No luck until the third afternoon. A buck with three does stood on a hill a half-mile away looking at me. Seldom does a two-legged hunter get the visual drop on these animals. I had an ace up my sleeve, however, in the form of a long draw that led to the foursome. I backed away first, detoured out of sight, then worked my way up the draw. I eased carefully upward to the point where I last saw the buck and his girlfriends.

Swift's popular A-Frame bullet is seen here in cutaway, unfired and expanded after being fired into the author's test medium, Sam's Bullet Box.

Normally, the antelope would be a hill over when I arrived, but not this time. As the tiptop of my orange hat came into sight, a doe's big eyes caught sight of it, and the four galloped off in a cloud of dust lacking only the "Hi-Ho Silver, away!" I always stalk with scope on low power. Almost by instinct, the crosswire found the retreating buck. Crack. Down he went, another one-shot affair for Mr. Clean Sweep.

He moved not at all from the spot. I rangefind every shot, either before or after the fact, and this buck and the bullet met at 124 yards. The 180-grain SST did not exit. However, it traveled from the right hip to the foremost of the left shoulder. The jacket I found; the lead core was gone. So what? Penetration and energy delivery were ideal.

It reminded me of another bullet, a 250-grain Barnes Original, which also gave up its lead core doing its duty on a stallion zebra in South Africa. I had loaned Mr. Clean Sweep to Bob Hodgdon, chiding that my .30-06 was deadlier than his .300 Winchester Magnum. He accepted the challenge, dropping the zebra with one bullet that penetrated the full breadth of the stallion, regardless that the lead core was no longer integral to the jacket. Another one-shot for Mr. Clean Sweep with a non-bonded bullet.

I have similar results with non-bonded Sierra bullets, whose accuracy ensures proper placement on game. The bullet enters the target area, front end collapsing to create the mushroom effect. It is this bullet upset that in part creates the wound channel with a forward-thrusting energy surge--a shock wave, if you will--that moves in front of the driving missile.

It is easy to believe that the bullet has a shock wave in front of it. How many times is there a two-inch exit hole in the offside hide of a buck? Did a .30-caliber projectile expand to a diameter of two full inches? Not likely. The shock wave punched that big hole. Often, the bullet is trapped beneath the hide. One afternoon I watched my son stalk a buck antelope with his .30-06 rifle. I concentrated on the pronghorn with a 20X spotting scope. At the shot, the offside hide of the animal ballooned out as if made of rubber, instantly slamming back in place. There was an exit hole half the size of my fist but also a trapped bullet beneath the hide.