I personally do not like the Buffalo Bullet or the Hornady Great Plains, just not much bullet integrity between the hollow base and hollow point. They may work just fine on whitetails, but why pay more for a bullet that does less. If you are hunting truely big game such as elk, do yourself a big favor and get a solid lead conical without a hollow point and hollow base. You want a bullet that is not going to pancake and ring out on you if you hit some solid bone such as an elk shoulder. The shoulder knuckle of an elk probably has around 5 times the mass as a whitetails, you want a bullet that can plow through if need be. If you think you must use a hollow point/hollow base bullet, get the Hornady FPB.
Get a good conical, they are cheaper to buy than the Buffalo Bullet and Great Plains as well as a better bullet. Put a good fiber gasket wad between the powder and bullet if you wish.
From left to right: Hornady 350 gr FPB, White 430gr Super Slug, White 440 gr Power Punch, 460 gr No Excuses, White 480 gr Super Slug.
Fiber Gasket Wad.
I run several bullets through a test that I use as a guage of how well a bullet may or may not hold up on heavy bone.
Here is the all time worst bullet in my torture test, the Hornady Great Plains 385 gr.
The 348 gr PowerBelt comes in second to last, actually the 295 gr and below PowerBelt's actually blew up (fragmented) into several small pieces and were not recoverable as a recognizable shape, so they would have even scored lower than the Great Plains above.
Hornady 350 gr FPB after going through the torture test.
80 grains BH209, which would be about equivalent to 95 to 100 grains of Black Powder/Pyrodex/777 Pellets.
Here are some saboted bullets for comparison.
Hornady 300 gr XTP/MAG.
Hornady 300 gr SST.
Full bore White Conical with fiber gasket wad. Torture test below. 440 gr on the target, 430 gr in the torture test.
I have tested several bullets, both in the torture chamber and on game. All of the above bullets went through the very same test with equivalent 80 gr loads at 50 yards. The Hornady FPB has been proven on elk with up to 110 gr loads of BH209 and 777. I have personally killed a 5x5 Elk with the White 430 gr Super Slug pictured above, sitting on 80 grains of 777 FFFg (approx equivalent to 100 gr Black Powder). The Bull was shot at 46 yards through the large knuckle, he traveled 56 yards and expired. On the other hand I have witnessed a PowerBelt failure at 28 yards, with the same type shot. We call them in close (under 50 yards), they are pumped up and ready to fight when they come in, you want the best bullet you can use at that point. They usually don't turn and pose, giving you a perfect quartering away shot, don't use whimpy bullets. In Colorado we have to use conicals, and I would not be afraid to use any of them in that line-up above,with the exception of the 480 grain, and only because it is too long for their stupid laws.
A test I did just the other day with several conicals and the Hornady FPB. I shot the FPB with 80/90/100/110 grain loads, it really likes 80 gr BH209 which again is the approximate equivalent to 95-100 gr of black powder.
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