I've just returned from South Africa. For three years now after coming up with a perfect load of of what I would describe a perfect load of ELDX bullet 212 Grain in my 30-378. I'm shooting out of a custom rifle with a 28 inch carbon fiber barrel and getting 3300 ft./s with perfect accuracy using each 50 BMG powder 214.1 grains. I have killed three Elk in with it all shot between 350 and 444 yards. Each were heart lung shots and only one of the three elk was not a complete pass through the bullet showed hi amount of fragmentation and complete jacket lead separation but because this rifle shoots a 1/3 to 1/4 minute of angle group, I took it to South Africa. There are shot multiple blue wildebeest, black, Willder beast, how to best, kudu, England, water, buck, In every case shots were 202, -430 yards all shots were chest and lung heart. All virtual, immediate complete kills, however, only one pass real on a black wildebeest, the bullets highly fragment and I have zero faith that they would penetrate a shoulder or humerus bone on any of these animals, and still reliably reach vital organs as the bullets were so fragmented I believe that I've been absolutely lucky on elk, and was certainly lucky in Africa, and realized very quickly, after attempting a shoulder shot on a three-quarter black wildebeest that anything other than a perfect heart and lung shot is unethical and ill-advised I do not consider an ELDX 212 grain bullet to be a reliable bullet in any shape way or form in that high velocity cartridge and will be switching to Barnes solids as I do not expect to remain as lucky as I've been and believe that a Barnes 208 grain L RX, bullet or a hammer bullet would be better. It's unfortunate as I spent much time loading the ELD ex bullets and tuning them.
First of all, congrats on your trip to Africa! It sounds like you had a very successful trip, and that's definitely a bucket list for me. Hope to do it someday.
I question your verbiage that the ELDX bullet is not a reliable bullet. I'd say it performed exactly as designed in a very reliable manner. As others had noted, it's a cup-n-core bullet, and it's designed to fragment and cause damage to multiple internal organs and areas.
You used it in three elk, two with pass through, all three were recovered (I assume, since you likely would have said if you hadn't recovered). That's pretty reliable. You used it in Africa, and shot multiple medium to larger animals. All were, in your words, "virtual, immediate complete kills". I don't know, but that sounds like a pretty good results. You mentioned that you have zero faith they would penetrate a shoulder or numerous of a larger Africa game animal. That's good, since they aren't designed to do that. I too have low faith of using it to penetrate through a heavy shoulder or humorous bone.
We all need to use the correct tool for the job. There is no do-everything bullet, that performs at point blank range the same as out past 500-yards, or through soft tissue heart/lung area vs heavy bone of an African animal. There is no bullet that will open quickly and liquify internal organs that will also bore through heavy shoulder plate bones to then fragment afterwards. That bullet doesn't exist.
We have a tremendous selection of projectiles today, and it gives the hunter (and hand loaders) a lot of choices. Cup-n-Core gives us great flight, good penetration, good fragmentation, and high recovery rate when placed correctly. Bonded give us the closest compromise between penetration on heavy bone and good mushrooming/fragmentation, decent flight and good BC. Solid mono bullets give us high penetration through bone, highest chance of penciling with minimum fragmentation and least chance for multiple organ damage.
Our first choice is choosing which characteristics we want, because we can't have all in one bullet. Some hunters will carry a magazine of cup-n-core cartridges and a solid/bonded on top for the quick, short range shot. If the shot presented for a longer range, behind the shoulder shot, they take the solid/bonded round out. That's about as versatile as we can get.
