Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Boddington's Survey

Muzzle breaks are for democraps...jorge

As a long time 270 shooter (25 years plus), good bullets (old style Nosler partitions) have always been available for the 270 since I've owned one. I've never had any issues getting one shot kills on elk with my 270 and they didn't go far (less than 100 yards, usually less than 10 yards) either. If you hit them badly a larger caliber won't make up for bad placement but it will leave you a better blood trail.

Chuck

Jaywalker, please don't misunderstand me. I too believe a 7 mm bullet will work on all African game. I think Bell killed more elephants than anyone with a 7mm. BUT its Africa and while you're purchasing your khaki outfit you might as well pick up a new rifle. I, for one, would have pulled the trigger of my 06 loaded with premium bullets at the south end of a north traveling trophy Kudu. The tracker we had in camp would find the animal without a blood trail - as he demonstrated on my Springbok when I was given too short of a range and proceeded to blow off a front leg and it only took a couple of hours of tracking - I deviate from the issue.

My PH also complained about hunters showing up with high powered magnums and not being able to shoot them. He would encourage them to use his 06. I haven't heard any PHs recommending smaller calibers.

I am using a 25 caliber on antelope and deer this season, it has been working well.

My old friend Kevin Thomas (with whom I've hunted twice in South Africa) is quite happy to recommend the 7x57 and .308 for plains game. In fact those are the two cartridges my wife and I used when hunting with Kevin this year, and they did fine on on array of plains game, including kudu and zebra. I have also used the 7x57 on wildebeest with no problem, and have seen the .270 (both Win. and WSM) used on a lot of African plains game with good results, at all sane ranges with various bullets. The Partition still works as well as it ever did in those cartridges. I have seen the 150 Partition from the .270 Win. do fine work on such "tough" game as gemsbok--and never seen it fail with anything approaching decent bullet placement.

Of course if you want to shoot a .300 magnum and can aim it right, why not? But the notion that smaller cartridges won't work is simply not true. Placement is the main thing, especially with the wide variety of good bullets today.

As we know, democr**s don't have much common sense and so take their muzzle brakes with them on the hunt. The rest of us have the sense to use them from the bench on some rifles, sometimes when we practice in extended range sessions, but then take them off, re-sight and go hunt without them.

I hope the guys next to you on the bench are "democ@@ps". They won't be your friends!

This past summer I took my kids to RSA and we hunted the Karoo
with a 308 and I carried my 375 along as well.
The PH loves the 308, 7mm08, and praised the 6.5x55 as he had several clients bring this as well (his cull rifle is a 22 Hornet)
I took the 375 to try the 270 grain TSX. I could not say I had to have it but I like carrying this gun. The longest shot with the 375 was 450 yards. The longest with the 308 was from my 12 year old at 435 yards. Results the same.

The only problem I had was with a blessbuck shot at 80 yards with 150 gr Win XP3. It hit perfect on mid shoulder with a slight angle from the front. It went in an blew up everything inside but did not penetrate the chest cavity. It looked like the bullet went in and came out the same way it went in. I found no fragments of the bullet but I did find alot of bone chips. It was a mess. I would expect a bullet to work on this shot. We tracked for 1-1/2 hr before we could cut it off with a 335 yard shot. This time a hard angle from the rear and it dropped at the shot. My son made two good shots and if we had not found the animal I would have thought he messed up. I switched to 168 gr TSX for the remainder of the hunt.
The reason I relate this is that The 375 can be used at long distance, the 308 is more than enough gun, but sometimes bullets do things that make it impossible to trust them on an expensive hunt. You have to be comfortable that the bullet will be up to the task you are asking of it. This bullet did good at long range but failed at "normal hunting ranges". Maybe it falls into the category of sometimes things happen but my trust for the bullet is gone.

Africa is a fun place to go. Use a gun you like to hunt with or would like to try. You do not need two guns but if you are a rifle loony then by all means this is a great place for you. Take two and get some shooting in.

I suspect Boddingtons figures are correct, but really don't know what difference it makes..

The difference in any of these good calibers is actually less than most folks think, and in fact they all work pretty darn well..I have used them all I suspect and the one thing I am sure of is that caliber is the least important factor in killing within reason for the game hunted, meaning for instance that we all know the .270 isn't the best choice for a buffalo gun.

The answer lies in placing a properly constructed premium bullet in a vital part of the animal..Do this and even the lowly the lowly 270 might make a pretty good buffalo rifle.

My choice of a plainsgame rifle for all African plainsgame and that includes Eland and the larger antelope is the .338 Win with 210 Nosler to 300 gr. Woodleighs..Why such a big caliber after the above statement? Because I will take a going South shot in a heartbeat and the .338 will stick their nose in the dirt. Another reason is I feel a little better in dangerous game country with a .338, but that's probably a mental thing with me as I have successfully shot Buffalo with a borrowed 8x57 and old WW2 green gummy milsurp ammo much of which misfired. Pretty exciting btw. but it worked if you stuck it in the right spot. I have seen elephant culled with the 308 and milsurp ammo and very effectively I might add, mostly cows and young stuff and someone was around with a big bore for the bulls, but they both did the job if used properly.

It's all subjective and arguementive and a heck of a good way to pass the time of day..

My take on the survey is during the time he took the original the 7 Mags were the rage.We have just come off a 300 trend.I think this is reflected in the survey. Next one will probably show more modest rounds like Mule Deer used.
GreggH

I get this real warm feeling in my heart if a client arrives in camp and brings a 338 loaded with 200gr + bullets. The bigger caliber and bullet just adds a margin to mistakes for plainsgame but then again if the hunter does bring a magnum and cannot shoot with it, it doesnt matter what he uses. Another combo I really enjoy in bushveld is the 220gr bullets in the 30-06 and 300's you can just see it hits hard.

Call me a lazy PH if you want but I do enjoy when animals drop close to where they have been shot and clients also has much less stress or concerns over loosing an animal. It is the worst part of our game to tell someone we tried our best but the animal is lost, and I hate it. Hunting is still hunting and I have seen clients who perform flawlessly just have a bad shot that cannot be explained it happens to everyone.

Well said

As you said as well about it being part mental. For me if I find a need for something bigger than a 308 or 7 mag I have a habit of skipping over the 300 mag and starting with the 338 or 375.
The reason being as has been stated about difficult shot positioning. I have used the 300 mags but that dang mental thing tells me that if I think I need a big gun then in my mind the big guns start with the 338 and 375.

Also Boddington and others list light, medium, and large plains game categories. I think these days that at the most you will bring two rifles and if it was not for us rifle loonies we would only need one rifle. Do we really need to think of rifle needs for 3 sizes of plains game. Would not it be better to refer to plains game based on the type of range we are hunting?
As far as size of game if you want to make categories then we have the large stuff like zebra, oryx, wildbeast, and eland with just about everything else taking the next category. We really do not really need a light, medium, and large classification in regards to plainsgame.

Probably a good arguement for the bigger bores is that they seldom do as much meat distruction (blood shot shoulders, gut shots etc.) as the faster lighter calibers..Blood shot meat makes the carcass worth less money at the butcher where the animals are sold by the outfitter in RSA, so it is favorable to him to take that into consideration.

I usually take a 404 or 416 to RSA, as my next stop is normally to our camp in Tanzania where I usually shoot one to more than a few buffalo..Hauling one gun around the worlds airports is appealing to me to say the least..and the big bores work great, even on the smaller antelope.

I'm just a newbe. Been twice killed 16 animals including Buff. Brought a O/U 12 ga. and my 375HH. Barnes 270 gr. triple shocks at 2800 fps. next time I go I'm bringing the same thing. It just works. Smallest springbok largest buffalo only Texas heart shots keep the bullet in the animal. My PH loves the 375. Iv'e put 2000 rds. thru it.

So how`s my 8x57 with 180 grn TSXs` going to do? Enough gun?

CGPaul,
It will work great if you stick one of those bullets in the right spot, if you don't it will do the same thing a 375 will do in the wrong spot, give you a long tracking job and waste good hunting time...

I ran into an interesting perspective on hunting and shooting when in the Selous last month. First of all, like most American hunters, all my life I've been conditioned to only take a clean-kill shot and to bring down whatever I'm hunting quickly and efficiently. On my most recent trip to Africa, I ran into a different view.
We were heading to go check some leopard baits when a herd of eland crossed the road a good ways in front of us. In the group was spotted a truly huge eland bull. He was almost black and they guessed his horns were in the 42-43" range. The only eland I've ever shot was 38 1/4", which isn't bad, but nothing like this guy. We got on his trail and finally found them loitering under some trees about 300 yards away. The area between us was too open to get any closer and the wind was starting to swirl. The overhang of the trees was covering the top two-thirds of the eland's body, leaving little room to slip in a bullet considering I was shooting a .375, which would have a good bit of arc in the bullet path at that distance. The shot was compounded by the cows wandering in front of and behind the bull.
With my US born ethics deeply engrained, I wanted to wait on a clear shot, and certainly didn't want to shoot through the branches. My PH wanted me to shoot; my ethos was saying "No." I felt fine with my decision.
The wind soon swirled and the eland were gone with it.
In the days ahead my PH let me know that I should have at least tried the shot. Here was his view, though he didn't say it directly: This was a truly awesome animal; a true rarity. Shoot through the branches or something and don't worry about the lack of a mortal shot. Some variety of a hit will slow the animal and the trackers are so good (I later learned they indeed were) that we would find it, blood or not.
I guess my point is that in Africa, the quality of the trackers can sometime overcome the lack of a pounding shot. This would allow a hunter that needs to err on the side of superior shooting with a smaller caliber, such as a .270, to be OK.
Personally, a .300WM would be the low end of my guns in Africa, but all things over there considered, for some people a .270 would be just fine.