Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Tough Game!

I have never been to Africa but have been watching a lot of pretty good videos on You Tube lately, about hunting Cape Buffalo and lion.

What jumps out and impresses me a great deal is how much of a pounding these two animals can take before they expire,even with seemingly well placed shots.

Those animals are tough!

It seems these guys are using mostly 375's and 416's.

I'm not looking for a "this caliber vs that" conversation here just making an observation and am interested in personal experiences of those who have done either. I will never shoot a lion but am planning to go to Africa next year and a buffalo is a possibility.

A buddy of mine shot a buffalo with a .416, and the bullet passed through 2 chambers of the heart (according to the veterinarian who did a post mortem.) The buffalo was still on its feet after 20 minutes--just standing, so it was not pumping much blood due to exertion, but still an impressive display of "notdeqviting."

And on my only buffalo hunt, my rifle was chambered for a cartridge that started with a .4, and that felt about right.

Utah thanks!

It's funny...seems like you shoot them, they grunt,twirl their tail.....and run off. Like you whacked them with a fly swatter.

I hear you on the 416 and that's the advice from friends who have BTDT; but it MUST be the 375 for me....I cannot handle bigger anymore.

I had a neighbor get into a "rodeo" with a black angus once. Why he was trying to put it down, I don't recall. But when it was all said and done several 12 ga slugs and sections of fence were the cost. I imagine their wild counterparts would be even more resistant.

Bob, are thinking of hunting Africa? You should!

I don't think there's a lot of real difference between a 416 and a 375, and a lot of PH's and experts in the field say so as well. Both are considered medium bores in Africa. Until you get into the big .45 calibers and above, you aren't really dealing with a true "stopping" rifle/caliber. And if your rifle isn't in the stopping class, you might as well stay with a comfortable shooter like a 375 rather than buying a 416, which will only punish you more with minimal increase in terminal authority.

If you read books and articles by people like Craig Boddington, whose job is to sell as much stuff for as many manufacturers as possible in the shortest possible time, of course they will endorse any caliber as being desirable. But the fellows who had to (or still have to) limit their rifle battery to what they can carry for days/weeks in the bush, you learn quickly that they will carry all manner of rifles for hunting, but for stopping DG they seem to gravitate to the biggest rifle they can handle. I just finished reading Ian Nyschens' book on elephant hunting, and have read the full works of John Taylor, and many others; these guys didn't mess around with a medium bore rifle when they knew they'd be fighting for their lives against elephant and buff.

Because, as you say, these critters appear to be hard to stop.

My one and only buffalo exhibited impressive determination to not shuffle off his mortal coil after I put a 300 gr A-frame through both atria of his heart, essentially cutting off all blood supply to his ventricles. He still managed to run 75 yards, fight off another bull that was trying to gore him, and still didn't fall down for a good 45 seconds. When he finally did fall down, he continued to toss and mutter for a good 5 minutes before he let out his "death bellow". My PH, who estimates he's stopped over 100 buffalo charges in his career, had his Rigby 470 double up and ready to follow up my shot in case the buff sussed us out and charged.

Tough critters. As Nyschens says, "It's hard to believe he [Cape Buffalo] is a member of the bovine family."

Let me in on the enabling.......come on Bob you tightasss, turn loose of some of that cheddar and get on over there!

Bob,

What DocRocket posted is true--but mostly about previous generations of hunters. I've talked to a bunch of PH's about buffalo rifles, and not just those I've hunted with, and the majority think the .375 is just perfect. In fact many use it for their personal buffalo hunting, and the PH I know best, who recently retired at 65, often used his own .375 when guiding buffalo hunters (though he preferred his .458 Lott when guiding elephant hunters). As he noted, this frequently resulted in him being out-gunned by his own clients--but he also had to follow up an finish a number of buffalo shot by those bigger rifles.

The reason for all this, of course, is better bullets, which have improved enormously since the days of Taylor and Nyschens. Back then many hunters preferred solids in the .375 for buffalo hunting, because "softs" weren't reliable penetrators. Today a bunch of .375 expanding bullets work very well on Cape buffalo.

I don't think that pound for pound African game is any tougher than anything else. Cape buffalo are probably no harder to kill than moose, bison, or eland. What is different, however, is what they do if they are wounded. As for lion, there are no comparable carnivores you can hunt. That said, a lion weighs less than an elk and, like all cats, its nervous system is sensitive to high velocities.

I think much of the "mystique" comes from American hunters procuring a heavy rifle that they can't really shoot well, and not practicing very much, subsequently wounding the game. They would be better off with something lighter. I have killed one lion, with a .375 through the heart. It ran about 40 yards and dropped dead. It would not have mattered if I'd used a .300 magnum with 180 grain bullets, which, incidentally, is legal on lion in Zimbabwe.

I have shot two elephants (body shots), two Cape buffalo, and two hippos, one each with a .375 and a .458. If you aim for the right place and hit it, there is no difference I could notice based on my limited experience.

It is said that Jack Lott came up with the .458 Lott after firing a lot of shots with a .458 Winchester into a buffalo without killing it. The problem was not a lack of power. The problem was that Lott was a lousy shot.

Doc: Great story! Hard to believe you can hit them that well and they manage to keep it together.


John: I have all the parts sitting here ready to ship to Gene for a 375. That's how I will roll mostly due to familiarity. Seems it's enough with good bullets and I will get busy on that as well.

I know there are a lot of experienced guys who say the 416's draw more reaction but I have been shooting a 375 for 30 years and really do not want to swap calibers now. 375 it is!


JG: Yeah I need to loosen up the chedda. i will admit to a degree of ambivalence about going but decided I want to do it.

Which I announced the other night and my daughter chimed in and said..."I'm going!"

Next day my son called my wife and said.."They aren't going without me!"

So there we go.....looks like the clan will be coming along LOL!

i agree Bob. If you love to hunt Africa is the Super Bowl

Heres a frinstance for you Bob. My pard on a buffalo hunt in Zim shot his bull in the heart with a .375 300 Gr. Swift A frame.

Switched off guns, as his tracker was carrying his .458 Lott....



Shot it in the heart with that too.



Buff still on its feet, so the PH shoots it ( in the heart) with his .500 double.



Needless to say it all worked, but the boys took the heart and hung it up in camp, the three holes looking for all the world like a bowling ball.




My buffalo caught a .375 Swift A frame in the heart, ran 100 yards, then caught three quick 300 grain Monolithic Solids, and one solid from my PHs .460 Wby....all aimed for bone, but the bastid kept bouncing back up like a rubber ball....



After this rapid fire solid action, he was convinced, and caught one more in the spine from 6 ft. as 'insurance'...



Good times!

Sam I know you been there. I kept expecting to see you in the videos....



Ingwe: That's unbelievable! What are those hearts made of? Truck tire rubber ? Sees you can't destroy them.

Craig Boddington has shot a pile of buffalo, and after a while wrote that he found the standard behind-the-shoulder, double-lung shot used on deer as effective as any. In fact he's killed several with a 300-grain .375 Sierra GameKing, placed just behind the shoulder, just like most hunters would shoot a whitetail. And no, he did not write that to promote Sierras as the perfect buffalo bullet.

But many PH's still suggest a low "shoulder" shot, to break the big bones, which usually means a heart shot--but I suspect that's a holdover from the days when solids were commonly advised: Breaking bones meant a more inside damage, due to "bone shrapnel."

But today's deep-penetrating expanding bullets make a big hole through both lungs, and kill pretty quickly. However, that's only if, (as an old elk hunter once advised) you "give them time to die." Buffalo are big animals, and like elk and, especiallu, moose it takes a while for the lungs to fill and collapse.

The tendency is to shoot any buffalo as long as it's standing, which is smart. But a second shot (or third, fourth, etc.) tends to get them moving again.

The first bullet I ever fired into a buffalo was a .375, 300-grain Fail Safe, a bullet that expanded and penetrated exactly like a Barnes TSX. I aimed at the shoulder, but the buffalo stepped forward at the shot so the bullet landed just behind the shoulder. The PH and I shot three more rounds, but the bullet that did the job was the first Fail fafe, which left an exit hole the size of my fist. That bull went around 60 yards before stopping and, a few second later, collapsing.

Shoot that 375! I shot one with a 416 Rigby and one with a 9,3X74R. Both shots were quartering and through front shoulders, then on into the heart.

Both animals turned and made the Classic hop as they headed away. Both dropped about 100 yards from where they were shot.

The third one I shot was another hunter's gut shot bull that had taken six more hits with a 9.3 and a 416 Rem, the hunter's gun and PH's gun respectively. I finished it at close quarters with a 416 high spine shot.

If I were to do it again I would use my fine old FN/Sako chambered to 375 Wby, not because the Wby chambering has any advantage but because I love the rifle.

I went with the older conventional wisdom of a solid, followed with softs at the behest of the PH. Knowing what I now know, and with the many great bullets we now have, I would have several softs on top and the solid third down.

You owe yourself a cape buffalo hunt. No two are the same.

But ... your sig line says you have a 7 Mag ...

John/Luv2: Looks like anything else...hit through the lungs they will make tracks but are safely "dead".

Looks like a really fun and exciting hunt!

I have not shot a buff, YET!!

You can hunt all of North America with a 30'06,; you don't NEED a 338 to shoot elk, but lots of people do.

You don't NEED a 416 to hunt Africa but lots of people do.

Take the 375, it's been doing the job for 105 years???
The bullets are better than back in the day, recoil isn't too bad, trajectory is certainly acceptable and usable...

Hancock: Great cartridge....one of my favorites!

I've had this hanging around a couple of years now. Time to get it ready to go!

i agree Bob. If you love to hunt Africa is the Super Bowl[/quote]


Yes, it truly is.....

Good to see you are heading over Bob. I will be in Zim late next year chasing buffalo and sable with my 416 M70.