Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Swift A-Frame or Nosler Partition for my 9.3x62?

",,, recovered from buffalo, which are the so far only thing I've found that would stop them."
70 guy: I have a 400 grain 416 bullet that I recovered from a zebra. The front of the bullet expanded to 3/4" and the rest of the bullet looks like a solid that could be fired again. It was shot from a 416 Ruger at 2400 fps. Broadside shot that I expected full penetration and exit.

And has been for a long time.

Love the partition, but when it comes to heavy game I switch to Aframes.

Mule Deer et al, if one was to load 250gr. Accubonds, what loads and powder you come to favour? I saw some references regarding the perceived recoil related to using different powders.

Eltorro
Welcome. Your first post...look back on page 4 or 5 and you will find a chart of JB’s loads for the 9.3-62.

From my somewhat limited experience on black bears, the 250 AB works as well as the 286 Partition. For both I use RL-17. Depending on what I want to kill, and how far, I vary that load. 70 grs of RL-17 behind the 250 AB shoots 3 into 0.44" @ 100 yds at +2700 fps. I shot a bear with that load at 85 yards. From an angling shot at 85 yards from a tree stand to high in mid-rib cage (bear was quartering away) the bullet made exit low in frontal chest between chest and offside front leg. It took out lungs and heart in the process leaving a trail of blood a blind man could follow for 20 yards to a very dead bear. The boar died in stride.

The 286 Partition over the same load at 2600+ fps took out another bear in the adjoining field at 68 yards from a frontal hit. The bear fell down an embankment. It was hung in the same tree, on the opposite side, where my stand was located. That bullet fell out from the right flank in front of the right hip in skinning. It lost the front core and weighed 74 % of unfired weight (211 grains). Performance was about identical to the 250gr AB. The 286 was shooting three into sub-MOA.

But the first bear shot with my 9.3 x 62 (TIKKA T3 Lite) was a follow up on a wounded bear by a young friend/client. The bullet was a 286 Hornady RN-RP leaving the muzzle at +2400 fps. That load was 58 grains RL-15 (book load) at close range. The bullet performed flawlessly.

My current loads for those two Nosler bullets have been reduced (because of woods hunting) to 67 grs for the 250 AB @ +/- 2600 fps and 66 grs for the 286 Partition @ +/- 2500 fps.

I've tried several other bullets and powders ( RL-15 was the first) but none have given the performance of those two Noslers.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Thank you.
Is one or the other preferred if the barrel is only 20-21"?

""CZ550 From my somewhat limited experience on black bears, the 250 AB works as well as the 286 Partition"".

After 40+ years of hunting and shooting with the Partition, I have found the AB adequate but not anywhere the quality of the Partition.

250 NAB is also very accurate, at least in my AHR CZ.

JB's load.

DF

E1, what was the issue with the ABs? I've only shot one animal with one.

AHR CZ 9.3x62. Have posted this one before.

Started out with 58 Gr. Varget years ago in a CZ .

The same load worked out well in a Sako 75



These days, my go to load for the 9.3 x 62.....



Has worked well on Aoudad, deer and pigs!

ya!

GWB

Impressive. What cases did you use? Graf, Hornady?

+1

Lapua is my fav, followed by Norma, then Nosler.

That was Norma brass IIRC.

Ya!

GWB

Been following this thread since the beginning - most interesting! I live in South Africa and during the last 5 years have hunted almost exclusively with my 9,3x 62. I load 286gr NPs to 2300fps. I shoot mostly Kudu and Gemsbok over distances of up to 236 meters. Most are one shot drops. I have recovered 2 bullets weighing 250 and 260 gr respectively. Unfortunately, 286 NP has become a "special import" so I might have to change to 250 gr AB's which will still be available.

Swift A Frames hands down, Nosler Partitions can sheer off too much weight and don’t hold expansion diameter as well as A Frames. A Frames are much better construction. And this is why PH’s recommend them. I’ve used A Frames in 375 and 458 calibers and was very pleased with the results.

Apparently you have little or no experience with the 9.3 286-grain Partition.

Over 20 years ago Nosler started redesigning some of the heavier, larger caliber Partitions to retain a higher percentage of their weight than the usual 65-70%. This was accomplished by modifications to the jacket, often placing the partition further forward.

The 286 9.3, however, didn't appear until after this was done to other Partitions, such as the 300-grain .375, so was designed to retain more weight from the get-go. I started using it in 2002, and the first animal taken was a big bull moose in northern British Columbia, shot at about 175 yards broadside, just behind the shoulder bones. The bull stumbled about 15 yards downhill before falling, in the process taking out several quaking aspens averaging 3-4" in diameter. The bullet was found under the hide on the far side, retaining 90.4% of its original weight.

Since then I've used the same bullet and load (which gets around 2500 fps) not only in North America but on more than one African safari. Have only recovered one other, from a blue wildebeest bull standing quartering toward me at around 200 yards I put the Partition in the big shoulder joint, and the bull staggered 20-25 yards before falling, obviously dead on its feet. The bullet was recovered at the rear of the rib-sage on the other side.

You apparently also didn't notice the post before yours, where Vlok (a hunter from South Africa) also has only recovered two 286 Partitions in his hunting, which retained 87.4% and 90.9% of their weight.

A-Frames are fine bullets, and I have used (and seen them used) considerably, but on average the 286-grain 9.3 does not penetrate as deeply as the 286-grain Partition, because it opens so widely--and average retained weight is about the same as the Partition. You may think the narrower mushroom of the Partition is a disadvantage, but the bullet still kills very quickly, and exits more of the time than the 286 A-Frame. In fact, on one of my safaris in Tanzania my hunting partner was so impressed with the way my 9.3x62 killed that he bought one himself upon returning home.

The other Partitions I've recovered from big game that retained 85-95% of their weight have been the 225-grain .338 (85.4%; from a huge bull musk ox, shot like the wildebeest through the near shoulder joint on a quartering-on shot), 300-grain .375 (an average of 88.2%, from buffalo); and a 400-grain .416 (95.2%) that angled from the rear of the left ribs on a Botswana Cape buffalo and ended up in the right shoulder. The 500-grain .458 is also constructed similarly; my hunting partner on a 2011 safari used it from a .458 Lott on Cape buffalo, but we don't know how much weight it retained because it ended up somewhere in the rear half of his bull--after a frontal shot that broke the spine under the bull's chin. We traced the bullet's path well into the guts, but couldn't find it.

I will believe JB on this one cause he always steers us right.

That said Im a BIG fan of partitions and a HUGE fan of A-Frames...but if JB says one is Mo'betta in a given cartridge...I'll believe him.

Not saying the Partition is "better" than the A-Frame in the 9.3x62, just pointing out the assumption that our new member SafariLife presented about weight retention is incorrect.

Then I explained how the differences in the two bullets affect their performance. 286 A-Frames make bigger holes, because they expand wider (which often includes the rear end of the bullet) but the 286 Partition penetrates deeper.

As a matter of fact, when the 286 Partition was new I got involved with a new bullet-testing medium my friend and fellow gun writer Richard Mann developed, made out of soft wax. Its big advantage was retaining the wound channel, so you could actually see how various bullets expanded (and sometimes didn't), but it also provided a valid comparison of how deeply each penetrated.

We were testing a bunch of bullets of various sizes and construction, including the 250- and 286-grain TSX 9.3s. I bet Richard that the 286 Partition would penetrate deeper than the 250 X, but not as deeply as the 286 X. Was pretty sure about this, due to using all of them on game, and well as testing them in various media. Richard was doubtful, but that's exactly what happened.