course it will just zip through and kill sure enough, but with not nearly the tissue damage a soft will generate.

In today's Africa with the advent of premium bullets the only time one sees solids anymore are for elephant, rhino and hippos on dry land. Solids are in my view totally unnessesary for buffalo unless one is using something like a 45-110/70 with hardcast bullets of 500gr or more, or a 405 with 400gr bullets below 2100 fps.

There is no doubt any of the calibers above will handily kill a buffalo with hardcast or solids and I really do want to take one with my 405, but they just can't compare to a 400gr 4162400 plus or a 500gr 45 at the same speeds. Bottom line if I had to pick what was in my view the perfect buffalo/elephant round, it would be a 450 Dakota or Weatherby with a 500gr soft or solid for the elephant at 2400 plus. jorge

A wide, flat hardcast fortysomething is going to shed some nose when impact speeds get north of 1,600-1,700, but no where in the league of a Hornady "blob".

I have a 416 and a friend has a 400 Whelen (no game with either) and the bullet shoots great. The 400 runs it past 2250.

jorge, its basically going to act like a TSX with penetration and shed the front like a partition (think a high pressure sandblasting powder).

I could of course run you some 15 BHN tin/silver/lead in the nose (perhaps just a smear-tip?) and 30 BHN WW shank.

PM me what, how many and what diameter and how soon. Its a 417 mould I size nose first down to .411.

Even if you just want plinkers, I know I have maybe 50 made up already.

I have seen the hate in a Cape Buffalo eyes when charging on more than three ocassions, those eyes are as big a tennis balls and red with hate and anger, and the determination to kill those that did him harm is more than apparant. His ability to absorb a huge number of hits is amazing at times and A Lion is even worse...I want enough gun to stop dangerous game in their tracks. Yes, I have done the stunts and I learned my lesson early on, I was lucky..Every year a PH or client is mauled and injured to one degree or another and some of them are killed.

Its easy to say this or that will work, and in most instances your right, it will, and your welcomed to try, but its can be a mighty bad experience if something goes wrong. The results of the game is you must suffer the consequences and you may also be responsible for the injury or death of a friend.

For these reasons, I will not hunt DG anymore with less than a .375 and much prefer a 416 or 404...I suppose in my mind the 9.3x62 properly loaded is the lightest caliber that should be used.

A client on another blog, who has hunted with me in the past had his Win. mod. 95 long throated, and the magazine openned up so that he could seat 400 gr. bullets out and utilize those 400 gr. bullets to his advantage and he got 2200 plus a little FPS without undue pressure. That was a good buff rifle accoording to him..He used Woodleigh softs/solids as I recall. I would think the 350 gr. North Fork cup point at 2300 to 2350 would have been ideal..These are 450-400 balistics a caliber that I have used many times and it works well.

Just another point of view and my own personal take on the subject. It can be argued on these blogs until hell freezes over but the game fields of Africa is where the conversation will be settled, if your right congratsulations, if your wrong then you must live with those consequences, thats the bottom line.

Ray: I've spoken to Ernest many times about this issue and he assured me the 300gr TSXs @2200 would be more than adequate for buffalo, but if I needed, the 400gr Woodleighs@ 1900 will be just fine. The long throating and magazine lenghtening are fine, but a 400gr bullet @2200 is EXCESSIVE PRESSURE for a 95 even a modern replica like mine.

Hawk, you have a PM.\

And Oh guys, I installed the peep sight attachment to the rear sight and it looks very nice, fits right in and no one can tell the rifle did not come with it. Off to the range tomorrow to try it out. I'll report back. jorge

Jorgel you are spot on..

Ray what gun short of a 105 Howitzer will stop one in the their tracks without a central nervous system hit?? Answer none

The load is 47 grains of Ramshot TAC with a .385 grain LBT mold, LFNGC bullet that cast out .413" and sized to .412" and lubed with LBT Blue.