CraigC
Sixgun Nut
I don't know where you got that. WFN's penetrate deeper because they're usually heavier. Sometimes much heavier. LFN's penetrate even better because they have a smaller meplat. The Keith SWC is and always has been a wonderful bullet. However, for serious use on larger, tougher critters, Veral Smith came up with a better design. The shortcoming of the SWC design is that it's a SWC design. Perpetuated by the false belief that the shoulder contributes to the wound channel. The LBT maximizes its efficient use of limited real estate and allows for a heavier bullet that can be driven faster, penetrates better and produces a larger wound channel. It takes a deer cartridge and makes it a Cape buffalo cartridge.The implication has been that WFN style bullets penetrate deeper by virtue of the fact that they're WFN's, which makes no sense. Anyone who's hunted at all regardless of the firearm used, knows a larger frontal area, relative to bullet diameter, reduces penetration when using bullets of like weight. So, take two bullets of the same caliber and of like weight, one a WFN and one a SWC, and the one with a smaller frontal area is sure to penetrate the deepest.
I don't see how it could possibly be pointless. Actually, the testing revealed that the 335gr WFN did not do as well as expected, falling well short of the .44 bullet of similar weight. Simple physics? They're nothing "simple" about terminal ballistics, at all.Regarding the penetration tests, comparing a .45 caliber 260 gr. SWC to a .44 caliber 335 gr. WFN is pointless. Of course the heavier smaller diameter bullet will penetrate further than the lighter larger diameter bullet. Simple physics, no testing required.
Nobody said that SWC's didn't work well, or that they did not produce a wound channel larger than the bullet. That is a given and we know, because we use them. We also know that WFN's produce larger wound channels, because we use them.Here's the shoulder of a buck I shot a couple of years ago with the bullet pictured; a Keith style SWC. A fella doesn't need a set of calipers to see the would channel is significantly larger than the diameter of the bullet and about twice as large as the meplat.
Most hunters do so with rifles and still buy into all that old crap about muzzle energy. Those of us who hunt with handguns know better. We know that a properly loaded big bore revolver gives up nothing to rifles in killing ability, just range.Interesting statement in a thread in which the topic is has turned to shooting animals that "start weighing closer to a ton" with cartridges that aren't quite as powerful as those fired from an old Trapdoor 45-70; a rig to which most hunters would turn up their noses as "obsolete and underpowered".