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Well I think we'd probably agree on more then we disagree on. Just as a notation 538 yards is within my 500 meter limit.

I would also concede that the A frames are going to retain more weight then the Nosler Partitions, but I am getting 100% penetration with the Noslers, and I have been doing so since I was 12 years old. In all the years I have shot them I have recovered exactly one. Last year's elk. A 160 gr .277 from the 270 WSM, and it still weighs 129 grains. The 1st shot went clear through and left an exit of about 1-3/8". Not bad in my opinion. Swift makes 150 grain 270s. If I had used one of them and if I had recovered it I doubt it would weight muich more when it stopped. It might. But would that matter?
I know the Barnes X 150 gr would probably weigh more then either the Swift or the Nosler. Most of them retain about 97% of their weight and they still cost less than Swifts and are just as accurate (In the guns I have tested anyway) but again they don't open up much at 500 meters. A frames and expanding solids are at the top of their game when they impact animals at 300 yards and less.

So saying Swifts are "better" is subjective.

Do swifts kill animals within 1-2 seconds?
Yes!

Do they give good wound channels?
Yes!

Do they go clear through?
Yes!

So do the Partitions I have used since 1968.

And I have only 1 time in all those years shot an animal with more then one Partition (last year on my elk, 2 shots, 2 hits)and I have never had an animal get away, and I have never had one stay on it's feet for more then about 2 seconds after hit with one.

So how is the Swift "better"?
I will admit A frames hold more of their weight, but they also do not expand as well at 400 to 500 meters. So that's a trade off.

I would be happy to pay more if I thought I was getting more, but in my experience with the calibers I used, in the years I have used them, the Noslers are batting 1000 with me.

To me, Swifts are simply overpriced. If I were a rich man, and money was no object I would still not use them if I could get Nosler Partitions, Nosler Bonded or Hornady Bonded, or Barnes X bullets.

As I said I believe they are as well made as any bullet on earth, but over the spectrum of velocities I use them at, in the calibers I use, I think they are not quite as good "all around" as what I am using now. I have nothing against Swifts, but I don't think they are fully competitive.

Heck, if someone was to offer me 5,000 bullets of my own choice as a present, for free, and I could choose anything I wanted, I would still go with Nosler for probably 70% of them, and Barnes and Hornady for the last 30%

If I were to hunt larger game than moose there might be other bullets I would buy. But I don't hunt anything much larger than moose, and moose and buffalo are hunted very seldom for me now days. The largest game animals I have killed in the last 20 years were buffalo, and I shot them with handguns and cast bullets.

Next in line for size was moose. 2 with a 375 H&H, one with a 348 Winchester and one with a 62 cal muzzleloader.

One of those moose I shot 2 times with 285 gr Speer Grand Slams. One was shot with a 300 gr Sierra from my 375 (bullet failed)
One with a Hornady 200 gr flat point from my M71 Lever action (stayed in the body but killed the moose) , but only the one killed with the flintlock fell at the shot. The other 3 walked a short distance before falling. And the flintlock also gave me an exit.

I have written in the past that it's wounds that do the killing. Bullets (or arrows, spears and so on) make the wounds.
I stand by that as truth.

Bullet wounds have 2 properties that matter. One is cavitation and one is hydrostatic shock.
The shock effect is most evident when bone or "wet flesh" is hit. Cavatation is most evident when muscle and firm tissue is hit.
It's easy to see when you kill animals with guns that shoot WAY slower then modern magnums.

I have killed quite a lot of game with flintlocks and also with modern revolvers. The kills are quite fast in most cases. Even when velocity is only 1200 FPS.

That moose I mentioned above was killed with a 320 grain ball of hardened lead and the impact velocity was probably only about 1200 FPS, yet the moose hit the ground before the smoke let me see it fall.
That ball didn't do a lot of liquid compression to the moose ("shock") yet it hit the ground before the noise was done echoing.

Most of the bison I have seen killed were killed with big magnum rifles, and yet my 44 magnum and my 454 Casull put them down just about as fast as my friends 416 Rigby and several 338s I have seen used on them. My friend Colin shot one several times with 250 grain bullets from a 338-06 and it stayed on its feet for about 10-15 seconds. My 454 put 2 of them down in about 4-5 seconds. Colin recovered his 338 bullets. My 454s exited.

Does that mean the 370 gr LBT Hard Cast bullet is "better" than the 388 250 grain bullets?
No.

It means it works in a different way.

The 338 has more energy, but that energy was transferred faster and made shorter, larger diameter wounds. The 454 makes woulds about 1" down to 3/4 inch around, but they will go through a beef cow from end to end.

Both made killing wounds.

So saying something is "better" across the board is not always a good statement. If something can be "better" then logically there has to be a best.

But "best' depends on a situation.

That situation has a LOT of variables.
What kind of Animal.
Body Position.
Size.
Mental state of the animal.
Range.
Velocity at impact.
Place of impact.
Bullet construction.
Terminal trajectory within the animal.
Ability of the shooter (which is effected by MANY things, one of which is how much he can practice, as well as his natural abilities)
and probably about 10 other things I didn't list.

So we take our best guess as to what the future hunt will hold in store for us.

In that way I would agree that a bullet that works perfectly at close to mid range is more likely to be needed than one that works perfectly at long range. I can tell you from a lot of personal experience that a so-so bullet at a long range target is not ideal, but it usually works out. A Barnes X at long range makes a narrow hole, but as I just mentioned, so does a 44 mag. Both will kill----- and kill well.
Just maybe not as fast as we'd like.

Bullets that go all to pieces....I don't like them at any range or on any game bigger than 50 pounds.

A so-so bullet at a close range target is the kind of thing that can get you into trouble. On non dangerous game it leads to us tracking down the animal and having it suffer longer than necessary.

On dangerous game.........well that is the stuff of the stories. Not the good stories either.

In this I will concede that Swifts are excellent. When they don't expand well they still are at least as effective as a good broad-head, and history shows us that's pretty good.

But so are expanding copper solids, and in all the guns I own at least, so are "heavy for caliber" Partitions. I have killed game at very long range with them (Much longer than I will shoot now days) and had exits. The exit holes were still coin sized. I love them. And they have not failed me at close range ever.

One last thought.
I love the fact that today we have the option to compare these things. It's like the Super Bowl of bullets. In the 1960s and before, those that shot factory loads didn't have many options, and even handloaders had a lot fewer than we do today.

On a scale of 1-10 it is delightful to be able to try to figure out what bullets are in the 8-10 range, argue the merits of them against each other, ------- and ignore 1-8 all together.

That is a blessing we have today that shooters have never had in history.

Edited by szihn (01/12/16 06:22 AM)

All true.
But I am not hunting Buffalo anymore. I am hunting elk. That's the point I made several posts ago.

You point out the facts reported in that magazine article and I don't disagree with any of them, but I point out to you that in that very article the close range test shows the Partition beat the A-fame. In long range testing the A-frame beat the Nosler. I have no problem with any of that.

But I am not shooting a 300 Win Mag with 180 grain bullets. Or any of the super mags either. I wonder how the testing would have gone with a bit slower gun, 300 H&H or 30-06 shooting 200 or 220 grain bullets. Or the same test with the same bullets, but being shot from a 308 Winchester. Neither you or I know those things as of this moment do we?

What I do know is that my 300 H&H (Old M70) had done very well on elk with 200 and 220 grain Partition out to about 450 yards and killed them DRT leaving good size exits. Theory is good, but the fact is the 300 H&H is doing perfectly, and I can't really get any better than 100%. I now have another 300 H&H I made for myself on a Mauser with a 27" barrel. I am sure the same loads with 200 and 220 grain bullets will work just as well from it.

I do know what a 308 will do with 150 Gr Winchester Power Points because last year my wife and a friend killed 2 elk with them at about 300 and 400 yards. I was pleasantly surprised that they worked far better then I expected.

For the game I am hunting and from the guns/calibers I am hunting with, the Partitions are working as well or better than the A-frames that I have seen customers and friends shoot. I personally have not used A-frames for the reasons I stated in the previous posts, but I have seen them used by a few other hunters. I can't say in honesty that I have seen they work any better than the partitions, and in a few cases, like the shots at longer range, they don't work as well ON ELK.

I am sure they would do better on Bison or Buffalo, but I would probably be using a bigger gun on them anyway.

I am not married to Nosler Partitions. I have no loyalty pledge to them. I use them many times with 100% success so far, but I am willing to try other bullets too. As you can see from this very thread. I killed my elk this year with 8MM Hornady SSTs.

I still like to learn when I can, and as a custom gunsmith, it's good for me to have real world knowledge of various bullets on game at various velocities. I think it's a fascinating subject.

I am very interested in trying many of the new bonded bullets that are out today too, and I hope I live long enough to have a LOT of things to say about them someday too.

The reason I like Nosler Partition is that in my years of hunting I have yet to have one fail me.

I agree that if I were to shoot a faster rifle the Barnes or Swift would probably be better.

But I am not shooting faster guns!

I am shooting guns and calibers most of which were "new" in the 1920s and some were "new" in the late 1800s. The Partitions were the best thing going for such calibers when John Nosler brought them out in the late 1940s. From experience (A LOT OF IT) I have to say I have yet to see that has changed for such guns and calibers.

For the fastest of the new Super-magnums I have no doubt the X bullets and the A frames ARE better overall, but I don't shoot those, and I don't really like them much. My tastes run more toward the classics. I hunt for the fun and for the meat. If I have more fun hunting with a classic rifle which is old fashioned (like maybe even my flintlocks) there is no harm in that, and no one should feel slighted by it. I don't care what others use. If I am asked I will tell them what I know, I will tell them what I believe and why I believe it, and I will tell them what I just don't know yet.

The human being is plagued with a condition physiologists call "cognitive dissonance". One of the points of this phenomenon is that people will defend what they are invested in, because the investment causes them to feel a need to be "right" in their mind. We see it in the media and among liberals all the time.

Defending your investment is a good thing in principal, but not always in practice.

Years ago "Nebraska Man" was all the rage in the study of archeology. It was of enough interest to some in the collage systems that many grad school students wrote their thesis's on the study of this new find, and waxed on and on about all they could learn from "Nebraska Man", and how important it was to the field of study. Some of these students went on to be awarded PHDs and doctorates in the study of archeology.

But with the advent of Gas Chromatography the fossils of "Nebraska Man" were found to be from a pig.

How interesting that the "doctors' were not made into "non-doctors" ----- and many tried for 20 years after to defend their conclusions from collage.

See, those men and women invested years of time and thousands of dollars into their field of study. They were "educated" and would tell you so at every opportunity. So they just could NOT be wrong.

But they were.

It didn't make them immoral, illegal, unethical ------ or even fat.
They were just wrong. (welcome to the human race huh?)

But its interesting to see how people will defend their position even in the face of opposing facts.

People are far more likely to defend something that costs them more time or money than they are to defend something that costs less time or money. That's how cognitive dissonance works. It is disarmed and become less of a lever on us when we know what it is and how it works. Humility is the best weapon against it, which is why liberals don't ever see how it's bending them.

Black Lives do matter, but no more than any human life in the eyes of God. Say that on TV and you somehow become a racist because cognitive dissonance is controlling liberal emotions.

I really like and trust Nosler Partitions because they have been 100% effective for me so far. I know of some men that have had different experience with them, and all I can recall were driving them faster than I do.

So I don't think they are the only bullet on earth. I do use others and I report what I find, good, mediocre or bad. I did it when I started this very thread. As you said, this is not CNN. I am not a "liberal".

I am a Christian. I didn't want to be a Christian when I was younger because the faith demanded I look at truth and see myself in light of that truth. I didn't like all of what I saw. So I tried to ignore it for several years. Cognitive dissonance held some sway with me.

But when we get honest with ourselves, then, and only then, can become honest with God.

I now try to live my life in all ways by that foundational principal. It means I can acknowledge that all I like may not be good, and some of what I don't like may be good. I am under obligation to embrace what's good and my likes and dislikes have to be in 2nd pace to the truth. It covers my life and filters down from things like politics and faith to work, charging for my labor, to the helping of others and even what products I buy, recommend, and why.

I am as patriotic as any man you will ever meet, but when I see something my government is doing wrong I am quick to condemn it, and speak openly about it. I love the idea of "Be American and Buy American" as long as an American product is (A) available and (B) of equal or better quality compared to an import.
But I do not think being self-deceived and buying an inferior American Made Product is the right thing to do if an import is better quality. If "Buying American" is supporting a communist based Labor Union that is largely controlled by the Chines or Russians it may be better for my own country to buy the import and give an American the motivation to compete with the Lib/Comm-controlled Unions. Life is not allways that simple and even in my best efforts I am sure I make mistakes..

Why this rant?
Because I am trying my best with my somewhat limited abilities as a writer, to point out that I am NOT "married" to any product, (Nosler included) but I am married to a principal. That principal being that truth and facts should drive our choices, not emotions, not investments, and not unguided loyalties.

That is the basis of Biblical truth and it is also the foundation of Constitutional Law inculcated into our Bill of Rights. It should become part of who we are at every level. It's OK to disagree, but its dangerous to disagree with someone just because you don't like the facts they point out.

That said, I would agree that A-frames may be better for buffalo, but for elk I don't think so.
Your mileage may vary.