Bullets for  Big 5.

A single bullet from a .454 Casull revolver has sent the 3000lbs animal to the other side, to the place where there are no hunters and the grass is always green. But for the hunter who is still on this side a dream has come thru. To take a really large animal with a handgun and do it “clean”!!

This bullet has done the same thing  30-40 times before. Of course there have been many animals less than the Giraffe`s 3000lbs, but Wildebeest, Giraffe, Blesbuck, Moose, Waterbuck, Kudu have also easily been taken with this bullet, travelling at a modest 1350fps. There is nothing magical about it. It’s only a bullet made from a modified Lyman 400gr mould.

The 378gr .452 bullet to the right compared to a 300gr .429 bullet

At Brinell 17 the bullets turn out at 378gr.  To cast bullets is something I really enjoy, but not all Handgun hunter’s out there  take interest in making their own bullets so….

 In the later years there are several manufactures making bullets for handgun hunting. One of them is the South African based firm  Frontier. Based in South Africa they have of course other demands for their bullets compared to my country (Norway) where we have no serious dangerous animals that we can hunt.

So…. What is new? Well they have a new bullet out there! A new bullet for you that do not like to cast your own bullets and maybe this bullet will be the bullet you would like to have in your cylinder when you meet your first Elephant, Lion or maybe a Bear.

Frontier makes actually two large game bullets for the .454Casull/. The first is a 380gr CMJ (complete metal jacket) bullet made to be used in both 45LC and 454 Casull. ”Click” at the photo and you will get a short story about Frontier..

The bullet was said to be 380gr but turned out to be 370gr with the extreme spread of 2,5gr. It has two crimp groves so it is suited for both 45LC and .454 Casull.

The diameter was .4515 and the bullet was extremely uniform, 10 bullets measuring exactly .4515.

 

The bullet is of the “soft lead, water harden type” The bullet is in this case covered by a  thin copper layer measured to Brinell 35. The lead core Brinell 9 and the hardened outer layer was Brinell 14.

The electroplated copper layer was .006” (0,15mm) thick and even if this copper layer help to keep the bullet together, I must admit that I was a little disappointed in the construction. I had hoped for a hard cast bullet of Brinell 15-17 with a thicker copper layer and a larger meplate.

  Here the meplate of the 370 Frontier, compared to the 378gr Caly  bullet (the Modified Lyman mould) Meplate of the 370 Frontier measured ,267” (6,7mm) and the 378gr measured 0,315 (8mm).

 

Testing this bullet showed that it still performed quite well.

In wet packs the bullet travelled straight for 70-80cm before tumbling out of the wet pack, but all the bullets held together with only minor pitting on the copper layer. The precision was in the 2,3” (60mm) at 50 meter range. Not like a bench rest rifle, but from my Freedomarms revolver, this is quite good. (My FA revolver seldom produces groups tighter than that.) The load used for testing was 22gr Vihtavuori (comparable with Alliant 2400) in Starline brass. This load produced 1340fps at 15 degrees Celsius.

Conclusion??: It is quite cheap, do not break up in wet packs, quite precise, But it do not have the straight line penetration required to go after the really big animals, so even if the bullet held together thru the wet pack test (15 bullets were tested) I still would not use this bullet for the really large game like Giraffe, Buffalo, Elephant. This is a medium game bullet and the perfect big game training bullet in my opinion.

What about the last bullet from Frontier?

The 390gr Frontier CS GR Big 5!!

This is a bullet made for the, 454 Casull and it is a joint effort between two experienced South African handgun hunters (Sarel and Casper Badenhorst) and Frontier.

There is a “no bullshit” attitude to this bullet. If you advertise a “Big 5” bullet for Handgun hunting you have to present something that works. Hunters are going to depend on it and hunt dangerous game with it, so it better not fail!!

Let’s take a look at the bullet: From left to right 370gr Frontier, 378gr Caly, 390gr CS GR Frontier, and the 425gr Lyman .458” sized down to .452 (The same is done with the 378gr bullet)

At the bench statistics: Average weight was 391,7gr with the extreme spread of 1.8gr. This is better than the 370gr bullet that proved to be quite precise.

390CSGR (Casper, Sarel Game Ranger) to the left and the 370gr to the right.

The crimp is quite shallow on both of them, but initial testing with “hot” loads crimped separately in a RCBS die, proved no bullets creeping out of the brass. Why not make the crimp groove deeper? Because deeper crimp groove will also make the bullet  more fragile at this point.

The crimp grove was placed 0,630 (16mm) from the base of the bullet and that gave me an OAL of 1,756” (44,6mm) with new Starline brass.

We do not want that bullet to jam the cylinder when the Buffalo is on the war path!

Jacket on the 390Gr CSGR is 3 times thicker (0,45mm)than the 370gr bullet and this is quite visible on this photo:

From left: 390CSGR, 370Frontier, 325gr Swift A frame, 300gr Hornady mag, 300gr Sierra and 300gr Speer.

From left 425gr Lyman, 390gr CSGR, 378gr Caly, 395gr Cast performance, 370gr frontier and 325gr Swift.

Meplate of the 390gr CSGR measured 0,291”(7,4mm)

Measuring uniformity in diameter gave 10 bullets measuring on the spot .4512 Maybe a tad under the dimension I prefer, but if the precision is ok this will probably give the bullet less friction and more speed.

Muzzle velocity: 21gr Vihtavuori gave 1270fps and with 22gr of Vihtavuori powder the 390gr bullet travelled at 1300fps. Shot some 370gr Frontier with 21gr Vihtavuori the same day (to compare) and the muzzle velocity was 1330fps.

A 390gr all lead bullet tested earlier clocked 1390 fps so the friction of the copper layer will take off some speed but in my opinion the Elephant will not feel the difference of 1300 and 1390fps. What is more important is for the bullet to hold together and maintain a straight line penetration.

What about the Lead core?: Still it seems like they like to use the water harden lead bullets as a core. My test samples had a harden lead layer of Brinell 17 and a core of Brinell 11. I still would rather like a hard cast bullet of 15-17 all the way thru, but this bullet is harder than the 370gr, and with the heavy jacket of the 390gr Bullet, this bullet will probably withstand a lot of abuse. 

Ready for the range: 14.11.2004

I am only out to test precision and functionality today. The weather is stable with no wind. Usually I test all my guns at 100meters but for the big guns, meant for heavy game I prefer to test them at 50 meters.

The temperature is about 5 degrees Celsius. First five shots from the Freedomarms revolver tell me that something is seriously wrong.

After 3 shots the cylinder jams with a bullet stuck between the cylinder and the barrel. The crimp is quite heavy and after I return home I try to even crimp the bullet harder but then the brass starts to show stress below the bullet base. I really think the crimp grove is to shallow to give a bullet grip to trust in all situations.

A 3” group

As if this is not enough in one day to make me worry, the precision is nothing to brag about either. 3X5 shots from both the Ruger Super Redhawk and the Freedomarms revolver told the story. Fredomarms average of 3.01” (76mm) and for the Ruger: 3,3” (84mm)

First thing to do after returning from the range was to send Frontier a mail with my opinion about the crimp grove. Sarel and Casper contacted me and told that they had not experienced the creep problem, but they had used Lee`s factory crimp die and not the seater/crimpdie that was standard in RCBS set.

Frontier agreed with me that a commercially sold bullet had to be reloaded safely with the reloading tools from the known manufacturer of quality reloading tools so they promised to send a new improved batch. Accuracy was at the time not an issue since the first test had bullets creeping all over and could not be trusted.

New bullets arrived and the crimp grove was deeper than the first batch. In the mean time I had bought a Lee Factory crimp die and as Casper stated, were there no problems with bullets creeping when I used that die.

The crimp with the RCBS die looked ok with the new bullet

  

This is the recoil calculation of a Rifle in cal 375 H&H magnum

This is the Freedomarms .454 Casull revolver loaded with the Frontier bullet. The recoil energy is practically the same as the 375 H&H but the revolver delivers the recoil in half of the time!! It is not strange that the bullet wants to leave the brass!!

A day at the range did also prove that the new crimp grove was good enough to hold the bullet during heavy recoil. The Fredomarms revolver with no optics does recoil hard and if you want that bullet to stay inside the brass during recoil you have to pay a lot of attention to that crimp. With new brass the Lee Factory crimp die was turned ¾ turn after the die touched the mouth of the brass. The RCBS was turned ½ turn. More than this and the brass started to deform. Start with the mouth of the brass just covering the crimp grove.

So what about the accuracy..?

 The two loads I concentrated on were the 390gr CSGR Frontier in front of 22gr of Vihtavuori N110 and the same 390gr bullet in front of 23,5gr Hogdon H110. All loads shot at -5 to -9 degrees Celsius.

 The 22gr Vihtavuori load is on the edge of what is practical, a very compressed load that left the muzzle at 1300 fps. The 23,5 gr Hogdon H110 was a tad slower at 1280fps but was only moderate compressed so in  the end I think that the H110 powder from Hogdon is the better one when using the bullets from 370 and up to 425gr if maximum load is wanted. Even so I will still use the Vihtavuori powder because of it is easier to get here.

The 22gr Vihtavuori load tested at 50 meters measured exactly the same as the Fredomarms revolver did in the first test. 3,01 inch (76mm) But this time tested with the Ruger Super Redhawk with a 4X Leupold scope.

The 23,5gr Hogdon H110 load was better with 2,42 Inch (61mm) from a 6 Inch Freedomarms Revolver also topped by a Leupold 4X scope.

From the RCBS External ballistics calculator the graph tells us that even with a heavy bullet like this, with zero at 80 meters the bullet is not more than 1.34 inch high at 50 meters and -2.12 inches low at 100 meter.

This bullet is made for hunting heavy and/or dangerous game and will not be used on distances much above 100 meters (I hope) so with a load that is in the 1200-1300fps range you do not need to think about trajectory at all.

Accuracy is important but for a bullet made to perform from a revolver at moderate speed, killing large animals and maybe large dangerous animals, deep and stable penetration is more important than millimetre accuracy.

All bullets used for hunting is tested in wet compressed telephone catalogues and I have to say this before I continue. When testing premium solid (copper electroplated) or hard cast bullets a minimum requirement is that there is no deformation of the bullet in the wet pack. My experience is that most large animals will be tougher on the bullet than the wet pack. My 378gr hard cast bullet have never been deformed or even scratched in the wet pack test, but still had some deformation after hitting Giraffe and Waterbuck.

But still the wet pack test gives me important information about how deep the penetration is relative to other tested bullets and also whether the bullet is stable all the way thru the wet pack. Unstable bullets will of course penetrate less and will probably also tend to be more unstable when hitting for instance a rib in a ribcage or some other bone.

Before testing the 390gr CSGR Frontier bullet I shot a couple of my 378gr Caly bullets that usually will penetrate about 105-107cm (at 1350fps). This cold day the 378gr Penetrated 95-100 cm (-3 Celsius).

Four 390gr bullets (at 1250fps) were shot and were found between 90-95cm mark and they had only started to tumble in the last catalogue. This indicates that they will penetrate a little deeper under “normal condition” about 100cm is what I expect from them. All the bullets looked better after shooting them in the wet pack, than in the brass, The bullets were “picture perfect” and had only gotten a polished look.

 The 390 was “picture perfect” after 95cm in the Wet pack. This bullet with it’s 0.45mm copper coating covering the bullet completely should be very strong also when comparing it to ordinary jacketed bullets that have an open jacket at the base of the bullet.

In the time between the first batch of 390gr and the second batch with the improved crimp groove Frontier had made a 300gr CSGR that I also tested along the 390gr

At 1580 fps, this is what the 300gr bullets, looked like. When testing bullets of this high quality, the wet pack test is not good enough to separate the good bullets from the premium one. We need something that can give them more of a challenge. This must be something that can simulate a hit in the larger bones of an animal.

The Frontier 300gr bullet at 1580 fps penetrated 10 cm less than the 390gr bullet. This shows that there is no use speeding up light bullets to get deep penetration. We need weight at moderate speed, more than extreme velocity.

The 300gr at 1580fps did show no deformation whatsoever from the wet pack test so to find out how tough these bullets really are I have to find something that will destroy the bullets and then compare them with the 378gr Bullets that I have shot a lot of animals with and then compare. The 378gr bullet is made from wheel weights and linotype alloy and measure 15-17 Brinell .

A 510gr CSGR Frontier bullet that I tested in a 45/70 double rifle showed that weight and stability is important. Two shots at 15 meters entered the wet pack at 1400fps with a centre to centre spread of 2 inches and after penetrating all the catalogues I had that day (155cm)!! The bullets entered the target I had put behind the wet pack with a centre to centre spread of 2.5”!! and none of the holes in the target showed any signs of bullets tumbling !!.

Bullet destruction!!

As I said earlier on, to determine how tough these CSGR bullets are we need more than wet pack’s. An Elephant scull or A Buffalo shoulder bone will stress the   bullet far more than both gelatine or soaked telephone catalogues. After thinking it over I decided to try to shoot the 378gr Caly hard cast bullet (Brinell 15-17) as a reference. 30 animals have told me that this is a tough bullet so it would be a good bullets to use as a reference. I would shoot the frontier CSGR 390gr at 1300 fps and the 300gr at 1550 Fps. First I would shoot them thru six 0,7mm mild steel plates, and then in to hard compressed sand to stop the bullets. Hardly not scientific but I believed that this could stress the bullets, so that I could judge one bullet from the other.

After shooting two of 390gr and two of the 378gr Caly I discovered an interesting thing!

Look at this. This is two 0.7 mm plates folded three times each. The two 390gr Frontier bullets have kept their initial diameter thru both (3X0, 7mm. Total of 4,2mm) plates. The Hard cast lead bullet on the other hand, have rapidly expanded to 18mm. This could be crucial when the bullet’s first impact in an animal is the shoulder bone of a Buffalo or the scull of an Elephant, or even a hip bone when a follow up shot is necessary and the shooting angle is far from perfect.

 

 

 

And this is how the bullets looked like when recovered from the sand (390gr at 1300fps and 378gr hard cast at 1350fps) . Even though I am very fond of my 378gr cast bullet I am not in doubt of what to use if I some day would have the opportunity to hunt Elephant or Buffalo with my Freedomarms 454 Casull revolver.

In this photo we can see what the 300gr Frontier CSGR ended up like after smashing thru six layers of 0,7mm mild steel and a lot of compressed sand, with a muzzle velocity of nearly 1600fps!!

I will say that if you do not need the ballistic advantage of the speed I would rather slow it a little down to maybe 1400fps. There is actually a possibility to get better penetration that way because the bullet will keep its initial diameter better at lower speeds. The increase in diameter will quickly reduce penetration much like a parachute will do when opening.

And so the theory part had come to and end, so the 13 Feb in the pounding heat of African summer both a Zebra and a 800kg Elan was taken with the 390CSGR bullet.

The Elan was first shot standing broadside at 60 meters with a hit to far in front of the chest to be instantly lethal, bullet penetrating the animal and disappearing. A “following up” shot at 120 meters hit him on the hip at 45 degrees and after hitting a bone was found under the skin on the opposite side. So far nothing strange but when finishing him with a neck shot something strange happened. The bullet hit him in the neck but did not exit the animal!! Why?? I can only speculate about this. After some years of hunting  I know how tough the bones in the neck are, and I can only imagine that the neck being flexible will “suck” up a lot of the  bullets energy when it moves with the bullet. (As the skin of an animal will do when stopping the bullet from penetrating after the bullet has expanded). This also happened with the 378gr Caly bullet later that week during a horseback hunt for Red Hartebeest. After a successful hunt of the hartebeest I gave him a finishing shot in the neck from slight an angle. This bullet (witch always produce over 100cm of straight-line penetrations in wet pack’s) turned between 60-80 degrees in the Hartebeest and was located under the skin in the rump of the animal penetrating the Hartebeest lengthwise!

The Zebra was not a match for the bullet. Shooting it behind the front legs clipped only one lung and exited. Finishing shot was a raking shot where the bullet never was recovered and that shot dropped him on the spot.

From left: 378 Caly after hitting the Hartebeest neck. Centre: 391 Frontier CSGR after hitting a 800kg Elan in the neck. Right: 391gr Frontier CSGR hitting a running Elan on the hip at ca 45 degrees angle at 120 meter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her are a list over the rest of the CSGR bullets.

 

 

 

 

Caliber

Grains
Shape

Qty/Box

458

600

FP

50

458

510

FP

75

458

400

FP

100

458

350

FP

100

458

300

FP

100

416

500

FP

75

416

400

FP

100

375

400

FP

100

375

300

FP

100

9.3mm

396

FP

100

9.3mm

290

FP

100

30 caliber

260

FP

150

30 caliber

220

FP

150

30 caliber

180

FP

150

30 caliber

165

FP

150

30 caliber

150

FP

150

303

230

FP

150

303

174

FP

150

454

390

FP

100

454

340

FP

100

454

290

FP

100

                      

 

Calibros