Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. S mokeless powder brought forth the jacketed bullet. No matter how hard the alloy, lead bullets wouldn’t hold up in the bore at smokeless velocities, so the lead was “jacketed” in a sheath of harder metal. Experimentation eventually arrived at today’s mostcommon jacket material, copper alloyed with a little zinc, known as gilding metal. The lack of powder fouling also allowed the use of smaller-diameter bullets. With black powder, repeat shots deposited so much fouling any bore much under .38 caliber became hopelessly inaccurate after more than a couple of shots. The smokeless combination of extra muzzle velocity and a smaller bullet flattened trajectory considerably, a real advantage in hitting distant targets, whether paper, enemy soldiers or big game animals. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that while a small-diameter, full-jacketed bullet put a nice hole in paper targets, it didn’t stop soldiers or game as well as a fat lead bullet at much slower velocities. Thus the expanding jacketed bullet was born. In those days all jacketed bullets were made either by pressing the jacket around the front of the bullet, leaving the lead core exposed in the rear for a “solid” bullet, or pressing the jacket around the rear of the bullet, leaving the front end open in a hollowpoint or softnose for an expanding bullet. There were some hitches in developing bullets that always expanded yet penetrated sufficiently, the reason some hunters still preferred “solid” (nonexpanding) bullets well into the 20th century, especially on really large game. One of the most famous was W.D.M. Bell, a professional ivory hunter who is still well-known for killing most of his bull elephants with smaller cartridges such as the 6.5x54 Mannlicher, 7x57 Mauser and .318 Westley-Richards. Bell once famously stated the barrel of one of his small-bores was never “polluted” with a softnose bullet. His secret to killing cleanly with solids from smallbore was very good shooting and a thorough knowledge of anatomy — plus the fact that, after all, the brain of an elephant is as big as a 2-pound loaf of bread, so really isn’t all that hard to hit at 50 yards. Most other hunters weren’t after elephants but after the usual array of edible big game, especially deer, and found an expanding .30-30 or 7x57 bullet through the lungs killed a lot quicker than a solid. Soon it was discovered a heavier jacket at the rear of the bullet helped create a “mushroom” shaped bullet on impact. A mere 50 years after the introduction of Peter Paul Mauser’s best-known bolt action, the Model of 1898, a hunter from Oregon developed a jacketed bullet that both expanded violently yet penetrated deeply, even when striking the heavy bone of a bull moose’s shoulder. The guy from Oregon was named John Nosler, and some hunters still think the 98 Mauser and the Nosler Partition are the best bolt action and best all-around big game bullet. (Personally, I wouldn’t argue against them very hard, though unlike the hunters who clung to blackpowder big-bores into the 1930s I am open to new realities.) Since 1948, when the Partition first appeared commercially, a number of other “controlled-expansion” bullets have appeared on the market, even from the Nosler company. In fact, over the past 20 years some new expanding bullets have come almost full-circle and act almost like solids. Quite a few hunters John Barsness Most bullet companies vary their bullets according to intended use. Bigger Nosler Partitions (top) have the partition moved forward so the bullet will retain more weight and penetrate deeper. The .416 bullet (top right) killed a Cape buffalo, and retained 95-percent of its weight. Super deeppenetrating bullets like the Barnes Triple Shock X-Bullet and Nosler E-Tip (middle) really help on truly large game, but don’t tend to kill smaller game as quickly as “ordinary” bullets. The Hornady Interbond (bottom), a fine “compromise” bullet, expands fairly widely yet penetrates deeply enough for medium-sized game between deer and 1,000 pounds. 56 WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM • DECEMBER 2009