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Your post reminds me of something Jim Carmichael told me: "Most gun writers do their shooting with a typewriter." I got the idea from Winchestermodel70's post that he was trying to intimidate rather than get information.

blaser_guy,

Those two bullets remind me of a photo of a 300 grain solid from a .375 protruding from the offside chest of an elephant. Only the back half of the bullet was still in the skin. Strange things happen.

Betting it was a 525 gr Woodleigh Jorge, they are a stub of a bullet IMHO and are really stressed when impacting heavy game especially if loaded above their velocity windows.

I ran the 600's to 2400 fps in my Gibbs to check crossbolts and stock bedding relations, everyone got along just fine, I then backed the next batch of 600 gr loads down to a more sedate and civil 2150 fps.

Gunner

I understand but after looking at the path I could understand. It went from straight behind all the way through and up high in chest between shoulders and stopped in the neck in front of the shoulders. That is quite a bit of distance in a large animal

THanks, I was wondering, a solid would probably still be going!

If you shoot enough game the saying stuff happens comes into play eventually

Yessir, happily skipping along the landscape, specially if it would have been the 600 gr Woodleigh solids from my 505.

Gunner

I figured as much. Now I'm "involved" . Model 70: While my experience with Cape Buffalo (two) is nowhere near yours, I'm here to tell you Sharpsguy is the real deal. As one of the initial naysayers here about the BP cartridge Pumkin' Rollers, I saw them work from first hand experience thanks to him. Besides being able to routinely hit the 500 yard ram target with aplomb, I personally watched my Bison (yes I know a bison while weighing more, ain't no Cape) go ass over tea-kettle with one shot from my 45-110 Sharps at 98 yards. I purposely aimed for the shoulder and broke it;s spine with no exit. I gave it an insurance shot through the bottom of the brisket and it came out the top of his back.

There is no doubt in my mind one of these rifles will handily take a Cape Buffalo. You do however raise a valid point with the 458WM's lack of penetration at 1850 fps, but I'm pretty sure that was with softs and not solids. My issue with these rifles is not so much the cartridge, but the fact they are single shot rifles which in my opinion is not something I would use on a dangerous game. With the pachyderms, I would also have big concerns with hard cast lead bullets as well with brain shots on elephants. Don't sell them short, they are true killing machines. jorge

I would like to make a couple of points about the penetration of the Sharps with 500 grain cast bullets. This is from personal observation and direct personal experience.

The first bison I took was with a 511 grain round nosed paper patched bullet at 1350 fps out of one of my 45-110s. It was a 4 1/2 year old bull weighing about 1750 pounds. The distance was 186 yards, and the ranch manager--who had never seen a Sharps work--wanted me to shoot the animal in the neck. I didn't want to use that shot and deferred. I finally agreed to shoot it in the ear after a bit of discussion. At the shot, the animal apparently turned its head slightly, and I hit it in the horizontal aspect of its right horn. The bison simply collapsed, straight down, in a cloud of dust. As in DEAD.

Now comes the illuminating part of the story. The bullet traveled straight down the horn boss, through the skull into the brain cavity scrambling the brain and almost made it through the skull on the other side. That bullet gave over twenty inches of penetration, NINE INCHES OF IT THROUGH SOLID BONE. I filed that into my memory bank and think about it every time I look at that European mount on the wall of my reloading room.

A couple of years after that, I was visiting a natural history museum, and one of the exhibits was an elephant skull. The skull was sitting on the floor with a single rope barrier around it, and you could actually get close enough to the skull to touch it. I didn't touch it, but I got really close and looked it over REAL well. There was no place on that skull where the bone was over four inches thick over the brain. From the side, the bone could not have been two inches thick covering the brain.

If the Sharps will shoot through nine inches of solid bone with cast lead bullets, I really don't see where a brain shot on an elephant would be beyond its capabilities.

But here is the final kicker. On my last trip to the Eastern Cape, my PH took me through the elephant park at Addo. Yes, I saw elephants, and yes, I was in the bakkie. No big deal, a tourist thing. BUT there are also several herds of Cape Buffalo in the park, and two healthy prides of lions which were making a pretty good living off of the buffalo. I was able to examine the skeletons of two buffalo bulls, one approaching 40 inches, that had been taken by lions. My PH pointed out the overlapping ribs and the fact that they are a barrier to penetration. The fact is, those overlapping ribs are barely 1/4 inch thick, and the Sharps will blow right through that amount of bone. Likewise the shoulder blade.

So while I have never shot a Cape Buffalo, I have had a good close up look at the skeletons of two of them. I also sat in the bakkie about nine yards from a really good buffalo bull as he grazed along side the vehicle path. This gave me about five minutes to study him and take a good look at options for shot placement. Having said all of this, there is no doubt in my mind that the Sharps with the right cast lead bullets will work on dangerous game.

Granted, it is a single shot, but it is a single shot with an ejector, and I can run it faster than most guys can run a bolt gun. I'm not saying that everyone with a single shot is that fast, but I am comfortable with mine.

One last thing. Selous' favorite rifle was a 450 Rigby No.2 shooting black powder. I have his load data, and can easily duplicate his bullets and velocities in my 45-110 Sharps if I feel I need to. He had one load for elephant and hippo, and another for everything else. I would say that cast lead bullets have a proven history, and I KNOW they work. And I DO have a Cape Buffalo on my bucket list.

I have no doubt it can and you can sir..

I have always thought the 45 caliber diameter was the magic that made it work. It seems to be on the right side of right

I think you are right. I have given it a lot of thought. I know that my 50-90 and my 50-70 do not kill as well or penetrate nearly as well as my 45 caliber rifles. There is something working relative to frontal area and sectional density that gives the 45 caliber an edge in killing and penetration with the right bullets.

sharpsguy,

I know two people who've used hard-cast bullets on Cape buffalo. One was my hunting partner in Botswana's Okavanago in 2002, who used a lever-action Winchester Model 1886 in .50-110. I don't recall the bullet weight (could look it up in my safari notes but don't feel like it right now) but recall it was around 550 grains, loaded with black powder to 1300+ fps. He shot the bull several times, though it was pretty much anchored by the first couple of shots. One bullet that struck behind the shoulder exited, and the other in the shoulder did not, though it made it to the far side. The other shots were finishers after the buffalo was down, and were angled rather than broadside. Like the bullet in the shoulder, they were recovered from under the hide on the far side.

The other friend went to Zimbabwe a couple of years later, and used a Marlin .45-70 loaded with heavy hard-cast bullets and smokeless powder. Again I can't remember the exact velocity, but it was under 2000 fps. He killed a bull with no difficulty with a chest shot, but the bullet exited and wounded a cow in the brush behind the bull. As a result he had to kill the cow too and encountered no problems with it either.

Somehow the subject of cast bullets at moderate velocities on Cape buffalo drives many hunters who've never even seen them used kinda batty. But examples from the real world indicate they will work quite well if the hunter shoots well. I have no doubts you would do quite well, given the opportunity. Here's to hoping you get the opportunity someday!

Mule Deer--Thanks for the insightful comments. As far as the bucket list, thanks again for the encouragement. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it.

Sharpsguy what cast bullet would you recommend for my Ruger No 1 in 450 NE?
I'm looking for a source to buy them already cast. I poured up enough lynotype pigs in a print shop after high school as a proof boy that I have no desire to do that again

Sharpsguy

I am back on my feet and dreaming again of a Sharps in my hands. Those who doubt you have never spoken to you. I have had excellent penetration with hard cast in 500 grain bullets. At 1250 ft/sec muzzle velocity I shot a bull moose left hip through paunch liver lungs and right humerus exiting and not recovered. Dead moose no significant bloodshot meat. I was hunting to feed my family and took that shot because it was the one presented to me.

I do not doubt the veracity of your words and my experience mirrors yours although with N.A big game. Head of femur/pelvis through viscera ribs humerus and all the muscle resulted in 7'-8'
of penetration. Femoral,hepatic and brachial arteries were destroyed as were spleen and liver. No 2nd finishing shot was needed. I wish I was able to go with and watch that Sharps do what you do so well with it.

Randy

The very best bullet for that is the Lyman 457121, one of if not THE favorite 45 caliber bullets I use. That is the bullet I used to take the zebra in the video.It is a flatnose bullet weighing 475 to 480 grains, depending on the particular mold. Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone that casts it commercially. A very close second is the 500 grain flatnosed bullet sold by Jerry Dean at Powder Inc. It has a slightly larger meplat than the Lyman bullet, and I shot one all the way through both shoulders of a 2000 pound bison a couple of years ago using a 45-70. Velocity was 1250 fps. I watched a friend of mine knock a 5x5 bull elk down and dead with his Shiloh 45-110 from a bit over 100 yards last year with the bullet from Jerry Dean. That velocity was 1330 fps and the bullet was a complete pass through both shoulders.

You can contact Jerry Dean at Powder Inc and get that bullet. It ain't a pretty bullet, but he sells them lubed and sized quite reasonably and it flat out works. I shoot quite a few of them myself.

You could probably add thousands of early settlers too.

Not really, because I didn't know them!

medicman--Was the 500 grain bullet you used on the moose the big round nosed Government bullet? In penetration tests that bullet and my 511 grain round nosed paper patched bullet were the best for penetration of the bullets we have tested. There was little if any difference between them and they seemed to give 10 to 15 percent better penetration than the flatnosed bullets.

In either case, in my experience a properly placed 500 grain bullet almost always results in a DRT or an animal on the ground within 50 yards.