Gerard, interesting you bring up the issue of steel jacket solids.

I spoke to Graeme Wright about this whole issue last Sunday. He does not limit possible problematic bullets to monos. He uses the term "hard" bullets when discussing bullets that may cause damage to doubles. He told me he has only seen 3 cases of OSR, and one was a W/R .404 bolt gun that was likely damaged by Woodleigh Solids. Three guns in the thousands he has inspected.

Gerard, you are right.

400nitroexpress demands that mono bullet makers "prove" that their bullets are safe. Fair enough. Let the steel jacket solid makers do so as well. Wright believes Woodleigh solids are as likely to cause damage as banded monos and believes that under certain circumstances both have. Now, if 400 is going to tell us that steel jacket solids are safe because he hasn't personally seen a case of damage caused by them, then those who have had good experience with monos should be allowed the right to say the same. 400nitroexpress can argue with Graeme Wright if he likes but I won't. I take Wright at his word and his experience is immense and his knowledge of the subject vast.

And what about Hornady steel jacket solids? I know they are as difficult {basically, impossible} to resize in my reduction dies as are monos where the mono shaft touches the die. Does that make them as "dangerous" to fire in a double rifle as a mono? I don't know.

Maybe Hornady and Woodleigh should follow 400nitroexpress's demand to buy 10 representative doubles and fire a thousand rounds thru each before selling the bullets since they both appear to make hard bullets.

Can monos and other hard solids damage doubles? I bet they can. Especially when the shooter runs them thru a tight bore he failed to slug before he shot them or runs them thru a gun that has been restruck over and over again and is essentially a hand-grenade waiting to pop or he shoots them in a gun that possesses some other quirk of decrepitude or bad engineering that might result in a wrecked gun or in a new or good condition gun with a combination of design features that are incompatible with hard bullets.

Here is a list of guidelines Wright and I discussed that might make for safe "hard"-bullet shooting. Can't guarantee safety, but these seem pretty sound. He must think so because he shoots monos in his .500 and .500/.450 doubles. He's killed buffalo with them, using the Woodleigh Hydrostatic. Fascinating bullet in its own "right".

Anyway, here's some ideas. "Hard" bullets should:

1} be banded
2} be undersize
3} never be shot in BP guns
4} never be shot in "non-cut" rifling types like W/R or Metford-type rifling
5} possess a shank that does not touch the bore
6} be softer than the barrel
7} be shot in guns with narrow lands and wide grooves

And in a recent conversation with Dave Scovill of WOLFE Publishing, this suggestion was made by him as well; shaft and band grooves from .004 to .010 less than bore diameter of the gun in which the bullet is fired.

Graeme Wright told me he considers Geoff MacDonald and Randy Brooks to be both honest fellows and the producers of good products. I would concur. How a guy uses their products after he buys them is up to the guy. Certainly the dimensions of the bullets are slapped on the boxes and can be easily miked anyhow.

I don't know Gerard's bullets too well, but have read very good reports about them and have never read of a single complaint against them. I'd like to try some, some time. They look like very good bullets and they have a great reputation.

In Wright's book he notes a double he had that possessed barrels that were .015 different in groove depth. If two such barrels were made by a modern boltgun maker, one or both of them would be scrapped. Old doubles are known to be all over the map regarding bore dimensions. So it goes, just because it is a "Best Gun" doesn't mean it IS, as it were, at least as it applies to hard bullets.

Caveat emptor.

Applies to double gun buyers and shooters, too.