Since I began planning for my Tanzania trip coming up this summer I have looked into the use of solids fairly extensively, and frankly I learned quite a bit. The subject is extensive, so I will just try to hit the high points.
Firstly what is the difference between a solid and a FMJ? Solids are meant to cut a full diameter hole and penetrate in a straight line through all tissue and bone. This penetration is aided by the construction of the bullet which may include a steel liner under the copper jacket, a hardened perpetrator core as with the Speer AGS solid, or it maybe a mono metal bullet made from a brass alloy. A FMJ is simply any bullet which has no exposed core, or devise built into the nose to aid in expansion. Military bullets tend to be FMJ, and many of these bullets a horrible wounders because the base of the bullet is heavier, resulting in a tendency to tumble in tissue. Often these bullets break at the cannular resulting in numerous bullet tracks throughout the tissue. This is considered a bad thing on game, so soft point bullets are designed to expand, thus becoming nose heavy and penetrate in a straight line while the true solid penetrates in a straight line because it is short for caliber and the sides of the bullet do not taper, and because of it's hardened construction.
A solid can fail, and this failure can come in several ways. If the solid is not solid enough it can rivet, or bend, and either will result in the loss of straight line deep penetration which is counted on when a solid is chosen. Often in articles about African game hunting there are pictures of solids which have failed, and these failures often show the heel of the bullet squashed. This is because the bullet will never strike perpendicular to the target, resulting in pressure loading on the side of the bullet. Solids should be short, and if the solid is too long they will hook and tumble, and there again straight line, deep penetration is lost.
Bullet design is equally important in solids as it is in soft points, and I'm not just talking about bullet material here, but the actual shape of the bullet. The bullet should have a hemispherical nose, truncated cone or similar shape other wise the mass of the bullet is moved too far rearward and the bullet will tend to tumble in tissue. Further the most effective solids have some sort of cutting band just ahead of the cannular, and this cutting band prevents tissue from closing up around the bullet wound, and bleeding and shock are aided as a result.
There is a new bullet design from Germany called the Superpenetrator. This bullet incorporates a small metal disk on the nose of the bullet, and the result is that this disk creates a bow wave as it passes through tissue, and the sides of the bullet are never touched by tissue or fluid, and as a result of that there is nothing to move the bullet off coarse.
Owners of expensive double rifles have claimed damage from mono-metal bullets, and tend to use bullets of the old Kynoch design which are still being made by Woodleigh.
The solids I am taking to Tanzania are .375-286 gr mono-metal bullets from PMP. Although these bullets do not have a true cutting band, the nose of the bullet is slightly undersized, so the deep, squarely cut canullar will have the same effect. They are slightly shorter than the more common 300 gr solids, so I am confident of good results.
Common wisdom when hunting buffalo, is to load the magazine with solids have have the first shot a soft point. the logic is that the first bullet than will not penetrate through the target animal and wound a second one. Then if follow up shots are required they are solids fired into the length of the buffalo as it is trying to escape.
