My son, Bret and I were shooting on Aboriginal land in the outback of the Northern Territory. Feral buffalo are numerous and they are doing substantial environmental damage. If the buffalo and the other feral introduced species are not removed, Australia will be faced with a highly degraded landscape. Although individual efforts are of minimal significance in the overall effort to extirpate the estimated 500,000 buffalo in the northern territory, we tried to do what we could…

Our rifles we a wildcat .41 caliber bolt action loaded with the 360 gr North Fork Soft Point and a 500/416 Nitro Express Krieghoff double rifle equipped with a Doctor Optik red dot sight loaded with 400 gr North Fork Soft points. We took 40 rounds for each rifle and another 50 rounds of 375 cal. North Fork Soft points for our outfitter’s backup 375 JRS.

In all we killed 40 buffalo…(all meat harvested for consumption). The rifles and bullets performed perfectly…This was our second trip to Australia using North Fork soft points. The bullets perform so consistently, and shoot so accurately in our rifles that I can’t imagine seeking superior performance from any other bullet. I am a believer.

Dave Jensen

The Advantages Of Using Super-Heavyweight Bullets On Africa’s Thick-Skinned Dangerous Species.

You can’t kill a large-bodied, thick-skinned and dangerous African game animal with ’shock’ like you can a Whitetail.  Regardless of the amount of kinetic energy a bullet may contain, elephant, buffalo, rhino and hippo are just too darn big and ‘absorbent’ for this ballistic component to have a quick and effective killing effect.  What works best on these species are heavy for caliber bullets which penetrate deep and straight and by so doing, they cause extensive damage to the vital internal organs.  The greater the damage to the heart and lungs in particular, the quicker will be the onset of the inevitable.   With regards to the pachyderms, bullet weight (and therefore sectional density), momentum, KO and permanent wound channel size (PWC) are all more important than muzzle velocity and energy.

An exciting new development on the African big game hunting horizon is the current availability of super-heavyweight expanding type bullets in the calibers best suited for Africa’s thick-skinned and dangerous species.  In addition to the more usual 300 grainers, high sectional density 350 and even 380 grainers are now available in .375 caliber.  For both the .416’s and .404 Jeffery, 430 and 450 grain soft points are now being manufactured and marketed.  550 and even 600 grainers can now he obtained for the popular .458’s.  For the .505 and .510 calibers, 600 grainers can now be used - and they are extremely effective.

The primary advantage of ‘heavy-for-caliber’ expanding type bullets lies in their ability to expand to a larger final diameter than that of normally used weights.  This increases the size of the permanen

Super-heavyweight bullets also have significantly better momentum values which ensure that they still penetrate deeply despite their larger final expanded diameter.  Better KO values are another benefit of the super-heavyweights where the enhanced visual effect of bullet impact is very evident.  Overall, it is the increased size of the PWC which primarily makes these bullets so much more effective than regular weight ones while the additional momentum and KO assist greatly with ‘getting the job done’.

Study the following table closely.  Even though super-heavyweight expanding-type bullets are fired with a lower muzzle velocity, they possess better Momentum and KO values than regular weight ones at their usual velocities.   As already mentioned, such bullets also have the ability to expand to a larger final diameter.  This essentially puts the ‘brakes on’ more effectively so to speak and one could assume that penetration will be affected by this fact.  This is however not the case.  On buffalo for example it will be found that the super-heavyweights penetrate as deeply as regular weight bullets and the reason for this is simply as a result of their better momentum values.

As a bullet’s weight increases, so does its Sectional Density.  Muzzle velocity naturally decreases as bullet weight increases.  For all these .375 bullet weights, notice how the muzzle energy value remains pretty constant at slightly more than 4000 ft lbs.  The most important effect of increasing bullet weight lies in its influence on both Momentum and KO.  Notice how they both increase with each successive bullet weight increment.  This, combined with larger final expanded diameters, and consequently larger permanent wound channels, is the secret to the increase in effectiveness of super-heavyweight pachyderm suitable expanding-type bullets. The same effect can be seen with the .416’s, .458’s and .505’s.

So as to complement these new super-heavyweight expanding type bullets, and shoot to the same point of aim, similar weight solids have also been developed.

With regards to solids, the super-heavyweight advantages of better momentum and KO are also very much applicable with this type of bullet and this will be seen in better and deeper, straight-line penetration.

Full body length penetration on these big-bodied species is now possible and regularly achieved.  The advantage of this is that it makes poorly angled, ‘back-up’ shots a lot more effective.  Such solids will now reliably reach the ‘engine room’ of all these species, from any angle, and what an advantage this is, especially for the Professional Hunter backing up his client or those tasked with problem animal control.

Please feel free to contact Kevin Robertson at doctari@kanana.net if you have any queries about these concepts.

North Fork is now offering 375-350gr, 416-430gr, 423-430gr, 458-550gr and 510-600gr bullets to satisfy your heavy for caliber needs.

Dr. Kevin Robertson aka Doctari and his wife Catherine are offering photo/nature safaris in Kruger National Park.  A trip to Kruger National Park is a great addition to any safari to Africa and who better to show you around then Kevin and his professional photographer wife Catherine.

Enjoy!

North Fork Technologies and Doug Turnbull of Turnbull Restoration( http://www.turnbullrestoration.com/ ) are in development of two new bullets for the 470 and 475 Turnbull cartridges. Flat and Cup Point Solids utilizing North Fork’s Smart Band Technology (SBT) and a bore riding design will be offered. The 475 Turnbull CPS and FPS are 475 gr solids with a resulting sectional density of .3.  With North Fork bullets and the Turnbull cartridge family, large bore levergun fans can tackle the big stuff with confidence. Available soon.