These were the 2 final groups I fired on Sep 5, 2012. The group on the left
is 5 shots (North Fork .308-165gr SS) from a .308 and measures .747 C to C. The other group was fired
with Sierras (target bullets) and measures .430.I think these are very accurate hunting bullets and would have no fears if
any of my clients wished to us them.

Keep up the good work.
Edd (From Evolution USA Rifles www.evo-rifles.com)

If you are not a reloader or have just run out of time, McMillan Ammunition has just started a new line of dangerous game ammunition featuring North Fork Bullets. McMillan stands for quality and this ammuntion is no exception.

http://mcmillanusa.com/ammo-adg.php

Great accuracy was seen with the North Fork .375 product line by “Real Guns” during testing of the Blaser R8. Check out the whole article at http://www.realguns.com/articles/205.htm

I just returned from a wonderful safari with Roger Whittall Safaris on Humani in the Save River Conservancy in Zimbabwe on which I used North Fork bullets in Cal. 416 Rem. Mag. with excellent results.   I hunted plains game and was an observer on my brother’s Elephant / Buffalo hunt.  Also possible were Leopard and Lion.  Being allergic to becoming a greasy spot on the dirt, prior to the hunt I spent 10 months testing gun, scopes and bullets.  I tested all the better bullets.  Because they are machined instead of being stamped out, North Fork bullets were the most  CONSISTENT bullets.  They were the most accurate.  The Soft, Solid and Cup all shot to the same point of impact (making lovely little cloverleafs) with the same load.  They didn’t change POI from lot to lot. They shot to the same velocity with lower pressures observable on primers and primer pocket expansion.  The benefit is that one can spend much less time developing loads for the rifle, and more time tending to the myriad of other tasks required to go on safari.

My PH broke out in smiles when he saw my North Fork ammunition.  He had recently guided a 9 cow cull with a South African fellow, and part of the exercise was to evaluate bullets.  They tested five each of 9 different bullets on one carcass for penetration, and of course shot eight more Elephant.  The North Fork and (another lathe-turned flat meplat monolith manufactured in South Africa) out-performed everything else by a significant margin.  He held up the soft “this will be just the ticket if we get round to the Buffalo.  They don’t shed petals and swerve off into the guts.”  He held up the solid.  ”If your brother’s elephant takes one step after his shot, I want you to shoot and keep shooting as fast as you can until he’s down.  Shoot the heart-lungs, shoot the spine, shoot the main leg bones, shoot the hip, and failing that, shoot it anywhere you can.  These bullets penetrate like mad, just smash through bones and keep going straight”  And so it was.  My brother’s .500 N. E. was a perfectly placed frontal brain shot (not with a North Fork Bullet though), but to our absolute shock and horror, the Elephant turned and ran.   Boo-Boom went his left and the PH’s shot into the heart-lung during the turn.  I was covering another bull, which quickly turned and was no longer a threat so I put a solid into my brothers retreating bull next to the base of the tail.  He stopped, swayed once, and down he went.  I think the Bull was pretty much done for, and wouldn’t have gone far even without my shot, but we were all gratified when he stopped and went down.  My bullet penetrated the hind-quarters, ran along the spine, got through the paunch, penetrated the liver, and was found in the heart-lung area.

We used the soft on the Kudu and Buffalo, both quartering one shot kills through the shoulder and heart-lung area, with the bullet bulging the skin on the off side.  Perfect.

Just finished load development for a .416 Rem. Mag. 700 out of the Custom shop. The gun was an orphan, and had been passed around from hand to hand because it had feeding problems. It shot well enough, but wouldn’t feed anything but round nose or spire point bullets. Turned out that the magazine box was standing up in front of the feed ramp slightly. A little judicious filing to fair the lips of the magazine box to match the feed ramp and the flat points fed like butter.
Loading, which I thought would be a long and tedious process turned out to be a snap, which I attribute to the uniformity from bullet to bullet and commonality of form from flat point to cup point to soft. I also load for benchrest, and like to measure. These bullets are all the same. It’s like picking up a box of Lapua 6 mm BR brass. You just can’t find any anomalies.
I tested just about everybody’s bullets, and the North Forks seemed to group the best individually. Settling on 76 gr. of Reloader 15 across the board for the 370 gr. soft, cup and flat gave nice 2350 fps. low pressure loads with a low velocity spread, round primers, and no noticeable primer pocket expansion. Oddly, i no the different North Forks all seem to shoot about the same velocity. The Federal Trophy 400 gr. Factory load was my “check load”, and the soft also clocked 2350, with flat-flat primers, and looser pockets.
Finally the days of preliminary load development are over. I’ve got 100 new R-P Brass (Huntingtons has a giant lot of .416 brass which seems better than average), and enough primers & powder out of the same lots to assemble my loads to take to Zimbabwe in September. But will it shoot? I wondered what it will take to get all the bullets to shoot together. I’ve been stomped to death when short on time before a trip and forced to just keep shooting that .470 that won’t regulate, or that light .375 that slaps you like a red-headed stepchild and then throws the softs and the solids to different parts of the world.
Shot in at 50 yards, one soft, one cup, and one flat cut a neat cloverleaf. 100 yards yields a horizontal string about 1 caliber tall and 1.25 ” wide, still dead on. 200 yards yields another horizontal string, 3″ wide and about .75″ deep printing 5″ low. The wind is fishtailing over either shoulder, I estimate at least half the horizontal spread is a weather report. I was elated. As Taylor said, confidence in equipment is critical for effective game shots. These bullets inspire calm collected shooting.
These North Forks are simply great bullets. Dug out of drought dried black clay they look like dirtier versions of the promo pictures. I’m hoping to see what they look like dug out of some animals.

Gary Glick

North Fork bullets continue to perform well in independent testing. We sent our new .416 400 gr SS and CPS to Joseph D’Alessandro, editor of www.realguns.com, for a test he was conducting with a CZ 550 416 Rigby. Our 416 400gr SS ranked #1 in his test for soft points and our CPS came in a close second for solids. The soft point penetrated deeply, exhibited controlled expansion and high weight retention while our competitors fell apart under the harsh testing.  The CPS came in a close second to traditional solids even though it is an expanding solid. Too bad our flat point solid was not in the test. Read the whole review here www.realguns.com/archives/179.htm

North Fork Premium Bonded Soft Points are a natural replacement for Trophy Bonded Bear Claws(tm). North Fork  Soft Points offer the same great terminal performance of the “original” Trophy Bonded Bear Claws(tm) with less fouling and at a lower cost.  North Fork Soft Points utilize a pure copper jacket with a solid rear shank and a lead bonded core. North Fork improvements include:

• Grooves in the rear shank to reduce fouling
• Pure copper and pure lead construction hold together better under impact then gilded/alloy metals
• Ogive shaped core hole eliminates fracture points found in other designs 

Step up to a North Fork and experience the confidence a superior bullet offers.

There have been multiple enquiries about loading the 405 Winchester with North Fork bullets and more specifically, in the recently manufactured Miroku resurrection of the M95 Winchester.  I have been requested to clarify some points on the matter, which will also reduce the need for repetition on an individual basis.

 First I will start with the soft point 411-300.  Originally, I did not put that much thought into the use of this bullet in the 405, as when it was designed, there was no nostalgic ground swell of interest as there were no new rifles in that chambering.  My initial concern was the lack of crimp groove in the right position for the 405 cartridge.  After the new rifles came on the market, several customers wished to try them in their M95.  With my blessing (after my usual lecture on safety but little information, they went forward and found that it did indeed work well in the 405 Win albeit with no crimp groove available.  Actually, as opposed to other lever actions with tubular magazines, the M95 really doesn’t need to have the bullets crimped in place if the neck tension is anywhere near normal.  If it makes someone feel better, you can use a Lee Factory crimp die on the case mouth.  Just be careful as the bullet will not give like a thin-jacketed bullet and it is easy to over-stress the die and break it.  There’s no need to worry about the bullet; you can’t hurt it.  You will break the die, the press, or your bench before you do that.  As far as performance, the designed parameters of the bullet fit the velocity capabilities of the cartridge very well. 

The bullet is a true .411 and “most” 405 rifles are either .412 or .413 or even greater.  That is of no concern.  Even though the base of the bullet is of monolithic construction, the material is annealed and will easily bump up an additional .002+”.  I have not measured one but have heard that the Ruger #1s in 405 may have a .410 groove diameter.  That is also is of no concern as my own test rifle is a Douglas .410 barrel and the .001″ oversize of the bullet has never caused a problem.  Saying that, I would still consider a .410 as being the minimum practical barrel groove diameter. 

 Now to what is causing all the stir; the solids.  I had previously made solids for the 405 Win and it was quite the learning process.  Originally, I had made them (per request) in .411 diameter.  Well it was found that in the new Miroku M95 405 that the bullet was not getting sufficient rifling purchase and would tumble.  In the mean time, I had purchased my own M95 405 and on hearing of the problem, I slugged my own barrel and found it to be .4131″.  With the design of the contact surface of the solids, there was no chance that they would work a full .002 or more undersized.  New solids were made to correspond to the known barrel dimensions and they then worked great, in my rifle as well as the customer’s.  There is a lesson to be noted by all; the 413 dimension only “positively” pertains to the most recently made (with the faux case colors) Miroku 405 rifles.  Those are the only ones that I have personally slugged and measured.  I have heard of different measurements of earlier Miroku M95s but I do not know whether that has to do with improper slugging, measurement technique, or equipment (for the accuracy required, calipers are useless, might as well use a yard stick) or whether there actually were barrels of varying dimensions.  I’m thinking that they probably are all .413, at least the ones equipped with Miroku manufactured barrels (the first generation M95 405s were the 270s that did not sell well and were returned to Japan to be equipped with barrels supplied by a third party) but I am not 100% certain.

 In any case, if anyone were considering using the solids in their M95s that are not of the last generation of Miroku products, it would be wise to slug your barrel to find it’s true size.  Knowing that few have the proper measuring equipment, North Fork will measure a quality slug and produce the correct diameter bullet for your rifle.

 Pressure tested load data for both softs and solids will be coming soon.. 

Mike Brady          (Email info@northforkbullets.com  or call 541-929-4016 for orders)                    

North Fork is adding 400gr weights to its 416 Premium Bonded Core and Solid line-up. North Fork will continue to offer its outstanding performing 370gr 416’s. Look for the 400gr .416’s soon.

North Fork .416 400gr Premium Bonded SS at 2400fps